How long is too long on a tarmac?

by Jamie Rhein on

Many people, who have flown frequently, have probably had their plane taxi out to the runway and sit and sit and sit for what seemed like an extraordinarily long amount of time. Peering out the tiny windows, people have wondered, “Why me? Why now?”

They’ve possibly fiddled with the window shade, putting it up for a bit and down for a bit for something to do. After awhile, they can list several items from the airline’s duty free catalog and which movies are on which route. If left sitting there long enough, people may wonder what the tipping point is for a nervous breakdown and if they, perhaps, have wandered into the set of a horror movie. They may even curse their fate that if they must be stuck on an object that’s supposed to move, it’s not the London Eye, the world’s largest Ferris wheel. If stuck on that thing, people get better service than on an airplane.

With summer travel rapidly approaching, the being stuck out on a tarmac scenarios have not improved much since last year. The gap between what passengers think is a time they can be stuck on an airplane without going bonkers, and the airline industry’s version, is not any closer because there hasn’t been a length of time established for when extra services need to kick in. Airlines view”Trigger thresholds,” within a range from “30 minutes to two hours on arrival, and from 90 minutes to three hours on departure.” When it comes to deplaning, thresholds “range from 30 minutes to five hours on arrival and and between one and five hours on departure.” What is to occur during delays isn’t established either. Do customers get a snack? water? sympathy?

According to this AP article about this stuck on a tarmac issue, to avoid spending part of the summer in a metal cylinder with wings, unsure of when life will move forward, don’t fly in or out of O’Hare in Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul or any of the three major New York City airports. Here’s a detail that gives some insight into why being stuck is not uncommon. Northwest Airlines has 56 departures scheduled for a 15-minute window in Minneapolis/St. Paul. That number is physically impossible to meet.

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Passing the time on your long flight

by Jeremy Kressmann on

Unless you’re like Gadling blogger Grant, who might have been genetically engineered by Boeing, it’s inevitable you’re going to get bored on a flight sooner or later. This is especially true on transcontinental flights, where you’re guaranteed to be stuck inside your cylindrical prison for at least 6 hours if not longer. No matter how many awful in-flight movies, magazines and episodes of The Wire on your iPod you have to amuse yourself, you can still expect to get bored eventually.

For the gaming-obsessed bloggers at Joystiq, the tedium of these long flights is just an opportunity to invent some creative ways to pass the time. If you’re desperate to hold back the boredom (or just cannot sleep on planes like me) consider the following (questionable) game suggestions:

  • BING! – This game only requires a bag of airline pretzels or snack mix. Start with three pretzels and set the rest to the side as the “house.” Each round bet one, two or three pretzels on which side of the airplane cabin will be first to ring their flight attendant call button. If you guess right, take as many pretzels as you bet from the house. If you lose, put the pretzels back. Keep playing until you’ve either won or lost all the pretzels from the middle.
  • In-flight Catalog Scavenger Hunt – As one Joystiq commenter suggests, compete against a friend to find the most ridiculous items from the in-flight catalog. The person to find the item with highest cost-to-uselessness ratio wins. Keep your eyes peeled for the remote control dragonfly.
  • Cellphone standoff – As the plane begins to land, try to guess the number of cellphones that will be turned on/make noise between the moment the wheels touch the ground to when the seatbelt light is turned off.

We don’t necessarily suggest playing these games unless you’re desperate, but with flight delays and long waits on the tarmac all but standard these days, it’s always good to have a few backup options. What do you do to amuse yourself on long flights?

Travel Lessons We Can Learn From Summer 2007

by Catherine Bodry on

Christopher Elliott took a couple of polls and determined that travel this summer wasn’t as bad as it seemed. 54 percent of those polled even said their summer travels had been “average.” You wouldn’t think so just by reading Gadling, let alone any other travel news.

But, Elliott concedes, that doesn’t mean there haven’t been a few rough patches. Flight delays, horrible customer service, an overburdened passport office and high fuel prices have all but made even the most enthusiastic travelers yell “uncle.”

So, what can we learn from all these? Elliott draws some lessons:


1. Apply for your passport early.

The massive backlog at the passport office continues to worsen. Since the U.S. government began requiring air travelers to Canada or Mexico to have a passport, thousands of vacations were delayed or canceled due to delayed delivery. And in 2008 all overland travelers will need a passport, which will no doubt create an even larger stack of paperwork. “Express” service has been lengthened, and what used to take 6 weeks now can take upwards of 3 months. Mine expires in June 2008 and I’ve got to get on it. However, that passport crunch might be over….

2. Air travel is actually worse than reported.

Sure, airfares are (sorta) low and there’s a decent safety record, but who cares about that when your flight’s been canceled? Not only is this possibly the worst summer ever for air travel, but it’s shaping up to be the worst year. We’ve certainly had a lot to say about it. Like here. And here. And there’s this story. And blogger Leif is on a one-man rampage against Northwest.

3. Europe sucks.

Well, Elliott is a lot classier than I, and didn’t actually use the term “suck.” That’s all me. But if you traveled in Europe this summer, you might have had a sucky time. The dollar was at an all-time high low against the Euro (for 120 days, mind you!), luggage was lost like socks in a dryer, and Heathrow was more politely described by another blogger here at Gadling as “shabby and slow” (read: sucky). However, I have a hard time imagining that Europe wouldn’t be worth all the hassle. Even with the Eurotrash.

4. Mind the gap.

It’s as if Hurricane Katrina didn’t teach us one thing about aging infrastructure. After Minneapolis’s I35W bridge collapsed, we all paid more attention to the state of bridges and highways in the U.S. But will that save lives? The Transportation Department recorded an all-time low in traffic fatalities in 2006, and 2007 is following suit. Let’s hope the bridges continue to hold out.

5. TSA really sucks.

Again, we’ve had nothing but awful news to report here on the state of airport security. From laughable errors to scary incompetence, airport security has gotten a lot of flack this summer. And it’ll probably get more; according to Elliott, the new “Secure Flight” initiative threatens to take even more of our civil liberties away, even though it claims to protect travelers’ privacy. At least there are products out there to help us have fun with TSA.


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6. High fuel prices won’t stop us from taking our hard-earned vacations.

8 in 10 travelers complained about gas prices, but in general more people were taking road trips (perhaps because their flights were canceled? Just a thought). I know high fuel prices didn’t keep me from driving the 2500 miles from Seattle to Seward — but the prices also gave me something to complain about all the way through Canada. But mercifully, gas prices dropped a bit in June.

7. If your airline blames the weather, they’re probably lying.

How many times can you use the same excuse? Can’t the weather be filed away under “ancient clichés” with dog-eaten homework and it’s-not-you-it’s-me excuses?

It’s nearly impossible to disprove a weather excuse, and by blaming an “act of God,” the airlines get out of taking responsibility for a delayed or canceled flight. I predict more bad weather on the horizon for air travel.

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Flights Getting Longer

by Iva Skoch on

The Wall Street Journal recently had a scary article. We all know about the congestion at airports, often firsthand. What’s crazy is that this increasing air traffic is leading airlines to increase their scheduled flying times, in order for flights to appear to be on time.

For example, United has added 33 minutes to its regular Philadelphia to San Francisco flight, compared with ten years ago. Delta added over 20 minutes to its New York to Fort Lauderdale route in the last 10 years. American has added 25 minutes to its N.Y. to L.A. route in the last 10 years. Most New York to D.C. flights are now blocked out at around 2 hours, even though the actual flying time is about 35 minutes, and this constitutes approximately a 50 percent increase over the scheduled time from 10 years ago.

A rough review of a couple dozen flights revealed that there is around 10 percent more time allotted to common flight routes, as compared with 1997. This schedule-padding allows airlines to trumpet “on time” flying, even though, according to the story, there’s 30 minutes or more of delay built right into that schedule.

Bathroom Break for Air Taffic Controller Causes Flight Delays

by Jonathon Morgan on

It’s difficult for me to maintain perspective when my flights are delayed. No matter what the reason — weather, technical problems, etc — I get frustrated, and have to resist the temptation to blame the airline, their staff, or anyone else who seems like they might be in some way connected to the problem.

But of all the reasons to wait around for a flight to land or take off, an air traffic controller’s bathroom break is the last thing I’d expect to be causing the disruption.

However, that’s exactly what happened last week at Manchester-Boston Regional — New Hampshire’s largest airport. The controller left the tower for 12 minutes, which left two Southwest Airlines flights circling above the airport for an extra 18 minutes, and kept a medical flight delivering lungs to New Jersey on the ground 10 minutes longer than scheduled. The absence was in the logbook as a “bathroom break.”

It should be noted, the controller waited until traffic was very light, and followed procedure by notifying other controllers at nearby facility that he’d be out for moment.

I guess when you gotta go, you gotta go.