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December 29, 2005
Pet Peeves with Pax
The Sweetness and I recently returned from a trip that, to say the least, was a rather mixed performance for Northwest Airlines. On the first flight, the crew (or the fuel people at YHZ) rather bizarrely caused the aircraft to be overfueled, and we had to burn kerosene on the ground for 30 minutes, contributing to unnecessary global warming. The second flight was cancelled and we had to rebook to Washington to get to VA in time for my sister's college graduation. For some reason this involuntary change in plans was deemed a "voluntary separation" from our luggage, which blithely continued on to RIC without us. (At that point we were in distant Blacksburg, washing our underwear in the sink.) On the way back they got the customs declaration all fouled up and we had to spend 2 hours on the plane while they unloaded, re-recorded, and re-loaded the bags.
Yup, no question, the airline sucked by any objective standard. I'm no apologist for Northwest. Yet when flying, it could have been worse. Much, much worse. Like fatally worse. And something like a dozen of my fellow passengers failed to consider this when they bitched and moaned about our plight. They had a right to be mad, but their complaints were misplaced and, if acted on, would have gotten us killed. Here's a sampling:
- "Why do we have to sit here? Can't we just leave?" - overheard on the first flight, which was overfueled. The captain had already explained that the airplane was over its maximum takeoff weight. Actually, the aircraft was over its maximum taxi weight. It would have been illegal to even go on a ground tour of the airport while we burned off the fuel, let alone take off. Moreover, it would have been stupid in the extreme, because operating an aircraft over the manufacturer's weight limits automatically makes you a test pilot and your passengers guinea pigs. More weight means less speed, more runway required, and less lift -- at a given point, infinitely so (i.e. the airplane just won't fly). The pilot doesn't know where that point is, and neither do I. Do you feel lucky? Do you remember this crash in Charlotte? Or the unfortunate Aaliyah, who contributed to her own demise by insisting on violating the laws of physics?
Here's the proper question for the airline: "Couldn't you have siphoned off the extra fuel?" Maybe the answer is no. It was a bonehead mistake that isn't usually planned for. They obviously didn't want to piss off any particular passenger by throwing him off the flight after he'd already boarded (it likely would have been a "him" because they needed to get rid of a couple hundred pounds). The waste of fuel seemed pretty ridiculous, but compared to the alternative, maybe Halifax could stand to be a little less chilly...
- "They said the flight was overweight and they needed volunteers to bump, but there are empty seats on this plane!" - This howler is particularly inane. Obviously the airplane has empty seats because those are the seats the volunteers occupied! There are three basic things you load on any flight that impact the weight: passengers, cargo, and fuel. On this flight, weather at the destination was not very good. Visibility was bad enough, in fact, that the law (and common sense) require that you have enough fuel to fly there, try to land, fly to an alternate airport, try to land, and then fly for something like an hour beyond that (the standard can differ from airline to airline). The airline has no legal alternative but to comply with the fuel directive. Trouble is, they usually don't have to because most of the time (90%) the weather at the destination is good enough not to warrant that level of fuel. So when they do, they have to get rid of some passengers and/or luggage. Getting rid of fuel isn't an option unless you want your flight to become a glider at some point. Incidentally, in the summer a similar thing can happen to payload even in good weather, if the air temperature rises to a level that causes degraded engine performance.
Now, you could ask, "why did you fill the plane to such a level if you thought there was a 10% chance you'd have to kick people off?" I'd say 90% is a good risk, personally, so long as there are other flights to accomodate the excess passengers. The problem lies in how they often overbook the plane, so that it will be full even after the average number of no-shows are subtracted. In that spirit, I have a more relevant question: "why would you assume the average no-show number obtains at Christmastime? How many people really want to skip their flight on December 24?"
- "They say they cancelled our flight because of fog, but I just talked to my sister/mother/Aunt Edna and there's no fog at her house!" "How come airline X is flying into ABC but our airline isn't?" "If weather is so bad at ABC how come they're still flying to DEF?" - Fog is, strictly speaking, a cloud that forms at ground level. Just as we don't expect the same cloud overhead as we drive between two cities, or even in the same city, we wouldn't expect fog to plague an entire town at once. It's an unfortunate consequence of an airfield's microclimate (being tree-free and relatively flat) that makes fog so prevalent in the very places we wish it would leave. But it's often there, and I hope we can all appreciate the difficulty of trying to put an object traveling at 180 mph onto a piece of asphalt 150 feet wide when you can only see two car-lengths in front of you. Think about when you drive in fog at 60mph and you suddenly see brake lights in front of you. How much visibility, in time, do you have to start braking? Not much more than a second, I'd say. Divide that by three for an airplane, and consider that a pilot is doing much more than simply applying brakes when landing, and it's easy to see why we don't usually fly in bad weather like that.
If you are landing in those conditions, it's because you have three things on your side: 1) an airport with a Category III Instrument Landing System; 2) an airplane that supports Cat III approaches, including autoland; and 3) a qualified crew. Cat III approaches are only available at a clutch of elite passenger hubs worldwide. Your airport may have Cat II, which will get you down to 1/4 mile visibility. But most have only Cat I at 1/2 mile, which often isn't enough for widespread fog conditions. If you've got 2) you've got 3), naturally, but not every aircraft has one. That other airline may be flying a 767 when you're on a little Jetstream; if you gotta be there, it pays to check out the equipment on the route before you purchase the ticket.
Posted by The Greatness at December 29, 2005 11:11 AM