Citrus531
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2005
- Posts
- 251
I looked to see if this had been posted in the last couple days...if it was, sorry...but very interesting about what this pax did
For nearly four hours last Thursday night, Flight 5637, a 50-seat regional jet, was stuck on the ground by bad weather at Kennedy International Airport. The air-conditioning wasn’t working, and no one seemed to have a clue about when the plane would take off.
Skip to next paragraph Chris Gash
I wish I could say I was writing about this because the situation was unusual. Or that it was as bad as air travel can get. But I can’t.
What was unusual was that one passenger on the flight, David Ollila, runs a company that makes video cameras the size of a roll of quarters for mountain bikers, skiers and other amateur athletes to attach to their helmets and capture their thrills. And Mr. Ollila had one of those little cameras with him.
He marched up to the plane’s front, stood a few feet from the open cockpit door and interviewed the captain, demanding to know why something wasn’t being done to get the passengers off the plane.
He got a few replies on camera. Then the police arrived. The passengers all filed off. The flight was canceled. Mr. Ollila said he was questioned inside the airport by the Port Authority police and a Transportation Security Administration officer. After a background check, “they determined I was not a threat,” he said.
He was released without charge.
Flight 5637, New York to Detroit, was operated by Comair, a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines. Kate Marx, a spokeswoman for Comair, confirms that the police responded twice to the plane — once to “evaluate” a sick teenager and a few hours later to deal with a report of a possible disruptive passenger (that would be Mr. Ollila).
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says no official report was filed. Christopher White, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration, confirmed that agency officials did respond to a report from the captain, questioned Mr. Ollila, and determined that he neither posed a threat nor violated security rules.
Mr. Ollila said he decided to make his move at around 9.30 p.m, when the captain announced that the crew had “timed out." — that is, had approached the safety limit on its work hours — and that a new crew was being sought. Figuring that could add hours to the ordeal, he sprang into action as a citizen journalist.
"People were crying; people were throwing up,” he said. “The air-conditioning was not working. It was just becoming a mess.”
Mr. Ollila, 37, is the founder of V.I.O. Inc., a Michigan company that makes the tiny cameras, which it calls “wearable video technology.”
The police and the T.S.A. official who questioned him were “terrific," he said. Afterward, “they all wanted me to give them a demonstration of the camera," said Mr. Ollila, who knows a marketing opportunity when he sees one. (To see it, go to www.vio-pov.com. The company’s main Web site is www.viosport.com)
Now, I could (and God help me, might) spend the rest of this summer writing about delays, cancellations and airplanes packed with people stranded without being able to get off because of bad weather, bad scheduling, bad airline management, the inability of the Federal Aviation Administration to handle growing air traffic — or a combination of the above. Each week, there are reports of long delays and stranded flights.
Flight 5637 boarded at 6 p.m., more than an hour late. Shortly after boarding, Mr. Ollila said, “the pilot announced that the air-conditioning system was broken, and it would be uncomfortable, but that we should be under way shortly."
By 9.30 p.m., some passengers were standing in the narrow aisle and fanning themselves and children with magazines. Mr. Ollila approached the cockpit.
“I figured if I started recording and asking the pilots what was going on and why they couldn’t make a decision to get people off the plane that the police would come and take us off — and that is exactly what happened,”he said.
I’ve seen Mr. Ollila’s recording. At first the captain asks if Mr. Ollila is “recording," to which Mr. Ollila replies that he is. Still, the captain replied to Mr. Ollila’s persistent questions for about five minutes. In his responses, the captain basically said he had no authority to release the passengers without approval from Comair’s headquarters. “He said, ‘If you keep this up I’m going to have to call the police.’ I said, ‘That’s an excellent idea,’ " Mr. Ollila said.
Ms. Marx, the Comair spokeswoman, confirmed the details of the incident, but she said the captain’s options were limited. On the night in question, she said, Kennedy was experiencing departure delays averaging three hours, and removing passengers from a plane means losing a slot in the takeoff line.
Since he stayed out of the cockpit, Mr. Ollila evidently was not in violation of security rules.
Airline chaos is the travel story of this year. I’ve written in the past about the efforts of a real estate agent from the San Francisco area, Kate Hanni, who got so motivated after being stranded for eight hours on a plane with overflowing toilets that she now works full-time lobbying for federal legislation to address passengers’ rights.
For nearly four hours last Thursday night, Flight 5637, a 50-seat regional jet, was stuck on the ground by bad weather at Kennedy International Airport. The air-conditioning wasn’t working, and no one seemed to have a clue about when the plane would take off.
Skip to next paragraph Chris Gash
I wish I could say I was writing about this because the situation was unusual. Or that it was as bad as air travel can get. But I can’t.
What was unusual was that one passenger on the flight, David Ollila, runs a company that makes video cameras the size of a roll of quarters for mountain bikers, skiers and other amateur athletes to attach to their helmets and capture their thrills. And Mr. Ollila had one of those little cameras with him.
He marched up to the plane’s front, stood a few feet from the open cockpit door and interviewed the captain, demanding to know why something wasn’t being done to get the passengers off the plane.
He got a few replies on camera. Then the police arrived. The passengers all filed off. The flight was canceled. Mr. Ollila said he was questioned inside the airport by the Port Authority police and a Transportation Security Administration officer. After a background check, “they determined I was not a threat,” he said.
He was released without charge.
Flight 5637, New York to Detroit, was operated by Comair, a subsidiary of Delta Air Lines. Kate Marx, a spokeswoman for Comair, confirms that the police responded twice to the plane — once to “evaluate” a sick teenager and a few hours later to deal with a report of a possible disruptive passenger (that would be Mr. Ollila).
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says no official report was filed. Christopher White, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration, confirmed that agency officials did respond to a report from the captain, questioned Mr. Ollila, and determined that he neither posed a threat nor violated security rules.
Mr. Ollila said he decided to make his move at around 9.30 p.m, when the captain announced that the crew had “timed out." — that is, had approached the safety limit on its work hours — and that a new crew was being sought. Figuring that could add hours to the ordeal, he sprang into action as a citizen journalist.
"People were crying; people were throwing up,” he said. “The air-conditioning was not working. It was just becoming a mess.”
Mr. Ollila, 37, is the founder of V.I.O. Inc., a Michigan company that makes the tiny cameras, which it calls “wearable video technology.”
The police and the T.S.A. official who questioned him were “terrific," he said. Afterward, “they all wanted me to give them a demonstration of the camera," said Mr. Ollila, who knows a marketing opportunity when he sees one. (To see it, go to www.vio-pov.com. The company’s main Web site is www.viosport.com)
Now, I could (and God help me, might) spend the rest of this summer writing about delays, cancellations and airplanes packed with people stranded without being able to get off because of bad weather, bad scheduling, bad airline management, the inability of the Federal Aviation Administration to handle growing air traffic — or a combination of the above. Each week, there are reports of long delays and stranded flights.
Flight 5637 boarded at 6 p.m., more than an hour late. Shortly after boarding, Mr. Ollila said, “the pilot announced that the air-conditioning system was broken, and it would be uncomfortable, but that we should be under way shortly."
By 9.30 p.m., some passengers were standing in the narrow aisle and fanning themselves and children with magazines. Mr. Ollila approached the cockpit.
“I figured if I started recording and asking the pilots what was going on and why they couldn’t make a decision to get people off the plane that the police would come and take us off — and that is exactly what happened,”he said.
I’ve seen Mr. Ollila’s recording. At first the captain asks if Mr. Ollila is “recording," to which Mr. Ollila replies that he is. Still, the captain replied to Mr. Ollila’s persistent questions for about five minutes. In his responses, the captain basically said he had no authority to release the passengers without approval from Comair’s headquarters. “He said, ‘If you keep this up I’m going to have to call the police.’ I said, ‘That’s an excellent idea,’ " Mr. Ollila said.
Ms. Marx, the Comair spokeswoman, confirmed the details of the incident, but she said the captain’s options were limited. On the night in question, she said, Kennedy was experiencing departure delays averaging three hours, and removing passengers from a plane means losing a slot in the takeoff line.
Since he stayed out of the cockpit, Mr. Ollila evidently was not in violation of security rules.
Airline chaos is the travel story of this year. I’ve written in the past about the efforts of a real estate agent from the San Francisco area, Kate Hanni, who got so motivated after being stranded for eight hours on a plane with overflowing toilets that she now works full-time lobbying for federal legislation to address passengers’ rights.
