National Post (National Edition)
At least the dog got water in jetliner tarmac delay
Ground crews unaware of passenger needs
OTTAWA • Ground crews working two Air Transat flights that faced high-profile tarmac delays this summer say the pilots didn’t tell them, nor were they aware, of imminent fuel needs aboard one of the aircraft, nor were they asked for water for the passengers.
One of the two international flights ran out of fuel during the hours-long delay, causing a shutdown of the air conditioning system, leading to rising cabin temperatures, a child vomiting before making it to the aircraft bathrooms, tensions over lack of water and, ultimately, a 911 call from one of the passengers.
Representatives from First Air, the ground handlers for Air Transat at the Ottawa airport, say they did order fuel, but it wasn’t possible to get it to the aircraft because they were parked on the taxiway at the far end of the airport.
Owen Prosser, a First Air ramp co-ordinator who worked the Air Transat flights, says the pilot of the plane that ran out of fuel never told him how desperate the situation was.
“I never received any phone calls from the captains,” Prosser said.
“He never told me he needed fuel. He did tell me there was a dog in the (cargo) pit that needed water.”
Customs agents opened the cargo hold and gave the dog water during the delay.
The captain said he considered keeping passengers aboard the delayed aircraft to be the lesser of two evils.
Allowing passengers to disembark would have only made additional delays more likely, as opposed to the 30 minutes he was repeatedly being told it would take to refuel, Yves Saint-Laurent told a Canadian Transportation Agency hearing in Ottawa.
What’s more, it would have taken additional hours to get everyone off the plane and then find a fleet of buses to transport them to a hotel for the night or to Montreal, the plane’s ultimate destination.
Denis Lussier, who was piloting the other flight, said he, too, was repeatedly told the wait to refuel would only be 30 minutes more. Both pilots cited a series of circumstances beyond their control — other planes jumping the refuelling queue, as well as delays getting and connecting external power generators — that only made matters worse.
Saint-Laurent said he would have made different decisions had he known the delay would last more than three hours. Nonetheless, he said, most passengers expressed their gratitude to him after they arrived in Montreal.
An airline executive said eight flights were delayed on that day for more than three hours, and none of the flights diverted to the national capital decided to unload their aircraft. Yet Air Transat was being singled out, likely because of the 911 call, which attracted media attention, said Christophe Hennebelle, vice-president corporate affairs.
“This is the result of a chain of events, of a domino effect based on the actions of all the players,” Hennebelle said. “If there had been better co-ordination and better communication between the players, this might not have happened.”