Originally Posted by
ROC10
This has got to be one of the worst examples I’ve seen recently. I completely understand the issues around crew hours but it does seem difficult to believe TUI wouldn’t have known this prior to departure yet failed to inform passengers until five minutes before landing (apparently even the onboard screens displayed LGW as the destination but crew did not mention this). The way they were treated on arrival to LGW is definitely the worst part though, especially after already being delayed by 4 hours. This particular case has attracted hundreds of angry comments across various social media sites.
So what exactly would you have done differently? Cancel the flight before it left Edinburgh like the majority of other carriers would have given the risk of not making it back within hours? Forced the crew to work beyond their legal flying limits? Left the passengers onboard or in the terminal until a standby crew could've been called out to fly them to Edinburgh (probably around 7am earliest)? Put all the passengers on the next available flights back to Edinburgh from Gatwick (on a half term Friday)? Genuinely interested in the armchair CEO solution.
Originally Posted by
ROC10
it does seem difficult to believe TUI wouldn’t have known this prior to departure
Does it? I've had many flights that have gone within 10 minutes of max FDP. There was a French ATC strike on the same day, the flight took an Oceanic routing to avoid French airspace, and could've been subject to ATC slots (yes, even at that time of night). The crew would've tried to get back to Edinburgh, but the max FDP is a boundary that cannot be willingly crossed, even by a minute. Something as simple as a pushback delay due to ramp congestion, having to wait at the runway holding point for an arrival, avoiding weather en route, less favourable winds than forecast or having to reduce cruising speed due to turbulence could make or break the ability to legally get back to EDI or not.
If they knew they were going to Gatwick before they departed, the company would've had an extra four hours to arrange onward travel for the moment they arrived