re: A child had to use a bag as a toilet in the aisle on Delta flight.....

And they probably paid thousands to fly and shite in a bag. Between stories like this, and cancelled/delayed flights, we’re driving from LA to PA over Thanksgiving. I’ve been pricing flights for months, and for 4 of us to fly, and deal with luggage, airports, delays, rental cars, etc, it’s just not worth it. I’d rather be in control of our route and stops than be at the mercy of the airlines, especially on such a busy travel holiday week.

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True to form, we spend less than 40m on the ground, everyone drinking beer. He told the FAs to secure the carts, and he was "going to drive it like he stole it" in order to make the landing window in ATL. We rolled off the curtain/taxiway onto the runway without stopping and hit it. That's a Captain.

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That had to be a fun flight. No nonsense and probably straight up like a rocket.

Side note, this must have been a while back. I don’t think any us airlines are still running passenger service on MD-80s except for maybe USAJet…? I’m curious now. Question for the OT pilots I guess!

I’ll get arrested next time it happens to me just to get my family off, last time was horrible

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Doesn’t make this statement wrong

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Actually, it does.

I’m going to guess there is more to this story than all that’s being told. It’s rare that something like this happens on the international side of the business, although one could argue that the Caribbean flights are quasi-international due to their stage length, but you still need to clear customs. Domestically, the airlines were (and still may be) hyper-sensitive to the tarmac delay rule LINK and when I was flying domestically we would start receiving messages increasing in frequency on how to “recover” the flight when the time limits approached. The penalty for going over the limit is substantial, I believe $27,500 for each passenger.

A quick look at Delta’s schedule from Nassau (the article just said “the Bahamas” so fair assumption) to ATL shows 2 flights a day; one a 757 and the other a 737-900, both of which hold close to 200 people. Do the math.
Not every airport is capable of handling every airplane in a fleet and when weather gets bad- and it could have been bad for multiple airports in a large area, the airports that are used as alternates get fewer and fewer and multiple diverts can overwhelm them.
Not defending the airlines - the bean counters cut to the bone during COVID and they lost a lot of seasoned and talented people in every division (perhaps dispatch let them down here) so a lot of what is happening is self-induced, but it’s rarely as simple as some of these news articles make it seem.

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Stories like this are why I opted to drive nine & a half hours to Peoria this week instead of driving

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I opted to quote instead of quoting

My last few flights have been annoying. I am one non-working a/c on the tarmac away from driving too Darth

Left the plane sitting for hours because customs had to process the passengers. Meanwhile the boarder is wide open. If an American wants to go on vacation we cannot trust you to sit inside an airport you must stay on the plane and crap your pants.

My issue is the delays are getting damn close to making me miss connections. So if that happens and I am not on the next flight (I have heard horror stories from other passengers) then I am about to be driving that honda all over the country.