re: American Airlines passengers were left 'sobbing' after being held on a hot plane for 6 hrs

Since 777Tiger has been worn down!

There is a delicate balance between not giving you the opportunity to deplane every three hours (which is what the federal regulation requires) and throwing our hands up and letting everybody off every time we have a 30 min delay. Every situation is different. I wish I always knew exactly how long the delay will be, but sometimes the 15 minutes turns into 3 hours?

I try to use 20+ years of experience to massage the situation and do everything in my power to lessen the pain, but some days everything comes up up craps. With 2000+ departures a day every once in awhile you have a bad experience.

A maintenance delay can turn into an aircraft swap which now needs the correct amount of gas and new flight plan/ paperwork. The catering is now incorrect and your luggage has to be unloaded/reloaded. We’ve now lost our ATC departure/ arrival slot. The only available gate at the airport is reserved for the 777 headed to LHR that’s pulling up in 30 minutes. Maybe I know the line of thunderstorms is going to hit in 45 minutes or we need to get airborne in an hour or our destination will be weathered out or closed when we get there. Maybe the pilots or flight attendants are about to time out and strand you in BFE if we don’t close the door and leave the gate. Maybe my spider senses are tingling and I know we should get some more gas so we have time to hold going into Newark so we don’t divert and strand you overnight in BFE?

Sorry the holes in the Swiss cheese line up occasionally and screw us over, but it’s not because we hate the customers

On a side note, I can’t believe how many upvotes I’ve given Tuscaloosa ITT! :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: