British Airways computer glitch posts super low cost flights to India

by Katie Hammel on

Late Friday night, an alert went out on Twitter. Fares to Mumbai, India, from locations all over the US were being offered at rock bottom prices on British Airways. Flights from Chicago to Mumbai were just $550 per person.

I quickly logged on to Orbitz, selected my dates, and clicked purchase. I received an email from Orbitz confirming my purchase and then got to work planning the trip. My husband was out with friends and had left his cell phone at home, so I was hoping he’d come home just tipsy enough to not mind that I’d just bought $1100 worth of plane tickets without discussing it with him first. Besides, he is accustomed to me buying plane tickets on a whim, just because they are on sale.

Luckily, he was just as excited as I was….until Saturday morning, when I received an email from Orbitz saying that due to “limited quantities”, our order could not be fulfilled. As it turns out, it’s because the fare never should have existed. Someone at BA obviously messed up (how’d you like to be that person come Monday morning?) and entered the wrong number. The fare should have been more like $1550 per person. The fat finger fare was corrected, but not before several people, myself included, had bought tickets at the faulty price.

Word on the web is that tickets bought before the error was discovered will be honored, if they were purchased on British Airways. So far it seems that those of us who used Orbitz will be out of luck. Christopher Elliott posted the story on his blog, along with a response from the company. They say British Airways didn’t honor the purchases made with Orbitz ,so people who tried to book that way will not receive tickets.

This isn’t the first time a technical error has crushed some budget traveler’s dreams. In February, Northwest refused to honor $0 fares that were “purchased” online in error. So next time you see a fare that seems to good to be true, watch out. It might not be.

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Plane Answers: Why can’t airlines wait at the gate vs. in a queue on the taxiway?

by Kent Wien on

Welcome to Gadling’s feature, Plane Answers, where our resident airline pilot, Kent Wien, answers your questions about everything from takeoff to touchdown and beyond. Have a question of your own? Ask away!

Mike asks:

Hello Kent,

There are times when I find myself on a plane that is waiting in the queue to depart and I wonder if this makes sense. After all, having 10 airplanes push from gates only to idle their engines for 20-30 minutes waiting to take off does not seem to be a good idea for an industry where fuel is the largest single cost.

Can you explain who decides when an aircraft pushes back and queues up to take off? Is there a reason that airplanes get in line to depart as opposed to just being assigned a number and waiting at the gate until it’s their turn (other than if the gate is needed for an arriving plane)?

It doesn’t really make sense, Mike. But some airports have adopted a gate hold program that does just what you’re talking about; hold airplanes at the gate until the line begins to clear out. London and Paris both use this technique. However, even after holding at the gate for 15 minutes to an hour, we still often find ourselves waiting in line for departure as we approach the runway. It’s simply a matter of the required spacing for departures combined with the number of flights scheduled to leave at the peak times that causes this.
There is also a concern by ATC that there may be no aircraft ready at the end of the runway for departure if they’re held at the gate at the last minute, which would result in even more inefficiency.

Other airports (especially in the U.S.) will advise flights of a ‘wheels up’ time, allowing the pilots to push back at their discretion as long as they can be ready by the time given by ATC. This works to some extent, but flight crews are paid only after they push back from the gate, so the incentive to begin taxiing early is something that admittedly factors into their decision.

To prevent this, our company has a system in place to start the pay clock for pilots and flight attendants once an ATC delay is given which, in theory, would eliminate this incentive. In practice, many pilots don’t trust the system to log the time or have been denied the extra pay in the past and would rather take the delay off the gate – possibly to an area where ATC will allow them to shut down the engines.

Richard Branson at Virgin made an attempt to think outside the box and looked into a tug system that could tow the airplanes to the end of the runway. Such a system could have saved hundreds of pounds of fuel per flight. Unfortunately, it was discovered that the extra wear and tear on the nose wheel would cost more than the savings generated by the reduced fuel burn.

Do you have a question about something related to the pointy end of an airplane? Ask Kent and maybe he’ll use it for next Monday’s Plane Answers. Check out his other blog, Cockpit Chronicles and travel along with him at work.

Galley Gossip: Flight attendants under investigation for bomb threat

by Heather Poole on

Like I mentioned in my last post, Fly-Girls, a flight attendant docu-series airing soon, it’s rarely ever a good thing when flight attendants are in the news…

It happened a few seconds after the Captain on my flight from Miami to New York introduced himself and then asked if I had brewed a pot of coffee. I had, in fact. I always do whenever I’m working the galley. I poured him a cup and told him my name as we boarded a full flight on a 757.

After taking a sip, he whipped off his hat and hung it on a hook against the back of the cockpit door. Nonchalantly he said, “Did you hear about the bomb threat today?”

Immediately I stopped counting meals, chicken with rice and cheese tortellini, and spun around to face him. “What happened?”

“A flight attendant found a note in the lavatory. It said there was a bomb on board the flight.” And with that he was gone, too busy chatting away with a mechanic who had stepped into the cockpit.

Of course the first thing that came to mind when the pilot uttered those two oh-so-innocent words, “flight attendant”, was oh no, please don’t let it be a flight attendant who wrote the note. The next thing I thought was, I wonder if the crew was on reserve.

The only reason I suspected the crew was because something similar had happened a few years back. Even in that case, so many years ago, when I heard on the news that the flight attendant under investigation had been on reserve when she left a note in the lav, I had to laugh. Just because being on reserve does make one a little bit crazy. At times. But usually not that crazy, not bomb writing crazing of course!

When I mentioned to a friend, and lawyer, what had happened on the American Airlines flight from Boston to Miami, as well as whom I hoped the suspects would not turn out to be, he said, “Tell me, how does ‘we will get fired’ ‘we will go to prison’ get left out of the thought process before writing that kind of note?”

Good question.

Then I reminded him, as well as myself, that the flight attendants in question are innocent until proven guilty.

Two days later I am now unhappy to report that what I had prayed would not be the case seems to be kinda-sorta happening. The crew is now officially under investigation. The details are as follows…

  • A flight attendant found a message scrawled on the bathroom cabinet that read, “Bomb on board – Boston-Miami”
  • The aircraft was evacuated and luggage was searched by a bomb sniffing dog at an isolated area at Logan Airport. No bomb was found
  • FBI interrogated two crew members; a male and female flight attendant
  • Passengers were transferred to another flight and continued on to Miami

And here’s the kicker, the same two flight attendants under investigation for this bomb threat were on another flight from Miami to Boston just two weeks ago when a similar bomb threat was found. I kid you not.

Again, innocent until proven guilty.

But if these two are guilty, just how dumb are they to do it (period) on two different flights they’re crewing – two weeks apart! Do you think maybe, just maybe, they might be dating? I mean how else do two people get involved in something like this? Or do you think they’re roommates? Best friends? Or two disgruntled coworkers who just so happened to hold the same line last month? Seriously, what do you think?

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Photo courtesy of Purplemattfish

American Airlines employees busted for drug-smuggling

by Katie Hammel on

22 people were arrested Tuesday amidst allegations of smuggling drugs from Puerto Rico into the US on American Airlines planes. Nine of the people arrested were employees of the airline, who allegedly sent over 9,000 kilograms – almost 20,000 pounds – of cocaine to US destinations that included Miami, Orlando and New Jersey. According to the US Justice Department, the ring has been operating since 1999.

The workers are a mix of ground crew and baggage handlers who are suspected of using suitcases to smuggle the drugs onto the planes. According to the AP release, Puerto Rico is a popular entry choice for drug traffickers, as once the drugs reach the island, they don’t have to pass through customs in the US.

Agents from the FBI and DEA arrested the suspects at locations in Miami and Puerto Rico in a joint effort cleverly named “Operation Heavy Cargo”. If convicted, the suspects face life in prison and fines up to $4 million.

American Airlines issued a statement saying, “As a company, we hope that the actions of a few employees don’t reflect negatively on the tens of thousands of ethical American Airlines employees who work hard to serve the public daily.”

Galley Gossip: 9/11 – We will never forget

by Heather Poole on

Silence has strength. Often times silence is more powerful than words. Today I have decided not to remain silent.

That’s Terry Thames, an American Airlines pilot, hanging out of the cockpit window. This is the first American Airlines flight returning to Washington Dulles after the skies were reopened four days after 9/11. The photo was featured in the book, Reclaiming the Sky, by Tom Murphy.

I can’t stop staring at the photo and thinking about how great it must have felt to have hung that American flag across that airplane when it finally came home. I love that photo. Maybe because it’s one of the few taken at that time depicting strength, not sorrow. Which is exactly what many of my colleagues, as well as our passengers, radiated when they walked on board the airplanes and soldiered on days after our world completely changed.

Last year on this very day I wrote a post, 9/11 – That day, about what had happened to me eight years ago and how it still affects my colleagues and I today. The best part about the post were the readers comments, all so full of hope and strength. I didn’t want to write another 9/11 post. Really, I didn’t. What more could I say? But then how could I not? I’m a flight attendant. If I don’t write about it, who will?

A few days ago I logged into Twitter and typed, “We will never forget,” and then I pressed send. The message went to @planesofthought, an organization that collects thoughts and turns them into paper airplanes that will cover New York City’s skyline to remember the lives lost on 9/11.

After that I wrote, “I’m looking for interesting 9/11 stories. How it may have changed your life in a positive way.”

No one answered back. Not one person. The silence was deafening.

I tried again on Facebook and this time I got a response – one response. “Positive? That’s a hard one. I guess how New Yorkers found some closeness. American pride came back. Sadly, it’s slipping away again,” wrote Lynne, a fellow flight attendant and friend.

While I couldn’t agree more, I worried that I may not have gotten my message across the way I had intended, so I added, “I’m looking for stories about people who started doing things they always wanted to do, but never did, before 9/11.”

Again, no response. Complete silence

I prayed my question did not offend and decided, once again, not to write this post.

While we’re constantly reminded of 9/11 every single time we go to the airport, take off our shoes,and throw out our bottled water before passing through security, grumbling about it as we do so, it does seem, at times, as if it never happened, that day, eight years ago. But I don’t think we’ve forgotten. In fact, I know we haven’t because I truly believe silence has meaning.

Just as I was about to scratch this post for good, Jeffrey sent a note via Facebook. “I worked for an airline and took a buyout offer on 9/28/01. Hired a career coach. Became one. Used the buyout money to launch a successful executive coaching business. Launched a second entrepreneurial venture in 2008, which is my passion – SAVVY NAVIGATOR.”

Slowly, but surely, the stories began to trickle in. Erin, who described herself as a mother/wife/traveler, wrote, “My whole life is still divided by pre/post 9/11…for better or worse.”

Mark, a frequent flier, wrote, “Heather, you may have seen this story before. It’s about a United Airlines flight attendant who was supposed to be on United Airlines flight 175 that crashed into the Twin Towers. Because of a typo and then later computer problems she couldn’t trade to get her trip back. On the employee bus that day she actually spoke with the flight attendant who “took her trip.”

I clicked the link Mark had attached and wound up on the Boston Globe web site where I read a story, Flight attendant changes course, I’d never heard before about a flight attendant who just barely survived 9/11, a flight attendant who is now a nurse.

Next it was Chris, a pilot, who wrote, “I think I have a real problem with the context. When I was an Air Force pilot, I knew what I was doing could get me killed. That was my job, and I accepted it. And I accepted when every 9 months or so, one of my buds became, as we used to say, a “mort” (mortality), or “a ghost” (as in, “Remember Bugs? Sea of Japan–he’s a ghost”). That was the deal.”
“9/11 was not the deal,” Chris added. “Our colleagues weren’t anything but murdered. They had no chance, and no choice. That’s a breach of faith, and too high a price. I don’t know who to blame, who to accuse, who to hold responsible, who to fight back against. And yet, our management makes us all just cost units, marketable, forgetable commodities. Okay, I’ll shut up now.”

And with that the silence continued…

While this post initially started out as a story about your stories, it quickly turned into a post without a story, which made me a little sad. But that, in itself, is a story – one that should be told. I’m a flight attendant. If I don’t write about it, who will?

Photos courtesy of (American Airlines) Tom Murphy, (flag quilt) Catface3, (9/11 tribute light) PlanetGordon.com