Cubsrule wrote:

CATIIIevery5yrs wrote:

It's possible the airport is not in the 175 operators Operations Specifications. The operator took the assignment and it was caught after the fact. Years ago when I flew for a United Express carrier, we had an event in which the exact same scenario played out. Our plane turned around halfway once we were informed the airport wasn't in our Ops Specs.

Maybe this is a stupid question, but shouldn’t the dispatcher catch that when planning the flight?

Maybe, maybe not. C70 airports are classified 5 different ways: (R) regular (can do full passenger service), (P) provisional (can be used as a regular airport when the regular airport isn't available), (A) alternate (pax/cargo can be off loaded but not boarded), (F) refueling (can only add fuel, no pax/cargo can be loaded or offloaded), or (E) emergency (crew can use the airport for an emergency landing, but no revenue flight may depart out of there). I cannot speak to Skywest's C070 page and what each airport is classified as for each of their aircraft type because I don't have access to it, but that won't tell the whole story. It's entirely possible that an airport can be approved in the ops specs and have staff not current on training or full compliment of operational equipment. And depending how good the airline is at record keeping, the dispatcher might not have access to that information. My airline recently had to designate some alternates as unusable (despite what the C070 page said) when an internal audit revealed they were either missing important equipment or the staff wasn't properly trained.

Without knowing what OO's ops specs said and the timeline of events and how much research each person involved with the flight did (going from a CRJ to an E175 would have required a different crew, so we know the decision wasn't made hastily), it's hard to say who made the mistake (or if no one could have avoided the mistake based on information available).

A long time ago, Delta L-1011 emergency landing different airport due storm and pilots made a little mistaken should not land at the airport ground do not know how to fuel from fuel truck at the airport. Luckily, a vacation off duty who was a Delta mechanic plane. He knows a lot of things about plane stuff. He went down and help ramp fuel how to do with fuel L1011 tank. It went well. L1011 flew out airport and back to airport. What a nice story. LOL

Q

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LittleFokker wrote:

Maybe, maybe not. C70 airports are classified 5 different ways: (R) regular (can do full passenger service), (P) provisional (can be used as a regular airport when the regular airport isn't available), (A) alternate (pax/cargo can be off loaded but not boarded), (F) refueling (can only add fuel, no pax/cargo can be loaded or offloaded), or (E) emergency (crew can use the airport for an emergency landing, but no revenue flight may depart out of there). I cannot speak to Skywest's C070 page and what each airport is classified as for each of their aircraft type because I don't have access to it, but that won't tell the whole story. It's entirely possible that an airport can be approved in the ops specs and have staff not current on training or full compliment of operational equipment. And depending how good the airline is at record keeping, the dispatcher might not have access to that information. My airline recently had to designate some alternates as unusable (despite what the C070 page said) when an internal audit revealed they were either missing important equipment or the staff wasn't properly trained.

Without knowing what OO's ops specs said and the timeline of events and how much research each person involved with the flight did (going from a CRJ to an E175 would have required a different crew, so we know the decision wasn't made hastily), it's hard to say who made the mistake (or if no one could have avoided the mistake based on information available).

To add to this; UA also has their specs that the UAX Coordinator in the NOC would have looked into as well that are the company wide specs. They would have likely seen that the E175 had the clearance to be there but my guess is either towbar related or door qualified (opening a door and popping the slide isn't the best way to spend your time). Yes, the E175 door is darn hard to pop the slide from the outside; but its possible.

For those of you saying that one airline never works another in larger stations except in emergencies; not quite true. Regardless of the cause of the IRROP it happens. I once had a OO operated CR9 going from SJD-SLC. When it diverted to PHX for minor MX; the first call was to us not the Mainline DL employees. The DL employees didn't have Customs seals so no way they were going to be touching an International inbound. After OO coordinated with us to handle the flight, then they called DL in PHX. The whole thing was coordinated between OO, DL SOC, us and the city; the local station's only job was to direct passengers once they came out of Customs and to tow the aircraft over to T3 once it was pushed off the gate. There are plenty of people who understand regardless of the name on our paychecks; we all work in the same industry and have to do what we need to do. I've worked six different airline's flights (DL, WN, AC, WS, NH & ZK) in different capacities without any official agreement with those companies; rather because we had to work the flights for the benefit of the passengers and so the other carrier could get on their way. There is no point in being petty and not working the flights when the other carrier doesn't have the ability to handle the flight and you do. Pax and plane are there; its all hands on deck even when its not your airline.

alasizon wrote:

For those of you saying that one airline never works another in larger stations except in emergencies; not quite true. Regardless of the cause of the IRROP it happens.

Thank you

Had the aircraft continued they would have found someone to ground handle it. Someone at Skywest made a bad decision to send the plane there in the first place, and then made an even worse decision to turn it around mid flight. The cost of the air return, and bad press far outweighs the cost of paying a contractor to handle the flight. Skywest messed up, but United is also getting what it paid for.

Weirder things have happened. In the last few years, I recall a Hawaiian A330 diverting to OAK inbound to SJC due to the ground handling staff not having the right equipment and/or training for an A330 at the time, as this would have been the first visit of a Hawaiian A330. This incident was incorrectly was reported online as SJC not having any A330 gates, which was not the case as I understand it. Also there was a swap a few years back where a PDX-SFO Skywest ERJ became a Skywest CRJ-700. There were no hardstand pax ops at the time at SFO, and Alaska was using the A terminal where there were no CRJ capable gates(it is a jetbridge height/angle issue not a clearance issue obviously). Rather than hold for a CRJ gate on G and have the pax make the trek from the gate on A, Alaska diverted the CRJ-700 to OAK and bused the pax over. LOL!

I recall hearing of other incidents like this around the world but can't remember the details, but this kind of stuff happens to just about any carrier once in a blue moon. HA and AS are both great airlines, all it takes a few individuals who should know something making a decision they shouldn't,

Over a decade ago, before the NW/DL merger, I was in MSP when I saw a DL 777 drop in for a medical emergency. It parked at a NW gate, ambulance pulled up, and they got the passenger off. Then it must have been decided to get the passenger's bag off too, because next thing I saw was NW ramp personnel trying to figure out how to open up a 777. They finally got the cargo door open, pulled up the loader, unloaded a few cans until they got the right one, got the bag off, put it all back together, and after fueling was done, pushed the plane out. No where, anywhere, did I see any insurance representative watching the whole operation, making sure NW was doing everything to Delta specs.

In 2010, during the World Equestrian Games in Lexington KY, most of the planes carrying horses from around the world flew into CVG, because LEX was too small to handle all that traffic. All around the clock for a few weeks they flew in and out, bringing in millions worth of horses,...from private B747s to FedEx MD-11s. Sitting at the CVG observation area, you could watch all the action right across the runway. All these aircraft were parked, offloaded, and later reloaded by DL personal, yes, even the FedEx flights (and Fedex has their own ramp agents in CVG).

And sticking with CVG, during baseball season, you can watch a UA 737-900 on a live flight from ORD pull up to a DL gate, the UA passengers get off, and some time later, a sports team (say, the Pittsburgh Pirates) hops and and flys away. Handled by DL personal, and not by the local UA people. Don't ask me why DL does United sports charters at DL gates out of CVG and not UA, but I've seen it.

I've seen an Air Canada plane do a medical emergency landing at another mid-western airport. It must have been very serious, because the plane stopped immediately on the taxiway, opened the rear door, and the fire department puts up ladders to the A320 doors to get onto the aircraft. They, however, couldnt get the passenger out that way. UA has a presence at this airport, but no portable stairs. But AA did. So AA brought their stairs over, and the AFR was able to carry down said passenger down AA's stairs to the ambulance. No union jumped up and down saying we must wait for only AC people to handle this plane. Whatever had to be done, was done.

So it happens all the time that airline personal from one company will handle another airline's flights, be it an emergency, or on a regular basis.