EasyJet passengers told 'get off the plane or you will be arrested'
 

Does this fit in here??
EasyJet passengers told 'get off the plane or you will be arrested' after fuelling blunder makes flight too heavy
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 6:31 PM on 10th January 2011

Dozens of Easyjet passengers were ordered off a plane and threatened with arrest if they refused - because the overloaded jet was too heavy to take off.
The flight from Birmingham to Geneva was over-filled with 10 tonnes too much fuel so the captain asked the last 37 customers to get off the plane.
When some passengers refused to budge they were informed that three police officers were waiting in the airport terminal and would arrest them if necessary.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/...54_468x301.jpg
Bungled: Easyjet's Birmingham-Geneva flght was over-filled with fuel so the last 37 customers were asked to get off
But unbeknown to the remaining passengers, their luggage was also removed from the flight to save weight.
They only discovered their bags had been left back in England when they arrived in Switzerland - and some did not received their baggage for another five days.


Bosses at Easyjet apologised to passengers affected by the bungled Boxing Day trip and promised to investigate.
Grandmother Jane Webb, 65, was on board flight EZY1496 with a nine-strong party including her two daughters and four grandchildren who were heading for a skiing holiday in Saint Gervais, France.
She told how the packed plane sat on the runway for half-an-hour before the captain announced he had some 'bad news' .
'He said they had over-fuelled the plane by 10 tonnes of fuel and that he was going to have to ask around 37 passengers to get off,' she said.
'He offered £100 and overnight accommodation to anyone who offered to get off - but when pressed they could not guarantee a next day flight to Geneva.
'About seven or eight people offered to give up their seats, but they then decided that the last 20 odd people to get off the plane would be those who checked in last.
'We were lucky because we had checked in early. But there was a couple of young girls in front of us and they were dreadfully upset.
'They asked the crew what would happen if they didn't get off - and were told there were three policeman waiting for them outside and they would be forced off.
'I felt awfully sorry for them. I've never experienced anything like it before.'
But Mrs Webb was horrified when she touched down in Geneva four hours late and discovered her baggage was back in Birmingham.
The biomedical scientist and her family had to wait five days before they eventually got their holiday bags - the day before they flew back to the UK.
Mrs Webb said: 'We had to buy all the essentials out in France - including thermal underwear and snow boots.
'Easyjet has said it will pay us £25 a day for every day we didn't have our baggage.
'But it was such an inconvenience. The whole thing was a farce.'


Read more: EasyJet passengers ordered off plane after fuelling blunder makes flight too heavy | Mail Online

wow...I have seen planes ''defueled" here in the good old USA without too much problem. wondering why they didn't do that for easy jet.

the pilot did have the right to remove people from the flight and people , after a reasonable explanation, should comply. Once off the flight, legal remedies might then be pursued.

Easyjet passengers ordered off plane under threat of arrest - Telegraph

Is the A319 unable to be defuelled?
10 tonnes.....37 pax plus bags?
Someone needs a calculator.

What a cluster:mad:

You pay your money to fly on your winter skiiing holiday and get threatened with arrest by the police just because the pilot got his sums wrong?

If someone told me the police were outside waiting to arrest me I'd make sure they had a bloddy hard time of it inside the cabin. Lots of amateur video on Youtube etc.

For once it's not Ryanair!

Do we have REAL confirmation that they were threatened with arrest? I have my doubts. :hmm:

I am afraid that calling the Police or at least threat to do so is the easy option out for some staff.

Rwy in Sight

It is not easy to get a defuel at any airport, especially at short notice.
You need an empty or near empty bowser (fuel truck) and the fuel removed must be put back onto a/c from the originating company it was removed from.
It can sometimes be put on a second parties a/c if they give permission, but is uncommon.
If it is a small amount you are sometimes better off just burning it off prior to take-off.
Hope this helps in why Easyjet had to go down this road.

If this true, it was a very expensive mistake.

Let's assume that 10 people accepted the £100 offer (£1,000 = 1,200€) and the other 27 received the mandatory EU compensation (no extraordinary circumstances allowe in mitigation), 27 * 250€ = 6,750€.

Total so far 8,950€, then add on the cost of 'care' (hotac, meals etc.) and it becomes a big number, probably of roughly the same magnitude as the cos tof the extra 10k litres of fuel.

Assuming the normal max baggage of 20kg per pax, that means 250kg per passenger. A bit of overeating at Christmas is not unusual, but 250kg?

They unloaded all pax bags not just the 37 that got off so about 6-7 tonnes including those that got off. Just because a plane is loaded with 10 tonnes extra fuel does not mean it is 10 tonnes over max take off weight. It would be if the planned flight was to depart at max take off weight but expect it was not or they would have had to remove more people.

Rubik. I take it you're no pilot, though you're pretty good at flying to conclusions.
Who told you it was the pilot that "got his sums wrong"? Not even the daily hate published that gem of misinformation. He probably wanted about 6T. He couldn't possibly have made an error on that scale. 16T is more than he'd ever have carried in his career. Almost certainly a dozy refueller (and no one monitoring the refuel on the flight drck, admittedly).
Sadly the idiots who behaved in the way you proposed were the ones who really precipitated this PR disaster.

I don't think defuelling is possible anywhere in the UK. Airports just don't have the equipment for it, and when it is done the fuel cannot be used as it is presumed contaminated and is effectively scrap.

Thus the aircraft has to be lightened another way. Hugely embarassing, but feel free to suggest a better way to do it, because your wisdom would be of great use to airlines hitherto constrained by Newtonian physics. You'd get a Nobel for it too.

The pilot was only the messenger, he didn't make the decision, the Operations manager did. The poor pilot had to communicate it, one of the worst situations imaginable.
How else do you decide who to offload apart from last ones to check in? Which is less contentious, offloading another 20 pax or the bags? And do you tell the frogs before, or after you've drained the swamp? Someone has to make all those decisions on the other end of a phone a hundred miles away. He can't please everyone. That bags decision is a very hard call.

Short of paying a decent overnight allowance and being very sympathetic in the face of no doubt endless furious abuse there's very little the airline can do but apologise. They can't achieve the impossible.

Its a pity though that the passengers haven't the wit to see that arguing and wailing that it's not fair can't change the situation. 37 had to get off eventually, and chosing to fight or argue just makes a difficult situation doubly unpleasant. If they refuse to walk off than maybe they have to be carried or everyone is delayed there all day. But why screw everyone else up just because something doesn't suit you? That is plain selfishness.

I have every sympathy with all the passengers except those who thought that confrontation would achieve anything but make a difficult situation far far worse.

How about just doing the honourable thing and defuel. Take the delay, lose the fuel as contaminated and then take all those who payed their fare to their destination. Much better outcome.

What we are seeing once again is that too many people have lost their moral bearings and chase only profit at the expense of all else.

I wonder how long it will take them to get their money.........Would those taken off be able to claim hotel accomadation, food, the €250 and clothing allowance for the period until they go their luggage? And telephone calls?

Plus the PR disaster, too.

watch out low flying easyjet pilot (rosco)

Just answer the following questions instead posting stupid abuse. My answers in brackets.

1) can aircraft be defuelled? (yes)
2) is it a quick process to defuel 10 tons? (no) (this includes locating equipment)
3) are pilots involved in the process of calculating and accepting fuel loads? (yes)
4) who has the final say on fuel loads? (crew)

Please spare us the pilot was only a messenger nonsense.

The other issue is that the clothing allowance is unlikely to cover ski gear - so those going on a ski holiday had the choice to either pay out for appropriate kit and lose money, or lose out on skiing. Given that replacing ski clothing could easily run into £500 or more (jacket, ski pants, thermals etc). Far more expensive than a beach holiday. Is the airline obliged to cover this?

And if the allowance is at a set amount the passenger has a conundrum to solve. Replace the gear, but don't be fully reimbursed, but get to ski. Or don't replace it, don't get any money back (nothing to reimburse) and miss out on skiing.

Fuel error leaves plane too heavy to fly
 

http://http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-12157763

Easyjet fuel error leaves Birmingham plane too heavy

Thirty passengers were ordered off a plane which had been loaded with too much fuel to take off, it has emerged.

Easyjet has apologised and said it is compensating the passengers after the incident at Birmingham Airport on Boxing Day.

The passengers were unable to fly from the West Midlands city to Geneva because of the error.

Easyjet spokesman Andrew McConnell said the firm was investigating what had happened.

The firm asked for volunteers to leave the flight and offered them a payment and overnight accommodation, but only seven people took up the offer.

The last 30 passengers to board the flight were then told to get off the plane and catch a later flight.

Some baggage was also left behind when the plane eventually took off.

Easyjet is investigating claims that passengers were threatened with arrest after declining to leave the flight.

Mr McConnell said the firm wanted to sincerely apologise to the passengers affected.

"The cause of the weight restriction was due to a fuelling error, which resulted in the aircraft taking on too much fuel, and therefore being too heavy for take-off when fully loaded," he said.

"An investigation has been launched to understand how this happened."

Defueling is quite expensive...

But it can be done.

The flight plan that the crew had would have been computer generated with the route, it is all checked and the fuel on that would have been correct. Either the wrong number was written down and handed to the fuel guys or it was those pumping the fuel put in too much. The fuel figure written down and handed to the ground crew will be checked by both pilots. I expect they just put in too much fuel. Not the pilots fault, it does show on the display in the flight deck but you don't really pay attention to it that much as expect the number you give to be the amount loaded. If it was the wrong number written down then yes its the pilots fault but I think the case of just adding too much is more likely as fuel figures are very carefully cross checked by both pilots.

Pilots at fault at this one. Poor airmanship.
Insted of off-loading pax skipper could have "Extended" his engine run up checks! And held of on Rotating until he could see no more runway haha
I know the russians would have done it :}

In all serious though, Must have been a paper work error. Sh!t happens as they say. We are all human

Wouldn't have thought it was over MTOW, even with 10 tons extra gas, more likely over MLW. In which case, why not go and burn the extra until below MLW? Even if they had to lose all ten tonnes (unlikely), that would cost about $8000. Cheaper than compensation?

Fuel load for Birmingham-Geneva is in the region of 8 or 9 tons. The tanks on a standard A319 take 19 tons. Sounds like the plane was fuelled to full by mistake.
Refuelling today is done by the bowser drivers, not by engineers or pilots. They set the refuel panel, and then pump fuel until it stops. A power interrupt during refuelling can make the preselect figure to disappear and only an alert refueller will notice this.

At my airport, unloading 10 tons of fuel would mean finding an empty bowser. The bowsers are always kept full, so the fuel company would have to use one until it is empty. The bowsers hols 40000 litres, so unless you had a widebody waiting for fuel (not many in BHX) it would take 5 or 6 refuellings of an A320 to accomplish, before you could start the defuel. Takes awhile.