Air NZ crew heads home alone after LA suicide

In message
s.sympatico.ca, Raffi
Balmanoukian a writes
If the airline is going to have the laudable policy of
accommodating that, they should have enough redundancy at a major gateway
like LAX so that a 747-load isn't prejudiced as a result.

It looked to me as if they did - weren't all the passengers accommodated
same day on other flights? So the actual cash cost would only have been
any compensation paid for the delay - the exact same number of people
and planes made the trip - just that all the paying passengers were on
planes other than the one with just the affected crew.
--
Roland Perry

matt weber wrote:
The decision was made to fly the Boeing 747-400 back to Auckland with
only the 13 crew and in-flight service director on board. An airline
spokesman said the cost of flying the aircraft home without passengers
would have been "up to $50,000".


Somebody's arithmetic is more than a bit suspect... Two ways of
looking at this, but for starters, it is a 6500 mile mission, so about
12 hours, and about 240,000 pouns of Jet A, or about 37,000 gallons,
at current rates that is about 33,000USD just for the fuel. That says
nothing about landing fees, maintenance, or anything else.

No extra fuel, landing fees, or maintenance required.
The plane was already scheduled to fly back.a

Mutlley wrote:

a b c wrote:

Air NZ crew heads home alone after LA suicide

25.02.2004
By LOUISA CLEAVE

Thirteen Air New Zealand cabin crew members were flown home from the
United States without their passengers after witnessing a suicide on
their way to work.

Passengers booked on flight NZ3 from Los Angeles to Auckland on Sunday
were put on other Air New Zealand flights after the incident, said Ed
Sims, general manager international airline.

The crew was in a minibus on the way to LAX when a person jumped off
an overbridge and landed on their vehicle.

The person then fell on the highway into the path of traffic.

Mr Sims said the crew went to assist but the person was dead and they
were "faced with a horrific scene".

Gee. What a precious lot. I guess they will need counseling on some
sunny beach for a month before they return to work.

Talk about a pampered group of workers.

Tough guy, Huh? That's interesting, because they are usually the first to
crack when the chips are down.....

Coop


--
To reply, remove the nose wheel.....

mtravelkay scribbled:

matt weber wrote:
Somebody's arithmetic is more than a bit suspect... Two ways of
looking at this, but for starters, it is a 6500 mile mission, so about
12 hours, and about 240,000 pouns of Jet A, or about 37,000 gallons,
at current rates that is about 33,000USD just for the fuel. That says
nothing about landing fees, maintenance, or anything else.

No extra fuel, landing fees, or maintenance required.
The plane was already scheduled to fly back.a

Empty except for the non paying crew. you know, *NO paying passengers*
It's typicaly seen as a cost to the company when that happens.

--

Replace the obvious with paradise to email me.
See Found Images at:
http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/~mlvburke/

Roland Perry wrote:
It looked to me as if they did - weren't all the passengers accommodated
same day on other flights? So the actual cash cost would only have been
any compensation paid for the delay - the exact same number of people
and planes made the trip - just that all the paying passengers were on
planes other than the one with just the affected crew.

Depends on load factor for other flight and if the other daily flight left
after the "cancelled" one.

For the crew, wouldn't it have been better to have *some* passengers which
would have helped take their mind off the trauma ? For instance, take 50% of
the scheduled pax, and add a psychiatrist to talk to crew between the service
and during crew rest periods.

Passengers would have to know about the crew's experience and asked to
volunteer for that flight.

In message , nobody
writes
Depends on [...] if the other daily flight left
after the "cancelled" one.

It must have done, otherwise it couldn't have mopped up all the
passengers who were travelling that day.
--
Roland Perry

Max Burke wrote:
looking at this, but for starters, it is a 6500 mile mission, so about
12 hours, and about 240,000 pouns of Jet A, or about 37,000 gallons,

Empty except for the non paying crew. you know, *NO paying passengers*
It's typicaly seen as a cost to the company when that happens.

If you are flying empty, the plane requires less fuel. And as other has
posted, they probably were able to carry much more cargo. (airlines routinely
ask the post office for extra bags of mail at the last minute if there is
weight/space available, and there are also stand-by cargo shipments that go
out last minute if there is room. (you pay less shipping charges if your cargo
isn't on a specific confirmed flight).

Lets say both flights had a 60% load factor. This means that 66% (2/3) of
flight 1 can be accomodated onto flight 2. 1/3 will need accomodation until
the next day (or put on a Ua flight to sydney and then NZ back to AKL).

(Of course, when you load flight 2 to the brim, that flight will eats up the
fuel that flight 1 saved by not carrying those pax).

Max Burke wrote:
Some of the crew were prepared to work the flight, but it was Air NZ
management that sent them all home on an empty plane... Sending the
aircraft back to NZ empty would have cost Air NZ a lot more that just the
crew's wages they paid out...

Here's what I don't understand - wouldn't it have been cheaper to pay for a
parking spot for 14 hours and fly a new crew out? The traumatized crew could
head home on Qantas.

miguel
--
Hundreds of travel photos from around the world: http://travel.u.nu/

Miguel Cruz wrote:

Max Burke wrote:

Some of the crew were prepared to work the flight, but it was Air NZ
management that sent them all home on an empty plane... Sending the
aircraft back to NZ empty would have cost Air NZ a lot more that just the
crew's wages they paid out...


Here's what I don't understand - wouldn't it have been cheaper to pay for a
parking spot for 14 hours and fly a new crew out? The traumatized crew could
head home on Qantas.

Maybe they didn't want to delay the plane's next scheduled trip from
Auckland.

And if it only is to carry cargo and no pax, it can leave late once they
arrange the additional cargo or transferred the cargo from the flights that
are now carrying the pax.


texan@texas; removethisbit.usa.com wrote in message
...
On Mon, 01 Mar 2004 13:46:27 +0800, budgie wrote:

On Mon, 01 Mar 2004 02:36:16 GMT, Raffi Balmanoukian
wrote:

in article , James Robinson at
wrote on 2/29/04 10:34 PM:

matt weber wrote:

NO WAY IT CAN BE DONE FOR ONLY $50,000

I bet the hold was filled with cargo. That revenue would offset some,
if
not all, of the cost.

not on that little notice.

Depends. If it were the plane they werre due to fly out on, the cargo
would
conceivably have already been half-loaded anyway. So "keep loading,
boys,
there's no payload limit on this one".

Definitely!
I've seen flights that were diverted to LAX the night before due to
fog closing out SAN, come down the next morning loaded to the gills
with cargo that would have come down in dribs and drabs during the
day.

Most people don't realise how much cargo aircraft carry. Plus it can
be anything from live animals to bodies and transplant items [often
the latter are actually carried inside the cabin].

Cath