In the news article "Air passengers call 911 after delayed flights in Canada", Rozina Sini (2017) reports that there were two Air Transat flights was changed the route to land at Ottawa Airport because of the bad weather. This situation caused passengers trapped in the cabins for more than five hours without air conditioning, food, and water. One passenger, a child, felt sick due to the heat. After some passengers called the emergency service and requested help, someone had uploaded a video on social media. It made a pilot displeased. This became a critic on the internet that the passengers had the right to call emergency service and able to choose to deplane or stay in the cabin. Also, there was an argument about who should take a responsibility on the incident between Air Transat Airline and Ottawa Airport.
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My response
Speaking from a passenger side, I believe that people expect to receive a nice service when they choose to take flights with any airline, for example, kindly welcome boarding, comfortable seats, and security. But after I finished reading this article, I feel that what Air Transat Airline decided to do with the passengers was not proper. Imagine hundred of people stuck in a cabin for over five hours without air conditioning, that must be terrible situation that I would never want to face. Of course, making a decision to divert the flight and land at another airport because of the bad weather was a right to do, but locking all passenger in the plane with no air conditioning was not. According to the news, obviously, the airline did have another solution to solved the problem. The pilots or cabin crews could disembark all passengers to wait inside the concourse, where was much more comfortable, until they could take off again. The spokesperson for Ottawa International Airport Authority also said the same thing that the airport was ready to provide assistance for the passengers, but they unable to contact the aircrew.
I had several air travel experiences, none of them was bad. My best flight I impressed was the Thai Airways flight from Denmark to Bangkok when I was a teenager. It was a twelve-hour long flight, so I was tired. But with kindly service from flight attendants, it made me feel much better. After the plane landed, one of the flight attendants had helped me brought my stuff down from the shelves. As we know, that was not her responsibility to do that, but she did. I presume it was because I looked young and small. By the time I stepped off the cabin, she also gave me a small gift - a chess board. Even though I cannot play it, I still keep it safely because it reminds me of the good time.
Personally, I think that the aircrews of any airline should pay more attention to passengers as they are customers because if they feel impressed with the airline service, they will want to continue choosing the same airline next time. It is a way of buying trust from customers.
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My question for readers
How is your experience with air travel? What would you do if you were on the incident in this news?
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- Sini, R. (2017, August 2). Air passengers call 911 after delayed flights in Canada. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-40801927
I'm really fond of something related to the plane, so this news kind of interested me. Actually, I tried to find some news like this, when I did my blog, but I didn't find this. But I glad someone wrote for me instead.
ReplyDeleteI had a dream to fly in airplane since I was young and never flew, so my first flight is really exciting for me. Like you, every flight of me is also smooth(for me). Some weather problem, like air pocket, when being on plane don't really disturb me because, instead, I think it is excited experience. For services of the flight attendances, just don't disparage or do something that really bad is fined for me. That's why my every flight is smooth. It might be not for someone.
However, if I'm in this situation, it might annoy me. It's not just weather phenomenon or plain service. It is too long in the plane with no air conditioning. But in the other hand, I might not be so angry as others because it's also my experience(not good but in the plane that I love to be). So for the question, what would I do, I would stay still(of course, anyone must claim the rights for me), because it's really my beloved place to be.
But, of course, I might not want to fly with this airline anymore. It must be annoyed for me. I don't like it, but I'm not saying that I'm going to revenge with a pilot(he/she still be my respect). And for the justice, I'll let it be judgement of people in upper class.
In my opinion, this problem shouldn't be happened. The most important things for airliners to think about is passengers. Flight attendances should call to the airport staff to transfer passengers to the terminal. They shouldn't let passenger to sit in the cabin without air conditioning. However, this problem might be happened because of the airport. Because airplane have limit energy and fuels, the airport need to support these things to the airplane when they have to wait for along time. If pilot shut down the system in the cabin. It could be thought that the airport doesn't recharge the energy for the airplane.
ReplyDeleteWeather is one of the most important condition for airplane to fly. If the weather is not good for flying. Airplane need to landing to the nearest airport to wait until the weather become better and. Airplanes in the airport also have to wait for the weather too. I have an experience of this kind of situation before. It was happened when I was came back from Hokkaido, Japan. I had to transit at Tokyo before flying back to Thailand. At that time, there was typhoon. Many flights had to be canceled. So I decided to change my flight from Hokkaido to Tokyo to be earlier to avoid flight cancellation. Luckily my flight was delayed just one hour because it decayed before arriving at Tokyo.