Pacific Blue Offloads PAX Tulla

[RadioSaigon]

Passengers bullied to get off plane

By EMILY WATT - The Dominion Post | Friday, 25 January 2008


A packed passenger jet spent a chaotic 90 minutes on the tarmac at Melbourne airport as crew members begged, bribed, cajoled and bullied 13 passengers into getting off the aircraft.
With one crew member ill, safety regulations meant the Pacific Blue flight scheduled from Melbourne to Christchurch was unable to take off on Wednesday morning unless it shed 13 bodies.
But, as Melbourne newspaper The Age reported, passengers dug in their heels despite crew attempts to get them off - including the pilot's threat to kick them all off and fly an empty plane across the Tasman.
"It was quite bizarre," said Age journalist Brendan Nicholson, who was on the flight to Christchurch with his two sons for his mother's 80th birthday.
"They [the crew] were fairly apologetic but at the same time quite tough."
Initially, crew called for volunteers, suggesting anyone with friends and family in Melbourne might like to stay another two days till the next flight.
Alternatively, they could fly to Sydney, then Brisbane, then on to New Zealand late that night.
With volunteers unforthcoming, the crew then rounded up passengers on standby and escorted them off.
Most went meekly, but one girl lay low till crew warned "if you're hiding, we'll track you down".
She finally owned up and was ejected. Increasingly desperate crew then said any volunteers willing to take the next flight would also receive an additional free flight.
As passenger reluctance continued, said things then got tough, Mr Nicholson said.
If no one volunteered, the crew warned, they would pick off passengers who had been last to check in. But these people would not get the free flight deal.
"Last chance folks, if you think you are among the last to check in," the intercom said.
"In a couple of minutes, anyone who doesn't volunteer to move will be removed from the aircraft."
Crew members then began prowling the plane, picking out passengers they thought were late to check in.
One couple stammered that they were on their way to a wedding, and were granted a reprieve.
Crew resumed the search for late-comers.
The pilot then spoke on the intercom, warning that if 13 passengers did not get off the plane, he would leave everyone behind and fly an empty plane across the Tasman.
Eventually, with a renewed offer of the free flight deal, a couple were cajoled to head back down the gangway and the flight took off, 13 passengers and a fair bit of goodwill lighter.

Simply bizarre behaviour from an airline, the tech and cabin crews. Shame PB

[AerocatS2A]

How do you suggest they should have handled it?

[Kwaj mate]

Ansett had the same problem. An ex colleague told stories of the days AN rotated F/A's in VLI for a month at a time. Often they'd get on the turps & on a couple of occasions one would fall over & get injured. One Christmas a taxi accident hurt 4 during the airport transfer, that created a major drama. He'd have to offload pax (usually contacted prior to check-in) to get numbers down to legal levels. The union only permitted a 27:1 ratio (5 F/A's to a full 732 cabin) back then.
On a 2 sector flight you only have to have a bit of turbulence outbound to have this problem occur on the return leg.

[RadioSaigon]

How do you suggest they should have handled it?

It's not up to me to be making any suggestions at all.

My post merely illustrates reported circumstances and what is IMO very poor handling of those circumstances.

I'm relatively confident that PB and others have SOP's/guidelines for their crews should a circumstance such as this arise. Further, I would expect those SOP's/guidelines would likely require handling of the situation prior to pax boarding.

Brow-beating your customers is always counter-productive, as again IMO, this article illustrates. Do you really think this sort of behaviour from tech/cabin crew is appropriate in today's competitive environment? Or indeed any other?

I'm damn sure I wouldn't tolerate it.

[parabellum]

Would it not have been possible to call forward an FA from a slightly later flight and then call out a Standby to cover them?

[HEALY]

In a 90 min period would it be reasonable to assume that a standby FA may of been availabe to crew the flight?

[RadioSaigon]

parabellum and Healy: exactly.

Before I get pinged on it, my mistake in the thread title as it shows in the thread list -it appears I don't have the ability to modify it. Edited appropriately in the post.

[RENURPP]

I don't think sorting it out onboard the aircraft was the right place.
Maybe dissembark all the passengers and sort it out at the service desk.

Sure they probably didn't think it would turn into such a drama, but now maybe they have learnt a lesson.

[737opsguy]

Would it not have been possible to call forward an FA from a slightly later flight and then call out a Standby to cover them?

Pacific Blue have I think one flight a day into Melbourne. AKL and CHC are the only crew bases and they don't usually overnight crew in MEL. Standby or other crew simply not avialable.

Circumstances for the crew (flight, cabin and ground) can be difficult when a crew members goes mid-duty so close to departure.

[lowerlobe]

These sort of situations are always best handled in the terminal however not being there makes it difficult to know all the facts.....

Besides we all know how the media can distort something to make a better story..

I often wonder if airlines have some journo's in their pocket to print something in a certain light.....

[ZK-NSJ]

as i can recall the pb flight leaves chch early in the morning, flys to melbourne and then returns to chch with the same crew,

[DJ738]

It's not up to anyone to be making any suggestions with regard to how the cabin crew / tech crew handled this situation, as they were not onboard at the time.

The crew member took ill too late to offload all the passengers and deal with the situation in the terminal as suggested.

PacificBlue does not have standby crew members to call on in MEL.

Any quotes in the press article/s you must all remember can be taken completely out of context for the sake of sensationalist journalism.

The crew need to be commended for dealing with an adverse situation to a very high standard. :D

[Budgie Smuggler]

How should it have been handled? I recall waiting for a flight with Qantas from Tokyo (Narita) in July 2005 (QF22).

The same situation - one crew member short and the CSM (and QF) was looking for 13 passengers to voluntarily remove themselves from the flight.

The carrot? Free accommodation at the Nikko Hotel Narita (Or similar) and a Business Class seat the following night, back to Sydney.

The was literally a riot as the CSM was stampeded by volunteers. From memory it look like about 35/40 people offered to stay-put for the night.

Sometimes Qantas does do the right thing.

BS

[virgindriver]

I doubt this would ever happen at VB "mainline"...

It's not our job to kick pax off without good reason. I would call in the airport manager to sort this mess out.

Then and again, I have never flown for Pac Blue.

[teresa green]

Reminds me of the good ol days of staff travel. Usually in some god forsaken hole, they would start looking for staff to put off, for whatever reason, and you would hope and pray you had enough seniority to stay on board.:uhoh:

[GAS guy]

Why would the Flight Crew or Cabin Crew have anything to do with deciding on the offload of passengers??? What kind of show are they running at PB? This is a job for the ground staff, dispatcher, etc. Maybe they were all laying low elsewhere... :rolleyes: If PB pax are anything like VB pax, they should've just left a slab of Victoria Bitter and a bucket of KFC in the aerobridge to entice them out. Not called VB for nothing..........

[International Trader]

What horse sh-t.
You would call out a replacement crew member, delay the flight and fly them down to join it.
Oh, sorry....that costs money.
Seen it done internationally using a different carrier for the crew and via a non direct route.

[Ralph the Bong]

I had the same issue a couple of months ago, somewhere overseas. Cabin Crew member reported very ill at pick up (1 1/2 hrs before sign on).

The operational restriction regarding pax/crew was passed to operation prior to departure. I would imagine that that is what most crew would do if they had sufficient time to call ahead.

Where did the crew member go sick? At the gate?

[lowerlobe]

This is also a result of the airlines running the absolute minimum crew.

When they had some extra crew for passenger service they could handle the odd occasion when a crew member went sick but when you are running it this way it can disrupt the apple cart....

[320subria]

Lets see, Yes lets call out a crew member from the AKL or CHC base. Lets assume there is a crew member on standby at the airport and not on call at home where they would need the standard 2hrs notice. Its about 1130hrs local time, the next flt from CHC or AKL on any carrier isn't until about 1530hrs arriving into MEL about 1730hrs local time. So now the flt has been delayed at least 8hrs. And as this a/c would've been due to operate other flts when arriving into CHC at least another 180pax have delayed, which would probably force ops to xxl the next sector to recover the schedule. Oh yes doesn't this seem like a sensible decision to make rather than offload 13 pax and have it delayed 60-90mins and not have to inconvenience another 180pax, give me a break do the math!!!!!

[meagain]

320
PLLLLLLEEEEEEEEAAASSSSSEEEEEE!!!! The word is "MATHS" with an "S"
Unless of course you are a 'septic' in which case you are excused for buggering up the Queens English...:ugh::ugh:

[Kwaj mate]

"Math" is Ok by me

[ShockWave]

While the aircraft is on the ground with doors still open, isn't it the responsibility of ground staff to sort out this problem?
All the airlines I have worked for simply keep offering more until the offer is accepted. One free flight obviously was not enough. Passengers who volunteer to disembark should do so with a smile on their face. Several free flights would cost almost nothing to the airline, throw in free meals, lounge access, a hotel room for the night and some cash and there would have been a stampede for the door. The flight could have departed on time and the good PR would have been worth many times more than the expense. :ugh:

[RadioSaigon]

The crew need to be commended for dealing with an adverse situation to a very high standard.

I think you may be missing the point... the public perception (you know, the one that matters -the paying public) is going to be that the crew failed to respond to this situation with any sort of acceptable standard of behaviour at all. Brow-beating and threatening pax, even in jest, is unacceptable.

Shockwave makes a valid point wrt a more appropriate response -both from the airline and crew points of view. I would have thought an offer of alternative travel, even if on a competing carriers flight, would have been appropriate in the circumstances.

Further reporting on this incident highlights the flow-down effects on some of the disrupted pax -promises not met, multi-port travel, lack of care by the airline towards the pax they have disrupted, ($6 meal vouchers in SYD) late arrivals, lost and damaged luggage, all of this stemming from this one incident. All-in-all, extremely poor handling of what should be a relatively easily handled incident by all concerned. Again I say, shame PB.

[Chocks Away]

I was always taught "Math" was plural and singular.
"MathS" is just another bastardisation of the English language...

To my way of thinking, like Shockwaves, when parked on the ground at the gate it is in the hands of Ground Staff!

Such is the problem of contracting ground support out, like many ports on their network, ground ops simply don't give a "Jatz-cracker", so long as they are not the "delay code"!!! :ugh: In this case, like so many others, it sounds like the Captain had to try and intervene to recover the situation. :rolleyes:

[18-Wheeler]

I was always taught "Math" was plural and singular.
"MathS" is just another bastardisation of the English language...

Nope, mathS is correct in Aus & pukka English, without the 's' is not.

[Gear Down & Welded]

Such is the problem of contracting ground support out, like many ports on their network, ground ops simply don't give a "Jatz-cracker", so long as they are not the "delay code"!!! In this case, like so many others, it sounds like the Captain had to try and intervene to recover the situation.

Exactly the problem here! Flight/Tech crew forced to try to fix a problem not addressed by the ground handlers, Pax should not have boarded this flight WITHOUT this problem being sorted first! :ugh:

Company that handles PB in MEL is known for the "as long as it's not our delay code..." attitude! Well done, really works well when you give this kind of PR to your client airlines! :D :D :ugh:

[GAS guy]

You want bad grammar, try: "crew member go sick" or "crew member went sick". No problem with "math" - short for "math-ematics" :rolleyes: The point is, why are you guys allowing these CSOs, dispatchers, blunts, whoever to dump their job on you? Who besides them CARES what delay code is used? Tell them the ship don't fly til they finish handling the SLF then sit back and do the sudoku until things are sorted - easy. Grow a pair, guys, you're supposed to be the Captain.

[Lodown]

I'm with Gas (pun intended) and ShockWave. Park the plane until someone else removes the passengers. Someone in charge from the terminal who can offer them more than threats to "Get off my plane." Crew got themselves into a can of worms on this one.

[DTVOne]

Been on overbooked flights in the US on several occasions, admittedly sometime back and it was handled easily and very promptly by the cabin crew requesting for volunteers, bribing the passengers and upping the rewards until the required number was achieved, the rewards ended up being significant.


The problem has been created by poor planning by the airline, surely all of the passengers on the plane have the same right to be there and many have arrangements that are awkward to change, so the only fair thing to do is to compensate the passengers who are inconvenienced.

[toolowtoofast]

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/1/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10488747

maybe that 8 hour delay wouldn't have been so bad......

[Lodown]

From the NZ Herald article:
Pacific Blue had not received any complaints.

Why bother? The complaints dept. will file it in the cylindrical cabinet. The passengers will just book with another company next time.

[fistfokker]

What was wrong with offloading the standby pax? Isn't that why they are called standby?

I don't see what is wrong with the Cabin and Tech crew being pro-active in assisting to solve this problem. That is what makes companies successful. Maybe they didn't get it quite right, (I don't know as I wasn't there) but full marks to them for not just sitting back and doing nothing, leaving the hard bit to "someone else".

[lowerlobe]

fistfokker....

I think the point that most are making is that preferably this should not have happened on the aircraft...

If you are doing this in full view of everyone in an aluminium tube it is not conducive to achieve the result you may want...

Perhaps they wanted to offload more pax that there were standby's as well...

But the bottom line is that unless the cabin crew member went sick after all the pax were on board the terminal would be a far better place to run this sort of situation....maybe she/he did .....who knows...

[jism]

"unless the cabin crew member went sick after all the pax were on board "

which she did

[spanner90]

How's this for a novel idea:

Temp hire agency forms a pool of qualified FA's, kept on standby, for situations like this. It could suit some who don't want to work for just one company. Pick up the appropriate uniform at the gate.:eek:

(Ducking for cover....runs away!!);)

[lowerlobe]

How about this for a real novel idea......

Employ enough cabin crew so that you have more than the legally required minimum.

Apart from preventing mess ups like this happening it also gives better customer service......

[Kwaj mate]

And where will the funds come from for additional F/A's?
Not from the CEO's salary, as he'll get a bonus for greater on-time results.
It will come from tech-crew salaries, engineering and other like sources.
Even the advertising budget will be expanded to promote the additional faces in the cabin.

[lowerlobe]

And where will the funds come from for additional F/A's?

....Try increased pax bookings (revenue) instead of decreased pax bookings (loss of revenue) because of scenes just like this.

In fact if they didn't cut back in the first place they wouldn't be increasing the number of flight attendants...

Not from the CEO's salary, as he'll get a bonus for greater on-time results.

...Actually he'll get an increased bonus because there won't be delay's like this one.....

Even the advertising budget will be expanded to promote the additional faces in the cabin.

...Yeah right....but how about an even greater shock..how about thinking of customer service to those who sit on the other side of the flight deck door.

You know the people that are actually what airlines are supposed to be there for in the first place....

[TurbTool]

Employ enough cabin crew so that you have more than the legally required minimum.

Now there's a good idea. We could extend this to Tech Crew, Engineers and Ground staff. It could all be funded from either executive salaries or the advertising budget. Neither of those would be necessary because passengers would never have to endure a delay again. We could also charge the passengers more because they are never delayed.

[Cloud Cutter]

Are you suggesting a fifth flight attendant be rostered on all flights to allow for the unlikely event this sort of thing happens? I don't think that's reasonable. What they should do is have better 'carrots' in place like other airlines do. If you offer people a $300 travel voucher, a night in a hotel, and rebooking at their convenience, it becomes very easy to deal with this type of situation, and much cheaper than carrying surplus crew around willy-nilly.

Having handled a similar situation from a ground crew perspective, it requires a team effort from ground and cabin crew to run smoothly in my opinion.

[Pole Smoker]

Budget Airline = Budget Employment Conditions = Budget Service

The math/s is pretty easy really.

:ok: