Arriving at the gate and waiting

[AmericanFlyer]

I'm not a really frequent flyer, but love flying and probably travel on business every two weeks or so. On Tuesday, arrived on a Continental Express flight from Charlotte to Houston and landed about 7:30 pm, taxied , and arrived at the gate. The pilot announced that our gate had a mechanical problem, and we would wait for an adjacent gate to clear. In about five minutes, it did clear, and he completed taxiing up to the gate and powered the aircraft down.

Then we waited, and waited, and waited. Despite repeated calls by the pilot to the gate agent, no one appeared to operate the jetway. The baggage handlers arrived, appeared puzzled that no one was working the jetway, and proceeded to unload the baggage. Finally, at 8:15, a gate agent showed up and positioned the jetway so we could get off. As you can imagine, by this time, both the crew and passengers were losing patience.

How can this happen? Is this a case of management over-scheduling the gate agents? Is this laziness or incompetency? I realize that without additional facts it's hard to tell, but as crews and passengers, are you seeing more incidents like this one, or is this an isloated event...

[Sobelena]

It's what is technically known as a cock-up on this side of the pond!

Most probably down to mis-communication by someone on the handling side. You may find that whilst you were waiting impatiently there was a poor misinformed agent scrambling around the terminal trying to find out what gate your a/c was re-assigned to.

[PAXboy]

I would guess that any or all of the possible reasons that you offer could be the case. The main point is that - you will never find out what was the case!

This kind of delay can occur on any day at any airport in the world. It might happen every day and it might happen once a year. It is just the way things are. That sounds defeatist but it is realist! I have been paxing for 40 years and this is entirely normal. Frustrating - Yes!!! But normal when there are so many flights with so many changes in each day's operations.

Flights I have been on have often landed at a time that would give an on-schedule arrival at the gate but ... we then hold off as the gate is not yet free due to a delayed push of the previous. After ten minutes, it is decided to go to a remote stand where we then shut down and wait for a bus. By the time you have collected your bags, it might be an hour from touch down on what was a 90 minute European sector.

Sorry to be a wet blanket but carriers and airports no longer have the spare capacity to ensure that staff are always on hand for any eventuality. It's just about money. Make sure that you have reading material, water, food and any medication that you need. If the a/c is shut down at the gate, they will probably allow use of cell phones to call ahead but check first. If the main systems are shut down and they are running on APU, they will probably allow it even if the doors are still closed.

[10secondsurvey]

For the record, this is now standard practise for BA at LHR. The delay is usually longer than that described above.