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Comment by akcreek | Hacker News Reader

I'm at DFW right now heading to LAX on AA. Computers just came up and they are going to begin boarding shortly. Lots of unhappy travelers here as you can imagine I'm sure.

Edit--

To follow up. It's been about an hour since the computers came back up in the terminal and I'm finally in my seat on the plane. About 3 hours after it was supposed to depart.

There were several canceled flights in my terminal and no other flights going out so people had to stay overnight. Most were very mad as American was not supplying food or hotel vouchers - all those people are coming out of pocket I guess.

I heard quite a few saying things like, "No wonder they are going out of business" and "I will never fly American again no matter what".

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> I heard quite a few saying things like, "No wonder they are going out of business" and "I will never fly American again no matter what".

Yeah, they'll never fly American again no matter what...until it has the lowest price ticket for the time/destination they want.

Another update. I'm still here. We are parked at the gate waiting for additional fuel before we can leave. Not sure why they boarded us just to have us sit here for another hour (or more - no clue how long this will end up taking). The good news is the plane has AC power in my row so I was able to build the navigation for a site I'm working on.

I think they board the plane as quickly as possible so they can get in the queue to taxi to a runway. Until the door is closed, you do not get a place in line to take off.

>Not sure why they boarded us just to have us sit here for another hour (or more - no clue how long this will end up taking).

Every airline seems to have been doing this for decades now, and it boggles my mind why they do this. Do they think that getting people "on board" is demonstrating "progress! breakthroughs! we're moving forward folks!" or something and it's supposed to make us suddenly happy?

I'd so much rather spend the extra 2 hours at the gate than crammed into a 737 for the same amount of time, especially when they decide that they can't turn on the AC (when I was little, we were stuck in a fully packed 747 for 4 hours with no AC. They opened the front and back doors b/c it was so unbearable in there...)

The flight is considered "departed" from a time-tracking perspective when the boarding doors are closed. If your flight is scheduled at 2pm and they close the doors at 2pm, even if it takes you until 8pm to get in the air, your flight "left on time".

This is a perfect example of "be careful what you measure". Customers don't care when they leave, they care when they arrive, but, since the FAA measures[1] on-time departures, that is what has been optimized for, to the detriment of customers.

1. I would be willing to bet the FAA measures this at the request of the airlines. Measuring arrival time has many variables they can't control, whereas departure, as defined, is mostly controlled by the airlines.

It's because that's one of the metrics which is tracked and, therefore, optimized for, even at the detriment to the core business.

Departure slots. When one comes up you have to be ready to go immediately.

This is why.

Having spent time in the military, it makes sense to me. Hurry up and wait :) I actually like that way of doing things.

Boarded a flight recently and fell asleep at once after sitting down. Woke up three hours later, plane was descending. It was supposed to be a 1.5h flight. Oh well.

In the EU the airlines are legally obligated to provide drink and food if the flight is delayed over a certain amount of time. I believe once you're on the plane/tarmac that clock stops ticking.

> American was not supplying food or hotel vouchers - all those people are coming out of pocket I guess.

Why are they not subject to a class action lawsuit? The problems rather obviously seem to be American's fault.

Seems like some enterprising lawyer should buy a ticket, drive to the airport, go to the AA gates, and start handing out business cards to everyone in sight.

> Why are they not subject to a class action lawsuit?

Uh, because it takes time to file those.

Also, I suspect, because they have binding arbitration and anti-class-action clauses in the fine print of ticket purchase agreements.

Such clauses are of dubious legality.

Why are they not subject to a class action lawsuit? The problems rather obviously seem to be American's fault.

Read the fine print on your ticket. You're not promised perfection.

There's no regulation per se, it's whatever is in the fineprint when you purchase your ticket. They typically wave any responsibility if the reason for the delay is any of the following :

bad weather, acts of God, terrorist activities, war, strikes, "any shortage of labor, fuel or facilities” and “any event not reasonably foreseen, anticipated or predicted”

This could fall under "not reasonably foreseen" or maybe act of God for the very religious :).

> go to the AA gates

You have to be a ticketed passenger to get _to_ the gates.

Schedule a meeting in the AA Admiral's Club. The agents will give you a pass to get through security without a ticket.

Then buy a ticket. It'd be a worthwhile expenditure.

Great answer (but if the computers are down, can he buy a ticket?).

Doesn't have to be a ticket on AA.

And it can be fully refundable.

It'd be worth the cost of a cheap ticket.

Problem is: the reservation system's down.

For sake of argument, would you sue AA if just one flight was delayed 3 hours?

The whole point of a class-action lawsuit is to aggregate a large number of people with relatively minor harm into a single lawsuit to avoid heavy per-person overhead. There have been plenty of class-action lawsuits where the harm per person was less than the cost of an airport hotel room for one night.

Because it's a mechanical failure and not an "act of God" they are responsible for any lodging/food for their passengers due to this delay... I don't know if that's a legal thing, but I do know that's how every airline I've ever flown on works.

"Mechanical failure" typically refers to things that are... mechanical in nature, e.g. not software. They are most likely interpreting this under the unforeseen events clause of the ticketing agreement (not sure of the exact wording) to see if they can get away with not paying anybody. If enough of the passengers raise a fuss they will likely offer everyone some sort of voucher, but 90% of people unfortunately will forget about the whole thing 30 minutes after they land.

Yeah that's a pity, it sucks when only the loud obnoxious people get their way...

I fly the DFW to LAX route once a week and have done it on many different carriers (United, AA, and Virgin America). Even though VA offers fewer flights on this route, that has become my sole carrier (even outside of today's events). They handily beat AA on experience, and sell at the exact same ticket price (main cabin, not FC).

Virgin has won me over completely.

Okay, last update. I made it to LAX, picked up my rental car then received an email from American notifying me that my flight was on time - the same flight I just got off of that landed over 4 hours after it should have. I had to laugh at that one.

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