another cfii
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 1, 2002
- Posts
- 540
So a friend calls me today with a strange story:
She was sitting on a plane waiting to depart Detroit, MI for Salt lake City.
While waiting the intercom comes on and mentions the plane doesn't have enough fuel to make it to KSLC so they will be diverting to Kansas City to get fuel. All of this while sitting on the ground in Detroit. Why wouldn't they get fuel in Detroit? Anybody who has some answers please write back.
Thanks
I think most passengers when they hear any PA on the ground, they'd assumed the worst, i.e. ground delay, mechanical, gate return... Some would go back to their ipod, some would pay a bit more attention (as in your friend, kudos to her. Please understand that in our profession we use some very specific airline "lingo" that even some of us have a hard time comprehending.
I'm sure the Captain was trying to explain it the best way he/she could, minus the technical stuff. While the cockpit door is closed, there's a lot more going on. There's air traffic control's taxi instruction, company's electronic messages regarding any issues, running checklists. So in this case, the crew is probably busy retrieving new paperwork, inputting new airplane performance data, while trying to keep the folks in the loop.
So instead of giving a 10 min. speech about why the wind is stronger than usual/lower cruise altitude to get away from turbulence, we usually try to give a more generic, less alarming PA to keep folks updated in the back. Next time if you have any questions about the flight, don't hesitate to pass the question up through the flight attendants, or ask the pilots when you deplane. I'm sure if time permitting, they'd love to explain things a bit more in detail.
Thanks for flying Delta