“Delayed due to operational reasons” [Archive]

B2N2

25th Aug 2018, 08:43

I think you missed the sarcasm implied with the posted video.
Its close to a miracle airlines achieve the on-time statistics they hold.
If you consider approximately 40-50 individual people that can cause a flight to be delayed:
Flight crew
Cabin Crew
Dispatch
ATC including ramp coordinators and slot coordinators
Security personnel
Ramp personnel: loaders, refuelers, ramp corrdinatirs, tug drivers, catering and maintenance.
Gate agents
Last but not least pax are a major source of delays trying to stuff the kitchen sink in the overhead or being unable to raise a child responsibly.
That airplane you’re about to board doesn’t just fly from A-B-A-B.
They didn’t just pull it out of a hangar just for you.
That airplane flies A-B-C-D then overnights back in A.
Any station can cause a delay that cannot be made up during the flight or on subsequent legs and sometimes not even on the overnight if the overnight requires maintenance such as the replacement of an APU or an Air conditioning and pressurization pack.
Now this is just one plane.
Now increase the scale a hundred fold and even a thousand fold or ten thousand fold.
Now introduce weather, power outages, computer glitches, Air space closures and ATC capacity problems that occur daily.
Add Peter the Private Pilot who gears up his Seneca at a Regional Airport.
Diversions because of medical emergencies which occur daily.
Diversions because of unruly pax which occurs daily.
Unforeseen maintenance issues that need to be resolved.

No offense but do you ( plural) self loading cargo have any concept of what an immensely complex house of cards aviation really is?

YOU’RE IN A CHAIR FLYING THROUGH SPACE and the fact you’re not dying in the process is close to an engineering miracle.

RANT OVER......

B2N2

25th Aug 2018, 09:49

Ok somebody must have pushed a button as I’m on a roll here.
All of the above people have partners, spouses, children, mortgages and a slew of general life issues.
Add Monday mornings and Friday afternoons and the simple human trait that not everybody involved is always on their A- game all of the time all day every day. Except in Japan.
Now let’s assume everybody is on their A- game today.
Allow me to entertain you with some examples.
Station A, first flight of the day:

- Fiona the Flight Attendent left home with plenty of time to spare but somebody couldn’t drive in the rain and two lanes of the motorway are closed.
Not every airport has a can of spare flight attendants, mostly because they don’t come in cans.
Since flight attendants are mandatory we’ll need to wait for Fiona. 10 min delay on a 1hr flight so we can’t make that up.

Station B:

Simone at security considers Cory the Captain’s attempt to cover up last nights curry with mouthwash suspicious, having broken a bottle of after shave doesn’t help his situation any and our intrepid aviator is carted off for an breathalyzer rest.
He blows 0.0 and makes it to the flight deck with a 5min delay.

Station C:

Tommy the tug driver discovers that his vehicle has a brake fluid leak. Off he goes in search of a tug he can use. He calls the Ramp coordinator and can use the tug from 8 gates over after they’re done with pushing back their flight.
10 min delay

Station D:

Harry the Holidaymaker mentally clocked out a couple of hours ago ‘cause he’s on vacation right?
So he’s at the bar loading up while his bag is being off loaded for security reasons as he didnt board.
Unfortunately he checked in early and his bag is loaded in the front of the aft luggage compartment of a 737. They can’t use containers so Ronny the Ramper heads inside to dig it out.
As Harry shows up at the gate the plane pushes back and heads off to destination with now a total of 40 min delay.

During the descent they’ve been told to hold for 10 min as an air ambulance flight with a beating heart in an ice chest is given priority.

Here’s your 50 min delay and everybody did their job to the best of their ability.

I now fly freight but I have flown passengers.
if it were up to me you’d all be sedated and loaded on board in a box with a forklift.
All luggage in the hold as we don’t need carry on.

Heres a number to ponder:
A Boeing 787 Dreamliner costs about $200 million.
If we write this off over 20 years and they manage to sell it to some third world operator for $20million
180/20 is $9million depreciation a year.
That’s $750,000 a month or $25,000 a day or $1,041/hr or $17.36 a minute.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/273941/prices-of-boeing-aircraft-by-type/#0

So all of the above delays cost this airline $868 that they need to recoup.

So....next time you hear about a delay for operational reasons don’t go yelling at the gate agent but simply say you understand.

Hotel Tango

25th Aug 2018, 10:19

As someone with 45 years in the front line of aviation I can only say wow, what condescending posts by B2N2! I would be inclined to remind him/her that the self loading cargo PAY aviation Gods like him/her and his/her employers for a service and, regardless of the reasons, if the promised service is not provided, they have the right to complain if they feel inclined to do so!

Not all self loading cargo are holidaymakers by the way!!!

The argument that aviation is a complex house of cards holds true for a great many industries too. Aviation is indeed in that category yet we in air traffic control never cease to hear pilots constantly bitch about ATC primarily because, with some exceptions of course, most of them don't have a clue as to what a complex house of cards ATC is!

pulse1

25th Aug 2018, 10:40

if it were up to me you’d all be sedated and loaded on board in a box with a forklift.

If they would just do that I would travel a lot more and a lot further, see a lot more of the world.

anchorhold

25th Aug 2018, 11:01

On this topic AZA4000 was put into two holds over the Irish Sea and delayed to land in Dublin by ten minutes today, as the approach controller stated 'the TV crews were not ready' for the Pope's arrival.

wiggy

25th Aug 2018, 12:24

Sorry TangoAlphad and wiggy, I'm afraid I just don't buy it. The fact is that, whatever the reason, the flight is delayed, end of. Adding some useless generic reason is adding insult to injury. .

If you don’t “buy” the fact your flight is late there is little anyone can say without taking this debate off in an unfortunate direction.

if you don’t you “buy” the fact that “your” crew don’t know why the aircraft was late arriving then I can only expand on my previous but I suspect you’ll be minded not to “buy” this either.

Sticking to the environment I work in - Longhaul - FWIW we have little info down route on what has happened to an arriving flight when it left base.

We have (and the station staff have) access to the same generic Anotherairline.com that the passengers get access to. We in some circumstances have access to slightly more detailed company info but that is often simply in the form of a broad brush two/ three letter delay code with a time - so for a 10 minute departure delay we might see something that translated into English simply reads: “passengers 2” “baggage 3” “ ramp 5” ......That is it...it doesn’t begin to provide the level of detail some people seem to want or seem to think we have access to.

It is rare these days (due timings at airport, immigration/customs rules) to see the inbound crew and be able to speak to them and ask them verbally WTH happened,...so we are often almost as much in the dark about delays as the paying passenger.

I’ll also point out the sort of niggles TangoAlphad and others described really are actually the sort of operational events that happen and contribute to delays - broken ground crew headsets, slow tugs, slow taxiing, runway changes....

Personally I don’t use “operational reasons” in my PA’s when trying to cover departure delay due to an inbound delay, I also don’t like hearing it when I am a passenger...I’ll generally use phrases such as it as “problems on the ground at XXX” or “the inbound flight experienced strong headwinds” ...though of course those are valid “operational reasons..”..

B2N2

25th Aug 2018, 12:32

As someone with 45 years in the front line of aviation I can only say

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.gmforum.com-vbulletin/480x318/giphy_087a4b78ae4ffc60fdf92a956068b2300191efa7.gif

Which means you’re old as dirt and therefore will be excused for missing my attempt at humor.
There, did it again.

By the way, I’ve spend a year and a half as an assistant Air Traffic Controller.....your highness.

https://metro.co.uk/2018/08/24/drunk-woman-caused-passenger-to-have-seizure-after-screaming-we-are-all-going-to-die-on-flight-7880471/

S.o.S.

25th Aug 2018, 13:24

OK everyone - let's take a collective break. Have a cup of tea or beer/wine.

I appreciate the extra detail given to us by those from the Front Office whether with humour or not! I am currently travelling myself in a Mediterranean country that does not understand the word 'promptly' ... :rolleyes:

The other key factor in all of this is that we want to pay as little money as possible and that affects 100% of the components listed above. I sympathise with those who want no information and those that want it all.

Play nicely in the cabin whilst I'm gone (but I am checking the CCTV) Now back to my holiday ... :zzz:

Ancient Mariner

25th Aug 2018, 22:26

Chesty Morgan

25th Aug 2018, 22:48

I would be inclined to remind him/her that the self loading cargo PAY aviation Gods like him/her and his/her employers for a service and, regardless of the reasons, if the promised service is not provided, they have the right to complain if they feel inclined to do so!
I would be like minded to remind the self righteous SLF Gods that I get paid exactly the same if I carry 0 passengers, 12 passengers, 126 passengers or 200 and that I do not get paid by said self righteous SLF Gods but by the company that employs me.

Either way every flight that I operate is as close to on time as I can make it and as safe as I can make it.

You are most welcome.

cee cee

26th Aug 2018, 02:48

Personally I also do not like the phrase "due to operational reasons" because it is meaningless.

The last flight I took was delayed for around an hour with that phrase being announced at the gate. After we boarded, the pilot told us that the flight was delayed due to weather at the destination :ok:.

I personally would be happy with the delay message if it contains:
- an estimate of the delay time (or saying that an estimate is not available at the moment)
- category of delay. I would accept weather (specifically previous leg or destination, local should be obvious), aircraft mechanical, crew, baggage, airport (eg, ramp, gate, or ATC issues) and (unlike HT) late arrival of previous leg.

Speaking of delayed flights, what do you make of Chart of the day: What are the chances your plane will leave on time? - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) (http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-21/what-are-the-chances-of-your-flight-leaving-on-time/10143926) ? Australian airlines on domestic flights only. I am surprised it has not been brought up on pprune.

wiggy

26th Aug 2018, 06:56

What the sky gods are telling us is that Aviation is basically a f#cked up industri with little or no control of many links in the chain? Nice to know.
I sure hope they will be as overbearing, as they expect us lowly SFL to be, next time they buy a product and things go tits up.
Somehow I very much doubt it.
Per

Like many industries there are a heck of a lot of links in the chain...all the links have checks/controls, but there are so many links involved in getting a flight away on schedule no single individual can be privy to the happenings in absolutely every link in every chain, Despite opinion to the contrary it is not like turning on a PC and “taking off” in flight sim, or rocking up to your company car, turning the keys and driving away.

Unlike many (but not all) industries you are buying a unique “product”/entity :yuk:You don’t want the first box on the shelf, as in any old aircraft that is leaving the airport you are waiting at, you want a specific airframe going to a specific place...

As Chesty has rightly pointed out our job on the flight deck, and the job of many others behind the scenes, is to try and ensure you have a safe flight. Everything, including punctuality, is secondary to that.

I actually think a lot of the time we do things that once upon a time would have been considered amazing...many days it’s a third of the way around the world, not a drink spilt and arrive on time, but sadly some people have other expectations. I remember arriving in AKL one morning at the end of what had been a three sector flight from London ( for the passengers and for the airframe). One highly vocal passenger really let rip at the captain as he disembarked because we had arrived three minutes (3 minutes) late. Quite how the boss kept his cool I don’t know.

BAengineer

26th Aug 2018, 13:06

is there a more annoying phrase in the lexicon of the airline traveller? They’d be better just saying ‘delayed’. “Operational Reasons” says nothing. At least the pilots usually explain the delay once you get on board.

But in many cases the pilot wont know who the delay was down to. In large airlines there is a lot of competition between individual departments to offload delays onto another department and therefore keep their individual performance stats looking good. In some cases the 'cause'' of the delay will not be attributed until the following days morning management meeting.

So 'Operational' covers the reason until the delay is officially landed at some individual group within the airline.

PAXboy

26th Aug 2018, 16:56

I have never worked in the airline world but have been in commerce for 40 years. I can assure you that MOST companies now run very close to the wind. Airlines have a much longer sequence of inter-related groups as detailed so well above. The 'just in time' way of running business is now established throughout the western world. Mostly, however, companies do not have to present a highly visible time-table and attempt to stick to it. Supermarkets have other brands of a similar product. You can go to another Pharmacy ...

Nowadays, you have to reckon that if a meeting/event requires a flight - than add 24 hours to your planning. If you have a safety net of time - you proably won't need it. Same as allowing time for motorway delays.

Davef68

26th Aug 2018, 17:51

What did I start.....

Delays don't particularly annoy me,they are part of airline travel, and in most circumstances aren't too bad. In the 100s of flights I've had as a passenger, I can count the serious delays on my fingers.

I just find the 'operational reasons' explanation given in the lounge irritating.Maybe because I'm more than just a casual traveller and actually have an interest in these things.

(Oh, and my flight was cancelled in the end so I had a 6 hour taxi ride home instead! C'est la vie!)

B2N2

26th Aug 2018, 18:26

What the sky gods are telling us is that Aviation is basically a f#cked up industri with little or no control of many links in the chain? Nice to know.
I sure hope they will be as overbearing, as they expect us lowly SFL to be, next time they buy a product and things go tits up.
Somehow I very much doubt it.
Per

Well think again.
You don’t buy a ‘product’ you buy the agreement for transportation and I’m sure the word reasonable is in there. There’s been a slew of ICAO conventions outlining everything from hijack and hostage taking to damaged luggage.
The flight crew are the two or three people that have the least amount of influence over the timeliness of the operations. On the ground we’re as powerless as turtles on their shell.
Thanks to the likes of Mc Leary and other soulless zombie overlords like him this industry has been hollowed out.
The tug may have the name of the airline on it but the driver is a minimum wage employee of a subcontractor who won the contract with the lowest bid. Gate agents wear the airline uniform or scarf but their employment contract is in somebody else’s name.
This combined with usually brutal write up policies doesn’t encourage loyalty to the final service provided. Which is on time performance.
Now mix in the territorial behavior of many of the subparts involved and it’s now everybody else’s fault but mine. That’s been stated above.
Ground Crew writing it up as a flight crew delay, flight crew writing up as a gate delay, gate agents writing up as a security delay bin cause demerits can cause you to loose your job.
None of this comes back as line items in a spread sheet.
And no, aviation is not comparable with any other industry.

Hotel Tango

26th Aug 2018, 19:23

And no, aviation is not comparable with any other industry.

As a retired aviation professional, I beg to differ.

Hotel Tango

26th Aug 2018, 19:42

What did I start.....

Delays don't particularly annoy me,they are part of airline travel, and in most circumstances aren't too bad. In the 100s of flights I've had as a passenger, I can count the serious delays on my fingers.

:) indeed. And all I said was that I didn't need pointless generic airport PA excuses for delays. I don't believe that either you or I questioned the reasons for delays. Of course they will occur and of course we know about the myriad of reasons why. My whole point was I just don't need to hear some lame generic reason which in fact may have no bearing on the real reason for the delay. Unfortunately, B2N2 got the wrong end of the stick and got on his high horse!

End of the matter for me now.

wiggy

27th Aug 2018, 06:20

Phew...I guess we got there (though on this subject I see there is now a Which report out grumbling that airlines are padding their schedules because of delays...sometimes you can’t win)...

err anyhow - genuine question- how would people feel/react if the flight crew simply announced “we have no idea why the flight were are about to take out was late arriving ”? I did it once and got grumbles that it sounded unprofessional....as I said: sometimes you can’t win...

Hotel Tango

27th Aug 2018, 08:40

how would people feel/react if the flight crew simply announced “we have no idea why the flight were are about to take out was late arriving ”? I did it once and got grumbles that it sounded unprofessional....as I said: sometimes you can’t win...

Damn wiggy, you've got me posting again :) From my side I already answered this. Remember that I (and Davef68 I believe) referred to generic airport/gate announcements.

Here is what I said:

it is my experience that the Captain usually provides a better explanation with a PA once boarding is completed, and it doesn't have to be as detailed as TangoAlphad's amusing example. Fortunately at many airport these days we only have screens to look at and, thankfully, we don't have to listen to announcements using those ridiculous and useless generic reasons.

PAXboy

27th Aug 2018, 10:24

This should not surprise. If outher industries had their daily performance measured,publicly available and enforced by law - they would change their organisations too.
The Guardian. (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/27/flight-times-extended-by-major-airlines-to-avoid-payouts-report-claims)
Flight times extended by major airlines to avoid payouts, report claims.
Carriers add up to 30 minutes to trips, reducing the likelihood of paying compensation for delays, Which? says.
In this regard, I agree that the airline is NOT like others. However, the process' by which they arrange themselves are exactly the same. Modern business tend to run to the same MBA script.

wiggy

27th Aug 2018, 11:52

HY

Sorry..:ok:

Meanwhile from the very first para of the Guardian article..

Plane journeys are taking longer than a decade ago, according to a report that claims the change is down to airlines “padding” their schedules to create the impression passengers were reaching their destinations on time.

...but if the airlines get the correction block times correct and then change the advertised arrival time then passengers actually are reaching their destinations on time.....

(don’s tin hat and looks for another thread to retire to)....

Ancient Mariner

27th Aug 2018, 13:59

I have this mental picture of a pilot, his wife and umpteen children finally ready on the pier for their long awaited Caribbean cruise, when over the PA system they are informed of a delay. More information to follow.
Finally after no more information, the ship berths, and they are informed that the reason for the delay was late arriving ship.
The pilot will of course take it in his stride, not worrying about tech issues which might have have caused the delay, or any other reasons that could cause unpleasantness during the trip. Maybe they needed those three hours to remove the odd norovirus?
Just saying. ;)
Per

Hotel Tango

27th Aug 2018, 14:30

To my knowledge Ryanair have covered their arses with well padded scheduled block times for years. Interestingly, as a comparison, the airline I fly short haul regularly with (Eurowings) don't. Their scheduled block times are relatively tight. Their turnaround times are also very tight. Consequently, any delay picked up (for whatever valid reason) tends to remain, or even get further exacerbated, as the day progresses. If, on its last rotation, the aircraft can't get back into the DUS base by midnight, it requires a diversion to CGN. Not withstanding the inconvenience to pax (been there and got the t-shirt), it means the aircraft has to be of course positioned back to DUS the next morning. Eurowings have recently come in for quite a lot of criticism from their German clients because of their poor time keeping. In the end, their quest to maximise aircraft utilisation in the interest of economics works against them. Incidentally, just for the record, I'm talking about substantial delays and not 3 minutes! ;)

Davef68

27th Aug 2018, 21:45

PAXboy

27th Aug 2018, 22:01

I recall discussion around this topic over 10 years ago when the publication of arrival statistics really started to bite. The larger the destination airport = the greater the padding. So it is 'faster' to go LGW-IOM than it is to return. Non story but the media have learnt that the airlines will rarely shout back. You can whip them a thousand times and, mostly, they just take it. So that makes them an easy target for any story.

edi_local

28th Aug 2018, 11:19

I don't see any issues with increasing the block times? Infact I'm amazed it seems to bother someone enough to bother writing a bloody article on it. Airports are busier as is airspace so flights are delayed due to congestion more often than 10 years ago. If you book a ticket expecting to be there at 10:00 what does it matter if the scheduled block time is 1:30 now and not the 1:20 it was before.. as long as you arrive near enough the expected time.

Yes, it's as if the media is outraged that airlines are trying to make sure people arrive on time by allowing extra time for delays en-route. What will they moan about next?

Anyway, my 2 cents. When you're in the terminal and hear the old "delayed due to operational reasons" or "late inbound aircraft" it's because of 2 things. The gate agent has been told to say that by their superior and also tannoy announcement time is supposed to be as short as possible. Other staff waiting to do calls for their flights and other passengers waiting to hear calls for their flights don't really care fort he intricate details of why YOUR flight is delayed. You'll find out on board if they crew want to tell you all about it in the confines of your own cabin. The whole terminal doesn't really need to know. Some terminals have gate rooms, so can do localised calls for your flight, fair enough, those are usually the ones where staff go into a bit more detail, but thinking of EDI in particular, they have open terminals and while one person is blithering on, everyone else has to wait for their turn. Calls can be recorded to be played when a chance comes up, but then you get delayed reaction with a call going out 5 minutes after it's meant to...which could cause delays...due to operational reasons.

Peter47

31st Aug 2018, 10:48

It may be that the airline doesn't want to say. If they say that the plane has gone tech that can cause concern to pax. (Yes I know its a good to wait for your chariot to become serviceable). If the a/c is being used to cover for another delayed flight you may have a set of passengers feeling hard done by. As mentioned above the reason could appear embarrassing to the airline. Explaining the intricacies of waiting for a slot and hoping that one comes forward could be too complex.

I've worked in the railway industry and it is quite common to use a euphemism for delays, for example for a suicide.

Espada III

31st Aug 2018, 11:29

I had a row with a woman at an airport a year or so back. The flight was delayed, not by a great deal, certainly no more than an hour on a five hour flight, but she was adamant that it was a disgrace, she was going to complain, seek compansation etc etc. She was getting very 'het up'.

I turned round and said that she could do all those things, if the flight landed late, but as we had only just moved away from the terminal, the chances were we would land reasonably on time so why get all frustrated when you can do nothing about it and in all likelihood you willl have nothing to complain about anyway.

She did not see the logic and continued to moan for the rest of the flight, until several of us told her to shut up.

Needless to say, we landed only 15 minutes past the STA.

EEngr

27th Sep 2018, 14:52

"Anti collision strobe low on blinker fluid.";)

davidjpowell

27th Sep 2018, 21:37

I long for a delay announcement of Operational Reasons. It would be a step forward from Aer Lingus at Dublin, who last week delayed a flight for a substantial amount of time and flung passengers around to 7 different gates. Not a single announcement.

A lot of plans/crew were no doubt out of position after Stom Ali, and we assumed that they were trying on the hoof to get a plane and crew available at the same time, but it was very clear that keeping the passengers informed was at the end of the list. It was amusing watching gate agents boarding a flight to Oslo, while the screens said it was the Manchester flight. They were getting very upset, and could not work out why Oslo was suddenly so popular.

Ancient Observer

28th Sep 2018, 11:52

It was French ATC.

And if it wasn't the French, it was the Spanish ATC.

Simples

PAXboy

28th Sep 2018, 13:31

No worries, A O. After 29th March next year - we won't be flying there anyway. Reasons for delay will be announced as ... ??? [It's Friday afternoon :) ]

RevMan2

28th Sep 2018, 18:27

Friend’s girlfriend worked for BAA doing flight announcements in Terminal 3. When they still did flight announcements.
All a bit formulaic, as in “British Airways regrets to announce a delay to flight BA123. The flight will depart at 15:40” until one day a piece of paper turned up with delay details, but with no departure time.
Linda charges straight in with “Air Canada regrets to announce a delay to flight AC456. The flight will depart....”.
Looks frantically for a departure time, finds none, gulps and says ......“sometime...”
Everyone in the terminal looks at the loudspeakers in the ceiling.....

PAXboy

29th Sep 2018, 16:29

Reminds me of a LTN-EDI arond 2001. I was commuting to a contract there and it was a Sunday, last out. As we taxied in, the CC started the standard 'Welcome' announcement. But one can only have sympathy for the crew member who was on the last of 6 rotations that day and started, "Ladies & Gentlemen, welcome to ..." and stopped. I imagine they were then looking out of the window to see what looked familiar. As one, a chorus arose from the pax, "Edinburgh!" It was a really cheering moment.

Hmm, perhaps I should have put this in the 'Cheer up SoS' thread. :p

redsnail

30th Sep 2018, 16:33

A flight I did yesterday had a CTOT allocated because of French ATC constraints but we also had 30 minutes in the hold on arrival into Switzerland because of the runways in use. 2 separate causes for the delayed arrival.

CTOT. Calculated Take Off Time. Essentially when you can join the airways (motorway).
Different to airport slot, when you can taxi off.

S.o.S.

30th Sep 2018, 20:41

Many thanks redsnail. That's one piece of the jigsaw not normally known about. We can only imagine the arguments as to whose fault the delay was.

Mr Mac

1st Oct 2018, 17:41

I have to say I must be lucky as I have not experienced that many delays, and the ones I have experienced are in the 50 min category and are often caught up in flight by the airline especially on long haul. What I can say having flown around this planet Man and Boy my memory of the delays say pre 1980 was that they were often longer, indeed not uncommon to have a hole day even when at an airlines hub. BCAL from Gatwick for instance took me to Santiago 3 times and New York once via Brighton that I clearly remember, but somehow you did not seem to complain so much. BEA ,TWA , PAN AM also left me stuck in Edinburgh, JFK, St Louis all over night before I was 18 and travelling too and from home to school. The service side and space were better, but I do not think the A/C were as reliable as now, and weather played a bigger part than currently is the case. It just seems we have become a species especially in the developed world where slight hold up and snags get blown out of all proportion to the event involved and of course we have a very driven compensation culture now in certain countries (thanks USA).
Kind regards
Mr Mac (getting older SLF)

wiggy

1st Oct 2018, 17:56

It just seems we have become a species especially in the developed world where slight hold up and snags get blown out of all proportion

I suspect you are right. Problem is the airlines all have to promise the earth to get the bookings, but I have more than once been made aware of some passengers travel plans (I’m not just talking about minimum connection times, I ‘m talking about weddings planned for the evening of arrival) and thought ��

Bend alot

15th Oct 2018, 04:30

I had booked a cruise to the South Pacific for myself and 3 children (1 is at uni in Adelaide) so booked the flights giving about 24 hours before boarding the ship.

SMS message at 10:50 flight delayed due engineering requirements departure 16:35.
SMS message at 10.56 flight delayed due engineering requirements departure 16:55.
SMS message at 11:55 flight delayed due engineering requirements departure 19:35.

During the last 2 SMS's I tried to get some more detail on back up plan if aircraft stays U/S or crew run out of duty time and flight need to be cancelled.

Basically weighing up all options to get to the port in time to make the cruise.

I got no info from the airline and was simply told I could get a refund on my tickets, the only other flights for the 3 of us to get to port in time was the following morning business class on another airline. This gave us around 1 hour to get to the port - not ideal.

I contacted my travel insurance company to see if the cost of the business class tickets would be covered as they were cheaper than the cruise - you can put in a claim but it is not really covered, you might get lucky. Also turns out the cruise is not covered by insurance because I could not make it because of engineering requirements. A bit shocked at this stage.

I some how found out the inbound flight was delayed (think I rang the local airport) and from memory it was weather. I got on to flight tracker and found it still had not left that airport. After about 15 mins I saw it take off and was somewhat relieved, we had a chance to make the cruise.

* Delays are fine and will happen just don't report it until you have information and plans to tell the SLF so they can make plans accordingly.

In this case they jumped the gun by an hour in delaying the flight.
They would have been better saying the inbound flight #xxx has been delayed (has departed/ is expected to depart).
If your flight can not depart by xx:xx time it will need to be cancelled/delayed due to crew duty hour limits set by law.

If the delay is at the airport then the cause of the delay should be known by the captain and in his absence the rest of crew in seniority.

The SMS could be sent to pax

Delayed due to
sick crew
late catering
weather
need more fuel
ground service equipment failure
paperwork discrepancies

or what ever is most relevant and give a realistic delay time.

esa-aardvark

15th Oct 2018, 08:47

Taking 2 long cruises next year ending in Rome. Was going to take a couple
of days there, visit with il Papa, would mean back in UK 29th March.
I think the Italians will let me leave, what about entry to UK ?
Maybe the airlines will not fly that day ?
Maybe I should play it safe.
John

+TSRA

16th Oct 2018, 03:48

Bend Alot,

Let me add some context of why what you suggest is often impossible:

* Delays are fine and will happen just don't report it until you have information and plans to tell the SLF so they can make plans accordingly.

In this case they jumped the gun by an hour in delaying the flight.
They would have been better saying the inbound flight #xxx has been delayed (has departed/ is expected to depart).
If your flight can not depart by xx:xx time it will need to be cancelled/delayed due to crew duty hour limits set by law.

If the delay is at the airport then the cause of the delay should be known by the captain and in his absence the rest of crew in seniority.

The SMS could be sent to pax

Delayed due to
sick crew
late catering
weather
need more fuel
ground service equipment failure
paperwork discrepancies

or what ever is most relevant and give a realistic delay time.

Unfortunately, there are many times where we know the flight will be delayed, but we don't know by how long.

Take a maintenance issue discovered as the crew gets onto the airplane. Is this a 5-minute delay or a flight cancellation? We won't necessarily know until maintenance can diagnose the issue, go through their repair strategy in a logical manner, identify the need for spares, search for spares, obtain spares, install spares, test systems, and then complete the paperwork. Maybe the spare parts are not available and the system cannot be deferred. Or maybe there are spares, but what normally takes 10-minutes to drive, do the proper sign-out paperwork, and drive back will take 50-minutes today because the airport is doing construction on the vehicle access road, they are down to a single runway due to winds, and the maintenance guys have to cross the runway to get to the shop - otherwise it'll be closer to 120 minutes to drive the long way around (I'd like to say I am kidding about this, but a similar situation happened to me last year).

As an example, I once had an identical radio issue with two airplanes in about two days. In the first instance, the repair was completed in 10-minutes and we departed five minutes ahead of schedule. In the second instance, we had to swap to another airplane after maintenance attempted the most common fixes, including the one that had worked for me previously. We really did not know how long the delay would be, with every subsequent fix attempt just as likely to work as the one before or after, so we swapped once an airplane that would be sitting for a couple hours came in. But that airplane needed to be fueled (out of sequence), a new flight plan filed, all the applicable system checks completed, and up to 15 minutes given for the fluorescent floor lighting on the new airplane to energize because the lighting had been off for just too long. All of this might result in a 20-minute delay on a good day or a 3-hour delay on a bad day. Add in an ATC slot time, and you might find the flight now needs to be cancelled due to crew restrictions. A lot of this information builds on one another, so we often cannot give an accurate time for passengers to make their plans.

So, what starts as an engineering problem morphs into a fuel issue, which morphs into an ATC issue, and culminates in a crewing issue. If the airline were to let passengers know the actual reason for a delay, outside of "operational issues," that airline would look incompetent to the untrained eye. While you frequent a forum where line pilots share their experiences, the vast majority of passengers do not. They really do see flying as jumping on a bus. I've had passengers ask me on landing after a diversion why we couldn't have just refuelled the airplane in the air because they "saw it on the Discovery Channel." They're not stupid or incompetent, they're just out of their element, and too much information (detailed delayed codes) will often make the situation worse. They don't know a 737 cannot refuel in flight, but they know they saw an airplane do it on Channel 804.

Alright, as for telling you what time the crew will duty out...it's not for you to know. Sorry that comes off a little short, but it's true. If you're dealing in the short-haul or medium-haul environment, not all the crew may duty out at the same time. Also, crew scheduling might be working on a plan that will negate any crewing issues, especially where a base is concerned. Also, the last thing I need when I am dealing with an issue that is delaying a flight is a passenger yelling in the terminal or in the airplane for me to hurry up and "do my job." That's an added level of stress I just don't need as a Captain. It's also a level of stress the average passenger does not need, as they'll just end up looking at their watch and begin to harass the gate agents as the time creeps nearer to that deadline.

As for the crew knowing of a delay...yep, I wish that happened. But as people above me have said, poop flows downhill, and the pilots are often the last to know because there is no sense in telling them anything until there are solid facts. As you can see from above, there are often no solid facts for quite some time, so the crew often finds out just before the passengers. Heck, in my airline the operations department will tell the gate agents of issues through text at the same time they tell the dispatcher. As the dispatcher tells me, the passengers often find out a couple of minutes before I do! So it really does depend on where the delay is coming from, and who finds out first.

S.o.S.

16th Oct 2018, 11:39

+TSRA Thank you very much for taking time to give us such a detailed breakdown and the way in which a fault can progress for five minutes to canx. The sequence of problems to collect a part is highly instructive. Sadly, I think there is no possible way to elucidate the overall picture to the pax, when it changes so rapidly.

Dave Gittins

16th Oct 2018, 12:44

It might help if people knew the difference between pushback time (which is the one airlines advertise because it is the time when all pax need to be boarded and sat strapped in) and take off time. I hear soooo many people sitting on aeroplanes saying "well this is bad, we are late already, we'll never take off at 16.35, we are at least 20 minutes late" when in fact it's 16.30 and we're ready to push, TOBT is 16.35, for a TTOT of 17.05 and an arrival in Malaga (i.e. EIBT) at 19.40 with the actual airborne time 2 hrs 15 mins, so it'll probably actually arrive 15 mins early.

[all times in Z rather than L to make my point]

Hotel Tango

16th Oct 2018, 14:49

All interesting and valid points without question (most of which the majority of educated passengers are well aware of). However, in my opinion at least, I think, arguably, that we have now moved a long way from the original point of the thread. In respect of +TSRA's post I am reminded of a couple of relatively recent experiences with a German operator where the length of the delay was undetermined due to technical reasons. We were however kept well and factually informed by the ground staff and, in one case, the Captain. It was very well handled and consequently no pax got agitated or felt the need to vent their frustrations at the gate staff or (later) the crew.

PAXboy

16th Oct 2018, 15:08

It is my hunch that pax are now understanding that the listed 'Departure Time' is 'Time To Be Onboard'! Whilst all carriers now build in large amounts of 'padding' to their schedules, they also make a real show of arrival times. (Some more than others ..)

I certainly agree with +TSRA that customers are all too ready to consider the supplier (not just airlines but ALL companies) as incompetent and the availability of 'electronic lynching' can only be met by the carrier being on the ball to respond online to those twit messages. However, to do that requires more staff and, ever since money was invented, people have shown that they want to spend as little as possible to get the maximum.

Which is why I think this is more of a transitory problem. New generations of pax are learning this from Day One, the older pax have to re-learn what they understood of airline timetables being like railway timetables. New generations growing up with the LCC 'everything is an optional extra' understand better and will, I trust, be more understanding. Meanwhile, the ground and air crews have to put up with the ill informed and those quick to judge.

Bend alot

17th Oct 2018, 12:29

Bend Alot,

Let me add some context of why what you suggest is often impossible:

Unfortunately, there are many times where we know the flight will be delayed, but we don't know by how long.

Take a maintenance issue discovered as the crew gets onto the airplane. Is this a 5-minute delay or a flight cancellation? We won't necessarily know until maintenance can diagnose the issue, go through their repair strategy in a logical manner, identify the need for spares, search for spares, obtain spares, install spares, test systems, and then complete the paperwork. Maybe the spare parts are not available and the system cannot be deferred. Or maybe there are spares, but what normally takes 10-minutes to drive, do the proper sign-out paperwork, and drive back will take 50-minutes today because the airport is doing construction on the vehicle access road, they are down to a single runway due to winds, and the maintenance guys have to cross the runway to get to the shop - otherwise it'll be closer to 120 minutes to drive the long way around (I'd like to say I am kidding about this, but a similar situation happened to me last year).

As an example, I once had an identical radio issue with two airplanes in about two days. In the first instance, the repair was completed in 10-minutes and we departed five minutes ahead of schedule. In the second instance, we had to swap to another airplane after maintenance attempted the most common fixes, including the one that had worked for me previously. We really did not know how long the delay would be, with every subsequent fix attempt just as likely to work as the one before or after, so we swapped once an airplane that would be sitting for a couple hours came in. But that airplane needed to be fueled (out of sequence), a new flight plan filed, all the applicable system checks completed, and up to 15 minutes given for the fluorescent floor lighting on the new airplane to energize because the lighting had been off for just too long. All of this might result in a 20-minute delay on a good day or a 3-hour delay on a bad day. Add in an ATC slot time, and you might find the flight now needs to be cancelled due to crew restrictions. A lot of this information builds on one another, so we often cannot give an accurate time for passengers to make their plans.

So, what starts as an engineering problem morphs into a fuel issue, which morphs into an ATC issue, and culminates in a crewing issue. If the airline were to let passengers know the actual reason for a delay, outside of "operational issues," that airline would look incompetent to the untrained eye. While you frequent a forum where line pilots share their experiences, the vast majority of passengers do not. They really do see flying as jumping on a bus. I've had passengers ask me on landing after a diversion why we couldn't have just refuelled the airplane in the air because they "saw it on the Discovery Channel." They're not stupid or incompetent, they're just out of their element, and too much information (detailed delayed codes) will often make the situation worse. They don't know a 737 cannot refuel in flight, but they know they saw an airplane do it on Channel 804.

Alright, as for telling you what time the crew will duty out...it's not for you to know. Sorry that comes off a little short, but it's true. If you're dealing in the short-haul or medium-haul environment, not all the crew may duty out at the same time. Also, crew scheduling might be working on a plan that will negate any crewing issues, especially where a base is concerned. Also, the last thing I need when I am dealing with an issue that is delaying a flight is a passenger yelling in the terminal or in the airplane for me to hurry up and "do my job." That's an added level of stress I just don't need as a Captain. It's also a level of stress the average passenger does not need, as they'll just end up looking at their watch and begin to harass the gate agents as the time creeps nearer to that deadline.

As for the crew knowing of a delay...yep, I wish that happened. But as people above me have said, poop flows downhill, and the pilots are often the last to know because there is no sense in telling them anything until there are solid facts. As you can see from above, there are often no solid facts for quite some time, so the crew often finds out just before the passengers. Heck, in my airline the operations department will tell the gate agents of issues through text at the same time they tell the dispatcher. As the dispatcher tells me, the passengers often find out a couple of minutes before I do! So it really does depend on where the delay is coming from, and who finds out first.
Forgot to add a AME since 1988, A LAME since 199(early) and an AMO owner for + 10 years!

A senior or chief for many years since 1990.

Never had to deal with a delay in my life!

But the pilot or A/C owner was always informed and with a deal of accuracy as not just to the delay but also the cost/s.

PAXboy

17th Oct 2018, 13:47

Another example of how modern companies deal with time: Have you noticed that an item to be delivered by post/courier, generally gives a date anything up to 14 days in advance of when it arrives? Naturally, they have to allow for delays beyond their control in non-time dependent postal services but I had an item arrive today where (at purchase) they stated " Estimated delivery Wed, 24 Oct - Thu, 22 Nov " so that's a week early by any measure and they can claim extra 'stars' for things arriving promptly.

It's called 'Managing Expectations'.

meleagertoo

18th Oct 2018, 11:29

Planemike

18th Oct 2018, 14:51

What's annoying about "operational reasons"?
Alternatives are "technical reasons" or "weather".

None of them impart any useful information. You seem to feel it is acceptable to patronize your passengers.
Just be honest, straight forward, truthful and "up front".

They hate delays as much as the pax and the slow turning of the wheels is a sign of the complexity of an airline/airport operation, not sloth or disinterest.

Yes, but there are times when operators conveniently pass the blame on to these things when it fact it is the operators incompetence that caused the problem in the first place.

PAXboy

18th Oct 2018, 16:45

Equally fudging the issue and especially not telling the truth is hazardous too.
<edit>
The thing pax so often seem to forget is that the airline isn't doing a delay for fun, to annoy them or (usually) because of their incompetence. They hate delays as much as the pax and the slow turning of the wheels is a sign of the complexity of an airline/airport operation, not sloth or disinterest.
Yes, indeed. Unfortunately, when humans have to make an excuse for themselves, they tend to be 'flexible' with the truth but when it's from others - they want 100% truth ...

Final 3 Greens

26th Oct 2018, 03:43

However this is what happens.
Do you want us to detail the reasons? 'Well at 6am today Mickey the baggage holder was a bit slow and then I couldn't find the headset guy to confirm good to push so got stuck behind a bloody BA Nigel... coupled with London airport traffic never gonna get that time back so there is your first 10 minutes and oh ya the French gave us a 1 hour slot which screwed us for the day'
Flying in Europe these days - which is generally operating at 105% of capacity - just gives us so many opportunities to be screwed if we listed them all to you we would need to generate a new delay code for that!

LOL, the comment was that it is better to say less :O As pax, we really don't care how your company messed up, unless it gets beyond three hours, in which case 'operational reasons; is insufficient and we need to know the actual reasons, to put in a claim for statutory compensation or to learn it was (genuine) extraordinary circumstances. Pretending it was an ATC delay, when that component of the delay was only 11 minutes, is not advised.

edi_local

26th Oct 2018, 22:00

What's annoying about "operational reasons"?
Alternatives are "technical reasons" or "weather".

It is then up to the speaker to decide whether to amplify on these and risk offering too much information, an easy trap to fall into as the travelling public are equally as eager to read things into what you didn't actually say as they are ignorant about the complexity of airline operations. Say "For technical reasons, actually they had a hydraulic leak" and a proportion of the pax will freak out thinking they're shortly going to die and another few will be spreading alarm and despondency by loudly suggestin the engineers will just bodge the repair until it gets back to base because everyone knows that's what airline mechanics do, if they even actually found out what's really wrong. "Are you telling us there's something wrong with the x/y/z and you still expect us to get on that plane and fly on it?" or "How do we know they fixed it properly?" is the sort of nonsense all too commonly heard. Sometimes the less said the better. Otherwise you'll get in a converssation with some smart alec keen to demonstrate his superior knowledge of the subject in question and he's out to make a point. Believe me, this really happens!

Equally fudging the issue and especially not telling the truth is hazardous too. It's a skill that takes some learning, like filling in reports; generally the less said the less there is to hang you with but don't hide significant information.
If staff don't ahve the skill, information or ability to say the right thing it's best they say s little as possible, annoying as it may be to those who want to know more.

The thing pax so often seem to forget is that the airline isn't doing a delay for fun, to annoy them or (usually) because of their incompetence. They hate delays as much as the pax and the slow turning of the wheels is a sign of the complexity of an airline/airport operation, not sloth or disinterest.

Hit the nail on the head.

To expand on the smart alec types,l these days you get the camera phones coming out and some idiot thinking they're big and clever filming the whole thing (usually shouting "you can't stop me") hoping to make the agent say something that get's them in trouble as if they are personally to blame.

So due, in part, to passenger reaction, less is more. "Operational Reasons" will be used and rightly so. You don't need to know the ins and outs right away. Long delays change as they go on. Short delays are not even worth mentioning half the time because odds are you'll still arrive on time or even early. If you feel the need to claim your EU compo later then do so. The airline will have records of why your plane was delayed. They won't fight the claim any more or any less if you're told the exact, in depth reason on the day of travel. Nine times out of ten the person making the gate announcement has been fed the bare minimum information from a rep, engineer or office occupying superior and isn't privy to what's actually going on, so at least don't direct all your anger at them.

Davef68

26th Oct 2018, 22:35

As I said in the OP, 'Operational Reasons' is meaningless, you are as well just saying 'Your flight is delayed'. The anodyne (often prerecorded) 'This is due to - pause - operational reasons' just grates.

I've been unlucky this year as I've had three flights cancelled (all returns), one due to the severe weather in March, the one I wrote the Op whilst waiting for (Which was because the delay led to the crew being out of hours) then most recently one caused by a late running service due to an earlier medical emergency then a weather cancellation due to strong crosswinds at BRS. In 18 previous years of regular airline travel, I've probably had no more than that in total. These things happen, 6 out of circa 1K isn't bad (and number of severe delays >2hrs probably in low teens at most)

That does bring up another area - the amount of info the airport gives you - in the latter case, I was able to see exactly how delayed our flight was on the easyjet app/website, whilst the boards at BRS were either saying on time or giving a ridiculously low delayed time, right up until it suddenly jumped 2 hours (I knew that already form the App) and yet if you question the airports, they say they take it directly from the Airline feed! The app even gave a full explanation as to why the delay!