Passengers fume as sleepy BA crew delays flight (idiots!!)

[Cannikin]

Ok..my opinion before the article, being familiar with aviation, I can say: I can understand being aggravated at the inconvenience of it all, BUT if you WANT to fly with an exhausted crew, you are an idiot who is flirting with danger! I bet AT LEAST half the crashes I've ever read in the NTSB reports had 'crew fatigue' as one of the leading factors. It is NOT SAFE TO FLY with an exhausted crew! And I'm sure a replacement crew was a little hard to come by in New Delhi!

Ok...I'm finished. Now on to the story:

Pilot reportedly refuses to fly after noisy night at New Delhi hotel

NEW DELHI - Passengers on a British Airways flight from New Delhi to London faced a 13-hour delay as the pilot felt he was too sleepy after a noisy night in a New Delhi hotel, newspapers reported on Monday.

Angry passengers were offloaded from the plane early Sunday morning after the pilot refused to fly until he caught up with his sleep.

"The crew hadn't had enough rest ... the entire crew had a disturbed night," Radhika Raikhy, spokeswoman for BA, was quoted in the Hindustan Times as saying, adding the airline's safety rules do not allow its crew to operate in such conditions.

The flight, BA 142, finally took off 13 hours later to the fury of passengers who were sent to city hotels to wait out the delay as the crew rested, newspapers reported. A passenger reported "Due to a shortage of rooms, some people, including me, had to share rooms with strangers," he was quoted in The Times of India as saying. (Was he not sharing a plane full of strangers? Would he rather have stayed with them in a hospital or pile of debris?)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18134619/


Fly safe! Keep the blue side up!

[Little Wing]

1. Good for him and the crew

and maybe BA won't put them up in a shitty hotel

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

6. Yeah, the whole thing could be a mini-strike

to get lodging moved to a nicer hotel.

It's worth a try!

[av8rdave]

2. I have to second the comments about the crew making a good choice

Every flight I work, I have to sign a written statement that says I consider all factors (INCLUDING MY PHYSICAL CONDITION (emphasis mine)) to be satisfactory for the conduct of this flight.

The safety of the passengers comes ahead of everything else, including schedule and convenience. While on a layover, I make every effort to be well rested by the time I show to fly, but sometimes circumstances beyond your control can arise that prevent that.

[huskerlaw]

3. Agreed.

But 13 hours? Wouldn't 8 or so have been sufficient?

[av8rdave]

4. That would depend on a lot of things...

It probably had a lot to do with when they could next get an air traffic slot. We don't know if the crew came to the airport or not, but if so, there would be a LOT of time involved in getting them back to a hotel and back. It may have also been affected by rebookings, catering contracts, etc., etc. I can just about guarantee that what time the flight actually departed was NOT the crew's decision.

[huskerlaw]

7. Probably true

but I can understand getting increasingly frustrated once it was apparent that the problem was no longer an over-tired crew.

[skygazer]

5. Well, I can understand being frustrated

Just because people are often on a schedule and it sucks to have it disrupted. But I can't think that I'd blame the pilot and crew for being conscientious enough to realize they were in no condition to fly. I'd just be frustrated in general. :shrug:

Well, actually, I personally probably wouldn't even be frustrated. I'm one of those people who kind of enjoys having my plans - especially travel plans - disrupted. I've volunteered to be bumped on several occasions and on a couple had to take a flight into a completely different airport. Which was fun.