Rules are rules. I get it. And since I tend to be a rule follower, I REALLY get it. But some rules are just….dumb. 😉 Case in point…
Joe and I went to New York this past weekend. It was supposed to be a Friday-to-Sunday trip for him and a Friday-to-Monday one for me. As it turned out, Hurricane Ian made it a whirlwind getaway that started on Saturday, because our flight on Friday was canceled (and we didn’t have electricity in our house from the wee hours of Thursday morning through Friday afternoon anyway.). But our flights home went as planned. Well, sort of.
My flight on Monday was on JetBlue, out of JFK. I was originally supposed to depart at 1:20pm, but was delayed until 1:48pm. No big deal; that flight is historically delayed by 40 minutes to an hour or so, and I had nothing planned for the rest of the day after I landed.
We all loaded in, and then sat at the gate for an unusually long time, when the pilot finally made an announcement – the computer was messed up, so maintenance was going to shut everything off and restart it (because that’s how you always fix computer problems – you shut them off and restart them LOL). That solved the problem and we were ready to go on our way.
We started taxiing and, because it was JFK (and, who knows, maybe because it was raining), that took forever and a day. At one point we were in the same place for quite a while. And then the pilot made an announcement that air traffic control had changed our route… (I checked a weather app – we were at the edge of the tail end of Hurricane Ian so I assumed we’d have to go around him)
…and he wanted to load the gas tanks some more to ensure we’d have enough fuel. So we were going to go back to the gate to top off. Back to the gate we went. The pilot said it would only take 10 minutes or so.
Half an hour later, we were STILL at the gate. Pilot makes another announcement – the crew that’s supposed to lead us out from the gate still isn’t here. They’ve asked 3 times but we’re still waiting.
Finally – FINALLY – we’re ready to taxi again. And then the flight attendants made what has to be the dumbest, but necessary question ever:
Ladies and gentlemen, we’re finally all ready to go! But we’ve now been on the plane without taking off for just over 3 hours. According to the FAA, we have to ask if there are any passengers who want to leave the plane. So if anyone wants to leave the plane, you can do so now. Or we can close the doors right now and we’ll be on our way. Does anyone want to leave the plane?
No one took them up on their offer. 😉
We finally departed the gate and took off. We landed at 6:48pm, 3 hours and 8 minutes after originally scheduled.
Again, I get why the question needed to be asked. But under the circumstances, it was still a pretty dumb question. 😉
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5 comments
Because if we do not ask and an FAA ghost rider is on board we can get in serious trouble. We know it seems ridiculous but we could lose our jobs if we don’t follow faa protocol
Yup. As I said, I get it. “Rules are rules” and you gotta do what you’re required to do. But it’s still a silly situation.
Because the question was asked at approximately the scheduled arrival time I would have raised my hand and said, “Yes. I’d like to get off the plane in Miami (or wherever the destination was).
Oh I get it. Maybe she thought there were going to be MORE delays? Or the plane was going to crash? You’d better take her advice and get off NOW.
JetBlue was the airline that had aircraft sitting on the runway for hours during a snow/ice storm in Feb. 2007. Because of JetBlue leaving people in aircraft for hours and hours (in some instances, overnight), the FAA enacted rules to make sure it never happens again. So you better believe JetBlue will never violate that rule.