Flight cancelled due to alligators part two of two.

[Parvaz]

It has happened to almost everyone. You arrive on time at the
airport with your ticket in hand. The glamour and excitement of
flying vanished decades ago somewhere between Woodstock and
Watergate. These days you are just want a safe flight, some elbow
room, an on time arrival and a negative free traveling experience.
Really, it's not much to ask for in return for the several hundred
dollars you parted with weeks ago to make this trip. Unfortunately,
there is that word staring you in the face in the airport monitor next
to your flight number: Cancelled. So much for the negative free
travel experience you were hoping for today.
The reason you fly is to be someplace important when you need to be
there. Cancelling your flight trashes those plans and wastes your
valuable time. Now you have several questions that you want
answered. Why was the flight cancelled? Why wasn't I notified
earlier so I could have made other plans? How and when am I going to
get to Tallahassee? Will there be room for me on the next flight?
Will I be stuck in a lousy seat?
You ought to be asking at least one more question. That question
should be: what does this cancellation tell me about the health,
operational reliability and safety of this airline? An isolated
cancellation, or a series of cancellations due of some major storm/
disaster, is probably not indicative of some failure on the part of
the airline. Conversely, and I want to emphasize this, frequent
cancellations may be symptoms of deep operational shortcomings and
signify that the airline is dysfunctional. I can't explain every
possible reason for a flight cancellation, but here are some of the
more common causes.
Mechanical break downs. Airplanes are like any other heavily
utilized machine, sometimes components wear out and the aircraft
breaks down. Your airline can't afford to have a 50+ million dollar
jet (or more) sitting around on the off chance it may be used. That
is the reason most airlines do not have spare airplanes available to
fill in the gap left by some other airplane when it breaks down.
Here is where the airlines get creative. There may be nothing wrong
with your jet that is scheduled for the Chicago to Tallahassee
flight. But six gates down, the Chicago to Boston flight, that is
full, just broke down. That jet won't be repaired for a long time.
Sometimes the airline will cancel "your" Chicago to Tallahassee flight
with only a 1/3 of the seats full and use that airplane to fly the
Chicago to Boston flight that was completely full. Overall for the
"system" it is less disrupting to inconvenience the relatively few
people on the Chicago to Tallahassee flight rather than the many who
want to get to Boston from Chicago.
Some flights are more vulnerable to cancellations than others. If
your airline has many flights per day between two cities, one or more
of those midday flights (not the first or last flight of the day) are
likely targets for cancellations should the need to divert resources
arise. Usually the passengers can be accommodated on one of the later
flights. Inconvenient - yes. Good for business? No. But, given
the situation the airline finds itself in, the airline will allocate
its resources to minimize the overall negative consequences. Should
that need arise lightly loaded flights or high frequency flights are
likely targets for cancellations.
Weather delays. In spite of what you may have been told, airliners
are not able to fly in every imaginable kind of weather. The
"problem" weather can be at the departure station, enroute, or at the
arrival station. Different airplanes and crews have different limits
on the weather they may operate in. Some airplanes and crews have
special low visibility certification (called category three-Cat III
for short) others do not. Other times the pilots have to operate on
more restrictive weather requirements because of lack of total
experience on that kind of equipment or in their crew position (called
a high-minimums crew). Occasionally the airplane itself is
functioning at a reduced capability because of some equipment
limitation. The combination of existing weather and reduced
capabilities may prohibit that flight from taking place.
Fog too dense will prevent your flight from operating: not enough
visibility. Thunderstorms in the area may prevent your crew from
attempting to depart or land the airplane because of potentially
dangerous windshear. If it is snowing too heavily, and the rate of
snow accumulation overwhelms the ground crew's capability to keep the
snow and ice off the airplane, that situation will lead to flight
cancellations.
If the temperature is too hot, too cold or barometric pressure too
low those extreme conditions can lead to flight cancellations because
they exceed the environmental conditions the airplane was certified to
fly in.
Active volcanoes can emit a dangerous ash cloud. If that hazard
exists it will shut down or curtail flights downwind and in the area
the ash cloud is projected to be located. We have numerous active
volcanoes in this hemisphere (Central & South America, Alaska).
Massive thunderstorms, hurricanes, tornadoes, or huge winter ice &
snow storms in the area may cause Air Traffic Control to shut down
traffic headed into the region. This is called a "ground stop" where
aircraft are prohibited from departing. It is designed to relieve
congestive pressures on the Air Traffic Control sector(s) that are
being most effected by the hazardous weather.
If the weather is bad enough, in the interest of safety, your airline
will cancel all of its flights into or out of that region.
Crew rest/duty limitations. Your crew is required by Federal
Aviation Regulations (FAR) regulation to carefully monitor how long
they have been without "required rest". When those time limits are
reached your crew is legally required to stop flying and get off the
airplane. The nature of our work requires us to perform near
flawlessly in a threat filled rapidly changing environment.
Ultimately crew rest regulations are written, and enforced, for your
safety. You really don't want your crew flying that demanding low
visibility approach in turbulence at 4 in the morning after they have
been up for 18 hours on the last day of a 5 day trip. Trust me, when
your crew times out due to duty limitations they are "toast" and need
to get out of the cockpit.
I remember being the Captain on a flight some years ago. The
destination city was experiencing excellent weather. Consequently we
had an adequate amount of fuel for the conditions but no more. Nobody
forecasted the earthquake that struck when we were about 40 minutes
out - stuff happens. Of course it closed down the primary airport as
the control tower had to be evacuated. Suddenly every close airport
was unavailable and every runway had to be checked out for possible
earthquake damage before they could accept landing aircraft. As a
crew we had to process a lot of information and make several important
decisions quickly and accurately. Fatigued minds do not make the best
decisions. Crew duty regulations are for your protection.
Staffing problems. One major airline was in the news recently
(summer 2007) after they cancelled over 500 flights. They publicly
blamed their pilots for the cancellations accusing them of not coming
to work. The pilots in turn publicly returned fire by explaining that
they had been warning management for months that they did not have the
staffing levels to meet the scheduling demands for the summer flying.
This particular airline has a long history of embittered labor
management relations.
Regrettably, staffing problems plague just about every carrier. If
most of the employees are sullen, withdrawn and borderline hostile
that is a pretty good indication that it is not a pleasant place to
work.
Isn't it funny how world champion sports teams have no problem
filling their roster with motivated elite athletes who want to play
for them; nor do they have any trouble filling up their stadiums with
adoring fans, or their bank accounts from the wealth that flows from
success. I guess we don't have any world championship caliber
airlines any more in this country, despite what the public relations &
advertising hype claims. Regardless of whose fault it is; staffing
problems account for many flight cancellations.
Security issues. In some cases security intelligence leads to the
cancellation of a flight. This is uncommon and mostly affects
international flights to/from particularly troubled regions.
Frequent flight cancellations, again emphasizing frequent, are a
warning sign of operational problems plaguing the carrier. With the
exception of extreme weather, most of the reasons for cancellations
can be traced back to operational failures.
Maintenance programs should identify parts needing replacement prior
to them failing. When equipment does fail; having the skilled labor
to make timely repairs and the necessary parts available are
management's responsibility. Having to cancel flights due to the
unavailability of parts or technicians is a clear operational failure
and rightfully reflects poorly on the airline. Chronic mechanical
cancellations are clear indicators that all is not well.
Proper scheduling and staffing practices should preclude most
staffing issues and keep crews from being unable to complete their
duty assignments due to being on the job for 14 to 16 hours.
Cancellations can be viewed as chest pains. If the airline is
experiencing frequent cancellations and its schedule is falling apart
those conditions are an unambiguous warning signs of impending
disaster. Statistically large numbers of flight cancellations are an
unmistakable indicator that the airline is a poorly managed commercial
transportation enterprise.
When you see that word "cancelled" next to your flight number on the
airport monitor's screen, the airline did not cancel your flight
because they weren't making enough money on your flight. The airline
isn't acting proactively; it is not that smart or nimble. It is
acting reactively to some abnormal situation it finds itself faced
with and is struggling to minimize the negative fallout.