7 hour ground delay - Police board to calm pax?

Originally posted by Denzil
jerseyboy, i guess it would be a good idea for you to spend the day as an aircraft engineer, then you might understand. Modern aircraft are very reliable, but can still have faults. The airlines are all run by accountants who hate spending $XXX on a spare part that just sits on a rack at Heathrow, hence parts are shipped from station to station or taken "on loan" from other airlines.....

Exactly what I was just thinking!
As an Engineer I know that management will only hear what they want to hear. The conversations probably go something like this:

Manager: " How long to fix the problem?"
Engineer: "30 minutes if we had the part, but you in your wisdom decided we didn't need to hold an expensive inventory of this part, and we can't get it here in less than 5 hours"
Manager: "Not good enough, get it fixed in an hour"
Manager: "Ok we're good to start boarding the problem will be fixed in time"

Meanwhile the part is put on a courier bike from RR in Derby and is at the mercy of the traffic!

And the management probably kept telling the crew that the problem would be fixed in the next 30minutes, and the engineer kept reminding management that they can not fix the problem without the part.

[preiffer]

It seems that not only have the "Gulf Times" picked up on it, the story has also granted VS the status of "Dummy of the Week" on one website. [:0]

Originally posted by preiffer
It seems that not only have the "Gulf Times" picked up on it, the story has also granted VS the status of "Dummy of the Week" on one website. [:0]

Sheesh!! I think I would want to riot too if I was stuck on the blooming thing for that length of time - sometimes the decision making process just takes your breath away!!

Good spot Paul!

[Darren Wheeler]

If the world was run by engineers and not accountants, everything would be on-time, work properly everytime and only go wrong when bean counters came near it. But it would cost 3 times as much.

Guess what I am..........

Since when has sitting in Y been more comfortable than sitting in the terminal?

Those are paper thin, well I guess you'd call them lies really, from the PR people at VS. Why cant they just say that at the time they made the decision it was likely to cost them less by keeping the pax on the plane.

Originally posted by Darren Wheeler
If the world was run by engineers and not accountants, everything would be on-time, work properly everytime and only go wrong when bean counters came near it. But it would cost 3 times as much.

Guess what I am..........

[oo]
My last project was "Low Budget" in china where you faced potential of Million dollars a day down time for the sake of not carrying a spare 1 dollar fuse in the stores.
It is a breath of fresh air working for my current middle eastern client where they happily spend money on the best technology to avoid any unexpected downtime.
Still, we Engineers are a creative bunch and even with the lack of 1 dollar fuses in china we managed to keep everything running!

[Darren Wheeler]

Yep. Amazing how useful a paperclip can be.... [:w]

Originally posted by Denzil
jerseyboy, i guess it would be a good idea for you to spend the day as an aircraft engineer, then you might understand. Modern aircraft are very reliable, but can still have faults. The airlines are all run by accountants who hate spending $XXX on a spare part that just sits on a rack at Heathrow, hence parts are shipped from station to station or taken "on loan" from other airlines.

As for offloading the pax, if this takes place the aircraft has to have a security check & there is not always anywhere for them to go to.

Bottom line is that it's better to fly 7 hours late in a serviceable aircraft, that will not be tech at outstation than on time with a serious defect.

Gatwick Airport has a very large aircraft parking area and remote stands. And I am 99.9% sure about the fact that the engineer is not to blame and indeed I did not even indicate this but what I am saying is 7 hours on an aircraft waiting for a tech to be fixed is way too much there should be either a safe guard for all Pax and crew to be offloaded after a reasonable time for the sake of comfort and safety. If a mechanic left you in a car for 7 hours whilst he fixed your engine I am sure you would be shouting about it. And my second point is the aircraft was tech before passengers were boarded. Maybe it would have been far more customers friendly and in this instance less costly to not board tech aircraft until a tech problem is sorted.

Originally posted by Darren Wheeler
If the world was run by engineers and not accountants, everything would be on-time, work properly everytime and only go wrong when bean counters came near it. But it would cost 3 times as much.

Guess what I am..........

I guess it takes alsorts to make a world - but if it was run by engineers then no new product would EVER get released!!![:w]

Originally posted by MarkJ

I guess it takes alsorts to make a world - but if it was run by engineers then no new product would EVER get released!!![:w]

Of course.... "If it ain't broke, dont' fix it"... So why keep developing new products, when the old one does the job just fine!

As to the comments 'the point was that the plane was tech when the passengers baorded'......etc etc. In this modern day when everyone wants to fly for as cheap as possible, planes have to be on the ground for a short a time as possible. Now it is a normal day at main base like LHR or LGW, when planes are being worked on by engineers right up till departure time. Sometimes the passengers will be aware of this, more often than not they will not have any idea work is still ongoing. The skill of the Engineering is to know how long the work will take and to do their best to avoid a delay. Please realise that the Engineer has a LEGAL Responsibility to carry out his/her work properly. They can be prosecuted in a court of law if things go wrong. Sometimes they get their 'time' judgment wrong and there is a delay. Sometimes the unexpected happens. Many a time work has started on the aircraft before the arriving passengers have even got off the plane...However, having made this point, I believe from what I know of this incident, things could have been handled a bit better, but if after say 5 hours everyone is taken off the plane, then 30 minutes later it is fixed, by the time everyone has been rounded up and more security checks carried out, then its to late. Where as if everyone is still on board then is 'close the doors and go'..