Is this unusual ?

[Flapping_Madly]

Hello all-I'm brand new here. Only found PPRUNE a few days ago. Amazing !

Then I realized I could ask a question that has been at the back of my mind for a few years and probably get a sensible answer.

Please forgive the lengthy start before the question and the "short-hand" English. (To try to keep it short)

About 5 years ago wife and I --Heathrow to San Francisco--United Airlines--747-400.
Boarding time 14.00. Actual boarding 14.30. T.O. time 14.45 Told it was now 15.35 Push back 15.05 Taxied 300 yards ,stopped, pushed back way past original gate to another gate. Doors opened. No information at all or drinks or food. Then told delay was "food shortage". At 18.30 told the truth. Problem with the brakes -trouble finding spare part but had blagged the part off BA. New problem--engineer needed to fit the part.

Finally took off at 19.20. Pilot says " Sorry we are short of flying time will have to go to Washington instead".

Later told to be very carefull with immigration papers to avoid delay. Any delay will mean we will not be able to take off because of night flying rules.
Told to RUN everywhere at Washington. Arrived Washington at 02.55 the next morning My watch at UK time here of course.

Officials very cheerfull and stamped things and handled passports at breakneck speed. We all ran around. Some old folk were really panting at the gate.

We had been told TO would be 3.35 (my watch). We all made it 2.55 to approx 3.15.

Then we stood around. Nothing happened. We finally got on the plane and were told TO would be "as soon as possible" We sat for a long time then told "sorry for delay but Company would not allow plane to fly without a clean up"

We taxied to end of runway and waited for about 20 minutes.


We took off at 5.40 (my watch) Pilot came on and said" Sorry for that. Delay was due to major crash of all onboard computers.[So not cleaning then] Delay at the end of runway was due to Control Tower computers crashing. Oh and we will be flying direct to San Francisco with the same flight and cabin crew. WE HAVE WAIVED OUR FLYING HOURS RIGHTS AND WILL BE TAKING YOU ALL THE WAY "

We arrived at San Fran at 10.50 ( my watch)

Between boarding at LHR and bed was 21 hours 55 minutes--total flying time 12.45 mins

There was a great deal of discussion among the SLF about how the crew could "waive their rights" under the flying time regulations. We speculated on how sharp the pilot would be in an emergency.

Our holiday courier in S F was spitting teeth and we put in a collective complaint about the whole shambles and quess what? We heard nothing.

How come they could waive their rights ? I thought they were to protect the passengers. Silly me.:confused:

[TightSlot]

How come they could waive their rights ? I thought they were to protect the passengers. Silly me.:confused:
Silly? Maybe not, but just a wee bit harsh perhaps. 12 hours 45 might well be achievable for the crew, possibly using what the UK calls discretion i.e. the ability to extend a flying duty period under exceptional circumstances. To a degree, this relies on the crews' own assessment of their fitness to continue working, in light of their duty length, rest before and after the duty, and a good old-fashioned sense of how fatigued they feel...

Clearly, the information flow was not as good as it could have been, and the general situation may not have been handled as well as theoretically possible. However, ask yourself this... If the crew were physically and legally capable of operating, and thereby getting you to your destination safely, but had declined to extend their duty, would you have been more concerned and irritated than by the fact that they did?

Our pilots were into discretion today on a round trip flight from the UK to Sharm-el-Sheikh by about 10 minutes (the cabin crew weren't because we can operate an extra hour over flight crew). It's a fairly routine event that generates paperwork but little interest, and would not normally be communicated to customers.

It strikes me that a degree of drama was added to a situation by the pilots' PA, that may have been absolutely necessary, but otherwise, it was just another day at the office. United are a professional airline that operate within the rules and guidelines, and I doubt that your safety was degraded. In fact, they did actually protect the passengers and might just deserve a small amount of credit for doing so?

[BRUpax]

:) I admire you wishing to defend your aircrew colleagues Tightslot, but to me the entire episode looks like a typical UNITED fiasco of the time. Experienced one or two myself during those years. And, if FM's account is correct, the crew were for sure on duty more than 12:45 hours! Well in excess of 20 hours I'd say. That said, I'm not personally convinced that the FD crew were the original crew. It may well have been that it was only the cabin crew who stayed on for the IAD-SFO sector.

[manintheback]

Similar thing (the Washington bit) happened to me around that time. Mine was a morning flight that sat on the runway at LHR for about 5 hours if I recall. They crew swapped and would most certainly have done for your flight too. UA were having alot of issues at that time.

[slim_slag]

Who knows, the crew might have been more awake when they got to San Francisco (after all the stops) than they would have been after flying it non-stop. I am guessing it would depend more on where their circadian rhythms were at the time, and not how long they had been on the airplane. It would be interesting to find out what sleep experts thought about that. I wish I had your memory for times :)

[Globaliser]

And, if FM's account is correct, the crew were for sure on duty more than 12:45 hours! Well in excess of 20 hours I'd say. That said, I'm not personally convinced that the FD crew were the original crew. It may well have been that it was only the cabin crew who stayed on for the IAD-SFO sector.Would it have been possible to do this legally (incl discretion) if it was a heavy crew? 20 hours duty still sounds like a lot to me, though.

Or maybe the pilot at IAD meant the "original" replacement crew for the hastily-arranged IAD-SFO sector would continue to do that even though they had been put into discretion by the departure delay ex-IAD, rather than referring to the original crew that had flown from LHR-IAD.