Wednesday, December 28, 2022

A Tough Christmas 2022

First, to those travelers and their families / friends inconvenienced by the recent events, I am very sorry. I recognize the difficulties of not making it to a destination on time, losing track of luggage and putting up with long lines and waiting in sometimes uncomfortable conditions.

The reasons seem to generally boil down to:

    1. Very bad weather across the country.

    2. A technology system employed by the company that was unable to handle those bad weather disruptions.

I flew home yesterday from Austin to Phoenix at 7 am. We had no passengers in the cabin other than two extra pilots and one flight attendant.

Why would this happen? There were hundreds of people with tickets waiting to travel on this route for over 40 hours. Every non-stop the day prior was canceled.

It was simple: we needed two other flight attendants on board to carry a full load of passengers. The ones scheduled to work the flight never made it to Austin the night before. 143 people in seats require 3 trained flight attendants. No others were available and the decision was made to move the aircraft back to Phoenix where it could, so to speak, stay in the fight to return the airline to normal operations.

Least bad choice in the situation.

I was on my 5th day of working what was originally a 3 day trip.

Things started to look difficult on the night of the 23rd. We were running late into Oakland. We had several passengers requesting we hold their connecting flight to Oregon. Unfortunately that flight departed before we arrived. We will often delay connecting flights but in this case I am guessing that the crew was running out of time to work. Another inflexible rule is crew rest. We are allowed to work only a certain number of hours during the day. Often a replacement crew can be assigned, but it wasn’t this time. I think the entire system was pretty well stressed at this point, 2 days before Christmas.

The next day I reported for work in the morning and waited for a while in a base lounge. There were sandwiches and donuts and Santa hats available to those of waiting out delays. No supervisors, though.

Back to the weather. It was horrendous in areas. Very cold and very windy in many states. One of my co-pilots said he saw a mechanic trying to work in those conditions the day before. Simply putting oil in an engine was very hard. He said the guy could barely get his fingers to work opening a latch.

A lot of equipment was frozen. Baggage handlers and tug drivers worked in extreme conditions. Ice slows down everything. And while we deal with this stuff every winter, the huge arctic blast of air that arrived the other day was very unusual. Not just because of the temperatures and winds but also because of the huge area it affected.

Another storm was affecting the Pacific Northwest. Freezing rain hit Seattle, Portland, and Spokane. It shut down those airports for extended times. The 737 is a fantastic machine. It handles very bad weather very well. Freezing rain is another matter. We are not allowed to takeoff or land in it when the intensity is reported greater than light. This is a rare occurrence.

More bad weather was hitting Southern California. The clouds and visibility were too low for safe landings in San Diego on the night of the 23rd. Many planes had to divert to other airports. Again, a rare occurrence in this part of the country

I can’t speak to the technology issues that let us down this time. There are some very smart people who will analyze all this going forward. I can tell you I spent about 4 hours total on phone hold with my schedulers. Changes will be made to address that.

Through all this, the passengers I saw were amazing and patient. Maybe it was the spirit of the season. I am very proud of the people who fly on us and help me earn a living doing something I love. It is a job that keeps me happy.

Except, I guess, when there’s a lot of ice, wind, storms, low clouds, sitting around airports, waiting in hotels and most heartbreaking of all: walking through the back of an empty 737 at 36,000 feet.


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