9 Hours on a Runway Because of Unions?
Unions — By Harrison on August 17, 2009 at 12:00 pm
Uh... maybe no!
In a recent story about being stuck on a plane there was an interesting part that didn’t appear until the end… I’m sensing union regulations here (and another example why they’re bad):
When Link Christin boarded a Continental Airlines flight from Houston to the Twin Cities on Friday night, he expected to be on the ground in about three hours and ready for a comfy bed.
Instead, he was among 47 passengers who spent the night trapped inside a small airplane, parked at the Rochester airport, complete with crying babies and the aroma of over-used toilets.
Airline regulations wouldn’t let them get off the plane so they sat there hour upon hour… waiting. Why did this happen?
The airline crew on the plane reached their maximum work hours in the air, so another crew had to be flown in.
Note: It was brought to my attention, in the comments, that the FAA is likely the culprit not a union!
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14 Comments
Unions, the incompetence of the airline officials and because of the supposed lack of TSA personnel, who have already gone home. The airport officials now say that the passengers could have been transferred to a secure area, fed and hydrated, without the need for another security check.
All in all, it was a huge screw up all around.
politcus´s last blog ..Does Democracy Require Craziness?
I agree with you! But to the best of my knowledge all of those agencies/people you mentioned work in a union. I’d be willing to be one union is in charge of security, another transporting passengers, etc.
Unions by definition are not necessarily stupid and evil. This was simply done by stupid people.
politcus´s last blog ..Does Democracy Require Craziness?
Well here in SF 2 unions for BART signed the contract 1 didn’t (7% pay cut) so they were going to go on strike and leave the Bay Area in paralysis… typical union tactics to hold people hostage.
Unions by definition are a group of people. Groupthink by definition is that people who otherwise aren’t stupid will do stupid things because this stupid action is condoned, facilitated, or encouraged by a group. Unions are vehicles for encouraging groupthink, and therefore, they are inherently stupid.
In this case I would imagine that it isn’t people being stupid. Instead we are seeing a rather cunning evasion of responsibility. I just finished Atlas Shrugged and this exact same thing happens in a different industry. This instance isn’t just an anomaly; incidents like this are part of the mythology of organized labor. When they happen in the real world, we are just witnessing a confirmation of inherent Truth.
Unions—hold onto your seat, Harrison—are antiquated. Yes, this opinion comes from me, a Liberal. Their time of relevance has long since passed and their tactics are often the very downfall of labor.
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Something rare has happened… we AGREE!
I think I can shed some light on this since I work full time for a major airline (non-union employee). The main culprit here is government. The FAA only allows pilots to fly a certain number of hours in a given period. It’s similar to the regulations truck drivers have to follow. Most pilots work for 3-4 days and then they have a few days off. If something happens, such as an extended weather delay or an air traffic control delay (another government agency), it causes them to work more hours than they were supposed to and they time out. According to FAA regulations,not union, they can not fly anymore. While I am usually opposed to most unions and union policy I’m certain this a government regulation problem and not the union. I have dealt with this same problem in the airport were I work when we have been hit with bad storms or heavy fog. The majority of delays and annoying aspects of flying are caused by government rules and involvement and weather, not the airlines.
Have you ever had to sit on the tarmac for 2 or 3 hours before your plane took off? You know who is behind that? The government run air traffic control system. It is too outdated to handle the amount of air traffic currently in the US. The government system gets backlogged and the controllers ground aircraft until they can catch up. This makes planes have to get in line and wait so they can finally take off when the government employee tells them they can. Airlines hate this because it throws flight schedules off and causes delays through the entire system because aircraft and flight crews get stuck in cities when they are needed elsewhere. It also causes problems like crews timing out as in the story you mentioned. I would love to bash the unions but government is what really makes airline travel so annoying.
Forgotten Liberty´s last blog ..The White House is Backing Away From the Public Option in Health Care Reform. Victory for Conservatives?
Thanks for setting me straight! We’ll give the unions a pass on this one!!
It is actually FAA regulations that limit the amount of time pilots and crew can be in the air flying. They are required to have a certain amount of down time between flights.
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I stand by my statement. Just substitute the words “government bureaucracies” for the word “unions.” Both are groups of people who create rules that prevent them from having to think.
It is ironic, yet understandable, that flying – an act that is supposed to symbolize freedom and independence – is one of the most regulated.
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“Dear God,
Please let this never happen to me, for I will go batshit crazy and break out of a window,
Amen”
The Gov strikes again! Hey thanks, FAA, for making these people’s lives a living hell for 9 hours.
Alright, now lets put The Gov in charge of healthcare!
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This story was the perfect storm because one set of government regulations (FAA) were keeping the crew from taking off and another set of government regulations (TSA) were keeping them from getting off the plane. The sad thing is the airline always gets blamed for these situations and it hurts their business when it isn’t even their fault. One time, at the airport where I work, we had a plane take a 2 hour delay early one Sunday morning because a passenger broke a light bulb when he tried to shove his over-sized carryon bag into the overhead. Per FAA regulations a certified FAA mechanic had to come and remove the bit of light bulb left in the socket and remove the little pieces of glass that had fallen in the overhead bin. The captain or first officer was perfectly capable of doing this but it would have been against the law. It was 6:00am on a Sunday so we had to call our mechanic and wake him up. Then we had to wait for him to get dressed and drive in. When he got there all he did was take a rag and clean the glass up and sign the repair log book. It took under a minute to clean up but because of government regulations passenger had to wait over 2 hours. Of course all the passenger were mad at us (the employees) and they were saying they are never going to fly our airline again because stuff like this always happens. The government controls every single aspect of the airline industry.
Forgotten Liberty´s last blog ..The White House is Backing Away From the Public Option in Health Care Reform. Victory for Conservatives?
Maybe your government structure is antiguated as well..)))
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