Cancelled VS LHR-JNB ...

[FarTooManyUsers]

Anybody know why Saturday's flight (which stopped in Tunis to offload a sick passenger, and returned to LHR) didn't pick up a fresh crew and fly to JNB ??

The passengers stranded in JNB who were due to fly on Sunday are on the verge of mutiny, with Police escorting Virgin staff around the terminal ...

[A300Man-2005]

Really? Mutiny? Seems a bit excessive, surely. This type of operational thing happens all the time, I would have thought.

[Rainboe]

Well without knowing anyhting about this, there aren't normally 'standby' crews lying around in such profusion- disruptions happen. The passengers in JNB had better learn that disruptions happen or aeroplanes are just machines that can break down. In this case the disruption appears to be because of humanitarian reasons.

[Human Factor]

I would imagine that crew hours would have prevented them continuing to Joburg. The sensible thing would be to return to the UK rather than have a crew, a jet and a few hundred passengers stuck in a random country. Like everyone else, I would be surprised if VS had full standby crews available at the drop of a hat.

[Leezyjet]

"The passengers stranded in JNB who were due to fly on Sunday are on the verge of mutiny, with Police escorting Virgin staff around the terminal ..."

What utter rubbish.

I was trying to get home from JNB on VS on both Sat and Sun night and saw no such thing. Sure the pax on Sunday were a little annoyed, but there were no more Police in the Terminal than normal.

Most pax were accomodated on other airlines via here there and everywhere, making staff travel back to the UK extremely hard, and the rest were put up in hotels and re booked the next night onto the A340-600 that was sent down.

[FarTooManyUsers]

The near mutiny was reported as ocurring on Monday evening when the cancelled flight passengers had been there 24 hours and that evening's VS flight, and most other airlines were fully booked so virtually the whole plane load was facing a 48 hour delay.

I was told that no extra plane was sent down ...

My eye-witness has just been put on a Frankfurt flight - don't know how many are still stranded ...

[mini]

Mutiny is probably a bit strong...

Majority of pax don't understand the fine print & details of crew hours etc, they buy a ticket & expect to be shifted, flights are booked, follow on schedules are set etc etc, not suprised if the odd punter gets upset when this kind of thing happens.

Give me cargo anyday...

[Rainboe]

On a Barbados, Antigua LHR duty, we found engine damage when we landed at Antigua (bent fan blades)- I knew not to go on on 3! Most pax went to boarding lounge to wait. Delay whilst conference with London took place about engine. I knew it was bust. Went in to explain to pax. I was surrounded by a jabbering lot. There was the usual Lawyer ("I will start an action against BA- I am a friend of Sir Colin!"), the hysterical Mum must get back to her children ("you are not telling us everything!"- "WHAT! I know nothing myself!"). The woman who was obviously smoking something "when can the standby aeroplane get here?"- "WELL Madam, it's circling over Cuba now with a full crew onboard and will be here in a jiffy!" As the delay dragged awaiting confirmation is was broke, it was an awful experience being at the mercy of this braying crowd all jabbing their fingers at me, all desperate to get home. I was struck by how fine people plan their lives- the woman with all the kids being looked after at home HAD to get back because there was a 20 minute window to take over babysitting from her mother before Mum went on her own holiday.
People don't realise aeroplanes are just machines that can and do go wrong, people fall sick inflight and aeroplanes need to divert, and if you get to your destination with 24 hours you are indeed lucky!

Nice night in the Jolly Beach!

[Big Tudor]

With most unscheduled long-haul departures you can forget about standby crew to operate. It is unlikely they would have the hours to go that far. Bear in mind that the a/c had operated LHR-TUNIS and back, probably arriving early hours of the morning. Any standby crew for the JNB would have been planned to cover the scheduled departure, not to provide cover for unplanned med emergencies. And departures from the UK in the early hours of the morning do not give the crew a lot of hours to play with.

[sinala1]

Bear in mind that the a/c had operated LHR-TUNIS and back, probably arriving early hours of the morning.

Around 0945 or so to be exact - and our pax were not terribly impressed! I was (cabin) crewing said flight, suffice to say it was an interesting experience...

[PAXboy]

'Mutiny' is completely the wrong word. mutiny· n. (pl. mutinies) an open rebellion against the proper authorities, especially by soldiers or sailors against their officers.

An airline is not a 'proper authority', merely a company that offer transportation services. Regrettably, the marketing people have done a fine job on convincing people of the regular service that they offer and the manufacturers and engineers have done a too fine a job of making sure that a/c are reliable and that continues all the way through the many staff involved in getting each machine safely to it's destination.

The information that should have be relayed to waiting pax was: Virgin Atlantic have caused you all of this disruption to help save the life of one of their customers. If, on the next flight you become ill, please be assured that the airline will put your wellbeing in front of all those who are safely on the ground (be that London or Johannesburg) as well as their own financial well being. Now, go back to your hotels and enjoy your lives. They should be told this, on the hour, every hour. In fact, wake them during the night to tell them again.

[ou Trek dronkie]

Ja, Paxboy

Right on man,

I get the distinct feeling you know what you are talking about.

Andrew: "Mutiny " ? puuuulleezzze.

The oTd sommer shakes his old head, wondering aloud : "Are I also on the verge of mutiny" ???

So why did Virgin not brief the pax ? Maybe they didn't know anyway.

Bet the guy who woke up in the Tunis General didn't conmplain !!"


So you really think Virgin has a standby crew waiting for a call-out in Tunis ?

Amazing, amazing.

Tired ou Donker

[Irish Steve]

Regrettably, the marketing people have done a fine job on convincing people of the regular service that they offer and the manufacturers and engineers have done a too fine a job of making sure that a/c are reliable and that continues all the way through the many staff involved in getting each machine safely to it's destination.

And, to make it worse, having done so well, no one is prepared to state anywhere in print that occasionally, it WILL go pear shaped, THROUGH NO FAULT OF THE AIRLINE, and when it does, it cannot be fixed instantly.

[disclaimer] I do not work for Virgin, and I have no professional or other links to Virgin [/disclaimer]

Here is the curse.

INSTANTLY, because unfortunately, for whatever reason, Joe Public has been spoon fed for way too long on INSTANT gratification of just about anything Joe Public wants, and when he can't have INSTANT gratification, he's then been only too well fed by the ambulance chasing legal morons into demanding that SOMEONE put right instantly what's gone wrong, OR ELSE!

Bks, total Bks, and the sooner that some real education takes place, along the lines of "remember when you might have to wait a week at Shannon, and make 4 or 5 12 hour round trips in lousy weather, half way across the Atlantic before getting to New York?

Well, we've improved on that by orders of magnitude. but even now, there are times when despite the best efforts of a whole team of people, it will not happen exactly the way you expected, and to make it worse, it's NOT our fault, so we can't be blamed, or held responsible for it.

That is a harsh, real fact of this every day real time experience called life that some people want to try and sanitise so much that it's not life any more. It can't be done. Live with it!

Now, there are times when it's so crazy, if the aircraft is 10 minutes later than the time that was on the screen before it even took off, people complain that it's late, and then DEMAND compensation!!!

Some of it is down to the crazy marketing people, some of it is down to the crazy world that's now expecting the impossible all of the time, some of it it down to the world not being prepared to plan with alternatives so that if plan A fails, there IS a plan B.

As someone has just said, the real answer was for a very clear announcement to be made, along the lines of "We're very sorry, but the life of a passenger took precendence over arriving within 90 seconds of the expected time, and while miracles do occasionally happen, it's now going to take time for us to get everyone where they should have been. It's no one's fault, (unless the sick passenger should never even have boarded, and that's a thought/ thread for someone else to take up), now, we're doing the best we can, as quickly as possible, and within the myriad of sometimes restrictive rules that are there to protect your safety, to solve the problems that have been caused.

If people are not happy with that, then maybe there needs to be changes in the rules that cover this so that they can be told, VERY firmly, if you don't like our rules, there's the door, goodbye!

Hard? Maybe. Honest, probably yes, Fair, yes, unaaceptable to some of the modern morons, Tough, but so's life, there are some things that you can't insure or plan for, and saving a life had better damn well remain one of them for a long time to come.

I dread the day when a passenger dies because there were too many people on board that might sue because they have just missed the latest episode of Coronation Street or East Enders, or they can't get home in time to go to the pub for a couple of pints before they close tonight. If that's how shallow and mean our society is becoming, and in some areas, it is, we're in DEEP trouble, and yes, if that's the sort of level we're sinking to, it's absolutely and totally scary.

[PAXboy]

Dankie ou Trek! I've spent 40 years a-paxing. My grandfather was RFC + civil aviation in the 20s + 30s (he was a close friend of Kingsford-Smith). My father was RAF and my nephew is a commercial pilot in ZA. I follow the industry as an interested party and fairly regular paxer, although less so these days as I am now in a different line of work.

If VS got the pax information wrong, then they only have themselves to blame for people shouting their head off in the terminal building.

If VS allowed an unwell person on board, they have only themselves to blame. I do hope that they follow up the case of the person and learn what was wrong with them, DID they recover, WERE they seriously ill and COULD they have spotted it before boarding.

Now it's time to take another dop and lekker slaap.

[Spitfire78]

Uhm.... stupid question from a semi-regular jnb-lhr pax...

Given that Tunis is at the northern tip of Africa, what would have stopped the plane/crew from being able to (refuel and) take off, but proceed to jnb instead of turn around? I'm not criticising anyone's decision/practice/policy, just curious...

(incidentally, I left in JNB on sunday night on BA - must say the VS counters looked busy!!)

SF78

[flyingbee]

http://www.v-flyer.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5175

This thread on V-Flyer started by somebody working in VAA flight ops explains that the LHR-JNB diversion was just one flight that didn't operate as expected that night.

flyingbee

[Right Way Up]

I have no info on this particular flight, but can give you a few ideas about what might have held them up.
1) Arrival at Tunis must have been roughly at 0000-0100 UTC. Probably very little ground handling to deal with them.
2) Trying to get flight plans through to Tunis might have been difficult.
3) As soon as they landed at Tunis they were now on a 2 sector day so potentially less hours available. With any delay due to the above crew would have been out of hours.
The only question I would have about the situation is was there a standby crew the next morning. The fact that the aircraft has a long layover in JNB a new crew could have departed at say 1200 from LHR and would only have delayed the return flight by say 4 hours. I very much doubt that there could have been a standby crew even the next morning, as I am sure Ops would have preferred to keep the operation going, much less hassle involved!

[krobar]

could have been worse

Heard an interresting story of pax dying on a flight of an nolongeroperating airline, where a pax died on board en-route to jhb from abijan.
After 5 hours in flight, turned around returned to abj, found engine prob on aircraft engine, deboarded pax, and allowed them to board again after spending 30 hours waiting inside abijan international departures. I'd say a sleepover in Jhb is really not the worst thing that could happen to a pax.

[frangatang]

Everyone forgets it WAS virgin, so what do you expect from a banana republic airline. Back up?? You have to be joking.

[Rainboe]

I don't work for Virgin, but I have to say some of the comments here are unbelievable from so-called intelligent people! I have to say they are quite moronic! Virgin is a respectable British company operating an effective airline service- what is your problem? A humanitarian diversion, cancellation because of lack of crew and inability to mount an effective (and useful) short notice operation. Airlines run to something like 98%+ reliability, disruptions happen with any transport system. Can you imagine the costs of having complete crews lying around ALL day, EVERY day, for EVERY type, doing nothing, just waiting for the rare disruption here? Do YOU want to finance that in EACH ticket, EVERY ticket?

Somehow an innocuous news item brings out these bitter or jealous individuals with lifelong axes to grind! Save us all your grief!

(Edited to remove reference to Paxboy)