The Air France 66 incident today made me wonder how airlines handle the events that follow emergency diversions. Usually discussion here on A.net ends with the diversion and the technical aspects, but rarely covers what happens then, although I think it's a very interesting subject. You'd assume that in this day and age, with half the cabin twittering in real time, airlines are very keen on leaving a positive image of the handling of the incident. In the case of Air France today, it seems like a total failure, I followed some reports and it seems that passengers had to stay on board for more than 20 hours (since leaving CDG) with only 1 additional meal served, then apparently a rented 737 appeared and took a first batch of passengers to LA but not before picking up fuel in Winnipeg, and another 77W came in from Montreal and flew passengers to ATL from where Delta took them to their final destinations, apparently one dedicated extra flight to LAX. This is what I get from AF's official statement.
http://corporate.airfrance.com/en/infor ... ember-2017

The ideal way to handle this would have been very different: As soon as AF66 decided to divert to Goose Bay, which was less than 5 hours from CDG, Air France would have dispatched a spare 77W or A380 to Goose Bay, fully catered and loaded with two full crews, one to handle the positioning flight while the other crew relaxes in the business and first seats, and the other one to continue onwards to LA. In the 5 hours on the ground at Goose Bay, the crew would have served the second meal.

I know as a fact that Lufthansa has spare planes sitting in FRA with crews that can be activated within minutes, I am sure AF has similar backup resources.

But anyway, this is not only about AF66 but other similar situations. Has anyone here been in something like this? How are communications handled, how quickly are arrangements made to bring passengers to their destinations, get them food or hotel rooms? How about immigration procedures?

Great question.

First of all it isn't that quick to have an airplane dispatched for the recovery. Most airlines don't have hot spares. Airlines usually have spare capacity, but it usually takes 2-4 hours to swap an airplane. Spare airplanes are also usually having mechanics work deferrals and clean up the plane so maintenance might not be ready to go immediately. That also assumes that the flight is going to use the same crew. Finding an entire crew on 4 hours of notice is hard and many airlines can't do that. Pilots are too expensive to have sitting at the airport and their duty day would get used up waiting for a just in case event. Having crews ready to go on a narrowbody that will not require an augment crew and may need to just do a short flight is different from a widebody.

Crew rest is going to be an issue because there won't be a crew ready in Canada. The plane has to be dispatched with double crew and even with that having enough duty time to fly to Canada and then go to LAX would be challenging because of logistics at the remote field.

Remember that there is no ground staff for AF at the remote station. They have to coordinate everything on their own remotely and through any contractors that might be available. Is ground handling available? Is luggage going to be put on the recovery flight?

I seriously doubt Lufthansa has a hot spare widebody ready to go in minutes. That cost is exorbitant. When all things go well, getting a rescue widebody plane dispatched to a remote station in 4 hours is very good (few airlines can do that). I would say 6-20 hours is more common around the industry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSxSgbNQi-g&t=468s

This video talks about ETOPs mostly, but has a good explanation of the diversion plans.

Peace

And what about the luggage? Is it sorted there on the ramp at Goose and by whom? Does it stay on the broken plane to be flown back to CDG eventually?

Describing LH as if it's an aircraft carrier...Launch the ready 5 diversion relief fleet!


There is simply no quick way to handle a situation like this. Getting a 77w from hard stand to ready to go would take about 2 hours. Assuming the aircraft is available the instant it's needed. Then you need 2 crews, also assembled and ready to go.

Passengers meanwhile are better off stuck on the airplane. It's easier to manage them if they're all in 1 space, complete with a list of who is sitting where, and exactly how many there are. Inevitably if they were let off, people would wander and then you have a story of a passenger who's still in goose bay 4 days later because he took a cab to a bar and missed the relief flights. Plus now when transferring pax, you can maintain a very precise count. Deduct one from the diverted aircraft, plus one onto the relief. Repeat until the diverted aircraft is at 0.

Fortunately most airports that serve as diversion hotspots are well versed in this. While it might not be 100% up to each airlines service standard, they are very good at what they do. Read about Bangor or Gander and you can see how these airports have perfected the diversion handling.

Interesting point about the baggage though....i'd imagine they would charter an aircraft to go up and get them in the next few days. Must be cargo on board as well. I suppose it mostly depends on what type of equipment they have. Can't offload an a380 with a belt, afterall!

Having read several diversion accounts over the last 5 years I would say it is long past time for the airlines that fly the transpolar routes to fund adequate facilities at Goose Bay, Yellowknife, and perhaps a few other diversion sites to handle at least one full widebody diversion. Say a dormitory with sufficient beds, toilets, showers for 500 people, stocked with appropriate cold-weather clothing in various sizes, plus 4-6 transportation vehicles sufficient to move the passengers to/from the airport. Each of those towns have a high school; the dormitory could be located adjacent to that facility and the school district reimbursed to have its maintenance staff maintain it in a mothballed but operable state. These stories of airlines and small towns scrambling to find accommodation for 300-500 people on short notice with no facilities available will cease to be funny the first time a passenger freezes to death as a result.

(Gander and Bangor are different stories: both cities have enough resources locally and regionally to handle any foreseeable diversion [a family member having spent an unplanned 9 days in Newfoundland starting 11-Sep-2011 I've heard the accounts but even in that situation enough spaces were found]), but Labrador, the Northwest Territory, etc are a different story.

There's a few problems with that.

First off, who's paying for this hotel/dorm, as well as the transportation? Because no airline in the world is going to foot the bill to build all this infrastructure in a desolate town that they might never even need. You're basically building a hotel on the basis of keeping it empty 365 days a year, just in case 200-500 people need it for 12 hours.

Most diversions are a gas and go, or offload and go. Airlines do no want to divert, and when they do, it's more pressing to get the aircraft and pax out. Not set up camp, distribute clothing, issue rooms and open the cafeteria.


As for freezing to death....so long as there is fuel or ground power available, the aircraft makes a nice safe haven.

sphealey wrote:

Having read several diversion accounts over the last 5 years I would say it is long past time for the airlines that fly the transpolar routes to fund adequate facilities at Goose Bay, Yellowknife, and perhaps a few other diversion sites to handle at least one full widebody diversion. Say a dormitory with sufficient beds, toilets, showers for 500 people, stocked with appropriate cold-weather clothing in various sizes, plus 4-6 transportation vehicles sufficient to move the passengers to/from the airport. Each of those towns have a high school; the dormitory could be located adjacent to that facility and the school district reimbursed to have its maintenance staff maintain it in a mothballed but operable state. These stories of airlines and small towns scrambling to find accommodation for 300-500 people on short notice with no facilities available will cease to be funny the first time a passenger freezes to death as a result.

(Gander and Bangor are different stories: both cities have enough resources locally and regionally to handle any foreseeable diversion [a family member having spent an unplanned 9 days in Newfoundland starting 11-Sep-2011 I've heard the accounts but even in that situation enough spaces were found]), but Labrador, the Northwest Territory, etc are a different story.

So this happening several times over 5 years means airlines should do it? In that time millions of commercial flights have been successfully completed.

This is something we keep getting back to on here lately. If you want to have AF have spare planes and spare crews available 24/7 ready to go, you need to pay for it. If you want perfect service in every way, you have to pay for it. And passengers time and time again prove, they aren't willing to pay for it.

jetblueguy22 wrote:

sphealey wrote:

Having read several diversion accounts over the last 5 years I would say it is long past time for the airlines that fly the transpolar routes to fund adequate facilities at Goose Bay, Yellowknife, and perhaps a few other diversion sites to handle at least one full widebody diversion. Say a dormitory with sufficient beds, toilets, showers for 500 people, stocked with appropriate cold-weather clothing in various sizes, plus 4-6 transportation vehicles sufficient to move the passengers to/from the airport. Each of those towns have a high school; the dormitory could be located adjacent to that facility and the school district reimbursed to have its maintenance staff maintain it in a mothballed but operable state. These stories of airlines and small towns scrambling to find accommodation for 300-500 people on short notice with no facilities available will cease to be funny the first time a passenger freezes to death as a result.

(Gander and Bangor are different stories: both cities have enough resources locally and regionally to handle any foreseeable diversion [a family member having spent an unplanned 9 days in Newfoundland starting 11-Sep-2011 I've heard the accounts but even in that situation enough spaces were found]), but Labrador, the Northwest Territory, etc are a different story.

So this happening several times over 5 years means airlines should do it? In that time millions of commercial flights have been successfully completed.

This is something we keep getting back to on here lately. If you want to have AF have spare planes and spare crews available 24/7 ready to go, you need to pay for it. If you want perfect service in every way, you have to pay for it. And passengers time and time again prove, they aren't willing to pay for it.

*Both passengers AND the airlines are unwilling to pay for it, so here we are.

This is an interesting topic. On long international flights do airlines make it a habit to carry extra food and beverages in case an airliner needs to make a diversion to a remote location? Whenever I fly I always carry some dried food in my bag just in case my flight gets diverted and they run out of food and/or water.

FGITD wrote:

Passengers meanwhile are better off stuck on the airplane.

I'd be real careful with that statement. Better off for whom? The airline, or the majority of the passengers? and for how long? How about we stick you in a 18 by 32 inch box and tell you to sit there, with limited ability to move around, for 20 hours with one meal?

I don't know all the facts here, and it may not have been all that bad. I'm just pointing out that statements like this one sound way too smug to me, and can all too easily lead to some of the pax horror stories we've all been seeing recently.

I dont know if the same is true in Europe and the rest of the world but I do know that the FAA requires airlines in America to have an ETOPS recovery plan that is approved by the company FAA inspector. Typically this involves using a spare if available or cancelling one of the flights in the network and using that plane and crew to go to the diversion airport on a "rescue" mission to pick up the stranded passengers. Basically, the airline has to show that it can and will do everything in its means to get people stranded in an ETOPS alternate back to either their destination or a hub of that airline so the passengers can get to their final destinations.

Airlines do audits of their ETOPS alternates and as places either advance or regress economically and infrastructure wise, places are added or removed as suitable diversion points. Many places in Alaska, Russia, Canada, Greenland, and Norway are very remote and sparely populated but for one reason or another usually Cold War politics they have a very long runway with instruments approaches. Even if not very good for passenger handling, if a plane has a mechanical issue that necessitates getting it on the ground ASAP, these places will see diversions. Airlines know this and it is basically the cost of doing business. If people want service from places and to places that require flying over these places, it is inevitable that there will be diversions. Airlines know it wont be pleasant for the passengers but as has been mentioned before, nobody is going to pay tons of money for nice hotels and restaurants with enough space and supplies to handle a full widebody passenger load. Thus military barracks and cots in gymnasiums are the cost of flying over sparely populated lands on cheap airline tickets.

If you want all the ETOPS alternate airports to have the amenities of large city airports than you will need to pay for it in your tickets or demand your government to subsidize it through higher taxes.

Indeed great topic. MSJYOP28Apilot's information is very interesting!

FGITD, I'd say the handling of diversions shouldn't be merely a matter of where it is easiest to count passengers. This is about humans, not cargo! After 20 hours on the plane, everyone will be having issues, some may have medical issues.

Of course, passengers must be cared for. But in a case like this, what other choice did they have but to leave them on the aircraft?

Sitting on a taxiway at JFK, LAX, MIA or any other commercial airport for hours is unacceptable. But in a remote town like Goose Bay, where else can they go?

I can almost guarantee that in a situation like this, had they released the passengers, inevitably we'd see seeing articles such as "air France kicked us out of their airplane into the cold with no regard for our well-being!" Or passengers would be unaccounted for, and they'd be stuck holding the rescue flight while they make sure every one is present.

I don't think many realize that many of these diversion airports....a CRJ could divert there, and they would barely be able to handle the passengers.

FGITD wrote:

I don't think many realize that many of these diversion airports....a CRJ could divert there, and they would barely be able to handle the passengers.

If that was a wild guess, you were spot-on. My old friend Wikipedia says "The airport is classified as an airport of entry by Nav Canada and is staffed by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). CBSA officers at this airport can handle general aviation aircraft only, with no more than 15 passengers"

Another quote points out that during the 1980s–1990s, CFB Goose Bay hosted permanent detachments from the Royal Air Force, Luftwaffe, Royal Netherlands Air Force, and the Aeronautica Militare. With them long gone, and the RCAF base itself reduced in recent years to something less than 100 personnel, I see plenty of empty accommodation blocks and other infrastructure. It might not be The Hilton, but I'm sure it beats being crammed into an A380 for hours on end.

As for passengers wandering off; the local climate at this time of year should persuade most people to stay indoors.

Answer to original question:
Usually as best they can as the situation develops; whilst balancing the economic impact with the need to deal with the stranded pax & equipment and the operation of the wider network.

There's no single way to go about it, all very fluid. Whether the way chosen is the right or wrong way, is entirely subjective and will vary depending where the one forming the opinion is within the chain of events.