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- 2002-10-07
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After almost five hours waiting on a Wyoming tarmac with hardly anything to eat, an Air Canada pilot used his personal credit card to order pizza to feed the exasperated passengers.
Ottawa resident Bob LeDrew and his wife Cathy had taken a flight from Montreal late Sunday afternoon to Denver to attend a choral musical festival. However, high winds forced flight 7705 to divert a short distance away to Cheyenne, Wy. The airport they landed at is a small one beside a mountain with only one runway. And given the shifting winds, it made taking off again tricky. So they sat in the plane.
“They couldn’t for safety reasons fly or take off because if there was an engine failure or something they wouldn’t be able to clear the mountain,” LeDrew said, relaying what Air Canada staff had told passengers.
LeDrew said they kept the ventilation running for the 69 passengers, and the flight attendants offered water and pretzels as time passed on, but the crew said they could not offer any other food.
“At one point the pilot came on the P.A. and said, I’ve asked Air Canada for authorization to get you folks fed, which I (took) to mean they were going to bring in food from somewhere in Cheyenne.”
LeDrew’s friend, Bob Daley, who was sitting a few rows back from the couple said the pilot’s announcement came after they’d been on the tarmac for a few hours.
“He said, I regret to inform you that I’ve spoken to Air Canada about providing you people with some food — and it was getting late at this point so we were all famished — and he said unfortunately they have refused,” Daley said.
After being stuck for more than four hours, passengers were eventually escorted off the plane to a nearby office where they were served coffee and popcorn. That’s when LeDrew started tweeting, complaining to Air Canada about the situation while his wife Cathy was on hold with customer service to no avail. Air Canada sent him a message suggesting he fill out a form.
“Eventually after about an hour in the hangar one of the air service employees came out and said, ‘The pilot has just given me his own credit card and he’s told me to order you guys pizza,’” said LeDrew. “So he started ordering pizza and when he went back to return the pilot’s credit card the pilot said, ‘The winds are shifting, (forget) the pizza, we are going to give this a shot.’”
Forgoing the pizza turned out to be the right call. While it took another hour before they got off the runway, the plane managed to safely take off from Cheyenne shortly after 11 p.m. – five hours after they landed.
Air Canada said the flight was Air Canada Express operated by Sky Regional. Naomi Strasser, a spokewoman for Sky Regional,? said by the time the flight was diverted to Cheyenne there was only a “handful” of on-board catering items left because most of the food had already been consumed by the passengers.
She said the crew was in “constant communication” with the company, which is why the pizza was ordered by the pilot, and said the passengers were given meal vouchers as soon as they landed in Denver.
Strasser added that if, for example, someone was on the flight with a medical condition like diabetes and needed food right away, they would have “unequivocally” served the one or two sandwiches they had left, but otherwise it would not have been fair to the rest of those on board.
As for why it took hours before ordering something of more substance than pretzels and popcorn, Strasser said the shifting wind conditions played a factor. At first, she said, it was unclear the delay was going to drag on.
“When it became clear that this was going to be a longer delay, I think (the crew) went above and beyond in actually coming up with a solution given the fact that there was no available catering in Cheyenne,” she said.
She added that the company is “constantly evaluating and reevaluating (its) policies and looking for the best way to provide the best service for everybody. This situation will certainly serve as something to take into consideration.”
LeDrew said the endeavour went down as the worst flying experience he’s ever had. And while he was offered a 20 per cent discount off his next flight, he still wasn’t impressed.
“That’s basically the taxes off a new flight. I think that’s really underwhelming.”
pmccooey@postmedia.com
查看原文...
Ottawa resident Bob LeDrew and his wife Cathy had taken a flight from Montreal late Sunday afternoon to Denver to attend a choral musical festival. However, high winds forced flight 7705 to divert a short distance away to Cheyenne, Wy. The airport they landed at is a small one beside a mountain with only one runway. And given the shifting winds, it made taking off again tricky. So they sat in the plane.
“They couldn’t for safety reasons fly or take off because if there was an engine failure or something they wouldn’t be able to clear the mountain,” LeDrew said, relaying what Air Canada staff had told passengers.
LeDrew said they kept the ventilation running for the 69 passengers, and the flight attendants offered water and pretzels as time passed on, but the crew said they could not offer any other food.
“At one point the pilot came on the P.A. and said, I’ve asked Air Canada for authorization to get you folks fed, which I (took) to mean they were going to bring in food from somewhere in Cheyenne.”
LeDrew’s friend, Bob Daley, who was sitting a few rows back from the couple said the pilot’s announcement came after they’d been on the tarmac for a few hours.
“He said, I regret to inform you that I’ve spoken to Air Canada about providing you people with some food — and it was getting late at this point so we were all famished — and he said unfortunately they have refused,” Daley said.
After being stuck for more than four hours, passengers were eventually escorted off the plane to a nearby office where they were served coffee and popcorn. That’s when LeDrew started tweeting, complaining to Air Canada about the situation while his wife Cathy was on hold with customer service to no avail. Air Canada sent him a message suggesting he fill out a form.
“Eventually after about an hour in the hangar one of the air service employees came out and said, ‘The pilot has just given me his own credit card and he’s told me to order you guys pizza,’” said LeDrew. “So he started ordering pizza and when he went back to return the pilot’s credit card the pilot said, ‘The winds are shifting, (forget) the pizza, we are going to give this a shot.’”
Forgoing the pizza turned out to be the right call. While it took another hour before they got off the runway, the plane managed to safely take off from Cheyenne shortly after 11 p.m. – five hours after they landed.
Air Canada said the flight was Air Canada Express operated by Sky Regional. Naomi Strasser, a spokewoman for Sky Regional,? said by the time the flight was diverted to Cheyenne there was only a “handful” of on-board catering items left because most of the food had already been consumed by the passengers.
She said the crew was in “constant communication” with the company, which is why the pizza was ordered by the pilot, and said the passengers were given meal vouchers as soon as they landed in Denver.
Strasser added that if, for example, someone was on the flight with a medical condition like diabetes and needed food right away, they would have “unequivocally” served the one or two sandwiches they had left, but otherwise it would not have been fair to the rest of those on board.
As for why it took hours before ordering something of more substance than pretzels and popcorn, Strasser said the shifting wind conditions played a factor. At first, she said, it was unclear the delay was going to drag on.
“When it became clear that this was going to be a longer delay, I think (the crew) went above and beyond in actually coming up with a solution given the fact that there was no available catering in Cheyenne,” she said.
She added that the company is “constantly evaluating and reevaluating (its) policies and looking for the best way to provide the best service for everybody. This situation will certainly serve as something to take into consideration.”
LeDrew said the endeavour went down as the worst flying experience he’s ever had. And while he was offered a 20 per cent discount off his next flight, he still wasn’t impressed.
“That’s basically the taxes off a new flight. I think that’s really underwhelming.”
pmccooey@postmedia.com
查看原文...
