I had the opportunity to observe front-line handling by ground staff of IRROPS today, with the weather causing a few problems in the Central Queensland area. Scheduled on the 1445 DJ service out of ROK, I got there at 1415 to a notice that the departure had been delayed to 1545. For once, I hadn't checked online before leaving the office, as I had come straight from a business lunch. Given my lack of faith in the display of FIDS, I checked the BNE departures on my phone, to discover that the incoming service still hadn't left BNE at 1420. No way we'd have a 1545 departure.
As I strolled over to the service desk to observe, I heard the first (of what was to be many) personal pages for specific passengers to go to the service desk. Milling around the desk were many more passengers than I would have expected. Then, I heard my name paged, and so walked up to the desk. As I got closer to the desk, I was recognised by the station supervisor (the joys of flying to regional airports weekly for the last 18 months), and was quickly apologised to, saying that she'd read off the wrong pile of boarding passes. Huh? Given how busy they were, I left it at that, and sat down at a seat very close to the service desk, with a mental note to ask later.
Over the next 15 minutes, at least 20 people were paged. Some were given new boarding passes, others were asked to wait close to the desk, and a few started to get very unhappy. Something's definitely afoot here. Online, the flight status of the incoming service finally changed to "Departed", and I started to watch its progress on the Flightradar app. As it passed the Sunshine Coast, something twigged to me that wasn't right. Flightradar had identified it as a E190, instead ot the 737-700 I had seen when I'd checked in just before lunch. So, not only late, but a downgauge as well, and on a sold out flight.
There was much activity at the counters - the staff would look at the screens, point to a few passengers, and then radio to the rampers and page a few passengers. The rampers would bring up a few bags, some would be re-tagged and sent back down the belt, and others would be held behind the counter. The passengers would come up, and either get new boarding passes, or have a long discussion.
Finally, things quietened down, and I walked up to have a chat to the supervisor. Apparently, Mackay, Hamilton Island and Proserpine were closed (or had been closed earlier), and Gladstone was shaky. And planes were doing big holding patterns on approach into BNE (and coincidentally, mine has just started one - I'm typing this on the flight). And the 737 which was supposed to be operating this sector had firstly been stuck in Mackay, and then gone tech, and they had replaced it with the Embraer 190 - with no catering loaded.
So, they'd tried to actively flow forward a few status passengers onto the 1355 service (including me) - the "other" pile of boarding passes, except that I wasn't at the airport in time, so I missed out. And my flight, plus the other later services that day had been zeroed out for a while, so they had minimal opportunity to rebook the affected passengers onto the later flights, except if they had no-shows, which they were not expecting, given it was Friday afternoon (most people want to get home for the weekend).
From what I could observe, they were proactively looking for people with international connections out of BNE, then those with domestic connections, and making sure that they were not offloaded. They'd tried to flow forward status passengers, and then protect them, and they also had to juggle the seating, because we'd gone from a 3-3 config to a 2-2 config and about 40 seats less.
Then, they had to decide how many they would have to off-load and send them away to return tomorrow, and how many to keep on standby in case there were any no-shows on the checked-in passengers. All whilst being pressured by passengers who were upset at having to stay overnight and fly out the next day - particularly being a Friday afternoon leading into the weekend. Plus there were hotels to organise for those who had to stay overnight and were not local.
This sort of thing happens frequently, all around the world. However, this was the first time I could actually watch the process in action, and observe the way the passengers acted. Some were understanding, but disappointed. A couple were glad to have another night away at someone else's expense, and some were just rude and abusive. Being a small regional airport, I had the opportunity to observe more closely than I would have had at a larger airport, where a lot of this probably happens in a back room somewhere.
What impressed me mostly was the apparent care and consideration given to the selection of those to be denied boarding, and the way in which the affected customers were dealt with. Well done, ground crew.
Oh, and as a footnote, on-board the flight, Flexi passengers did not get their meal, but received a $20 coupon to be used on a future flight, or in the BNE terminal on arrival.
As I strolled over to the service desk to observe, I heard the first (of what was to be many) personal pages for specific passengers to go to the service desk. Milling around the desk were many more passengers than I would have expected. Then, I heard my name paged, and so walked up to the desk. As I got closer to the desk, I was recognised by the station supervisor (the joys of flying to regional airports weekly for the last 18 months), and was quickly apologised to, saying that she'd read off the wrong pile of boarding passes. Huh? Given how busy they were, I left it at that, and sat down at a seat very close to the service desk, with a mental note to ask later.
Over the next 15 minutes, at least 20 people were paged. Some were given new boarding passes, others were asked to wait close to the desk, and a few started to get very unhappy. Something's definitely afoot here. Online, the flight status of the incoming service finally changed to "Departed", and I started to watch its progress on the Flightradar app. As it passed the Sunshine Coast, something twigged to me that wasn't right. Flightradar had identified it as a E190, instead ot the 737-700 I had seen when I'd checked in just before lunch. So, not only late, but a downgauge as well, and on a sold out flight.
There was much activity at the counters - the staff would look at the screens, point to a few passengers, and then radio to the rampers and page a few passengers. The rampers would bring up a few bags, some would be re-tagged and sent back down the belt, and others would be held behind the counter. The passengers would come up, and either get new boarding passes, or have a long discussion.
Finally, things quietened down, and I walked up to have a chat to the supervisor. Apparently, Mackay, Hamilton Island and Proserpine were closed (or had been closed earlier), and Gladstone was shaky. And planes were doing big holding patterns on approach into BNE (and coincidentally, mine has just started one - I'm typing this on the flight). And the 737 which was supposed to be operating this sector had firstly been stuck in Mackay, and then gone tech, and they had replaced it with the Embraer 190 - with no catering loaded.
So, they'd tried to actively flow forward a few status passengers onto the 1355 service (including me) - the "other" pile of boarding passes, except that I wasn't at the airport in time, so I missed out. And my flight, plus the other later services that day had been zeroed out for a while, so they had minimal opportunity to rebook the affected passengers onto the later flights, except if they had no-shows, which they were not expecting, given it was Friday afternoon (most people want to get home for the weekend).
From what I could observe, they were proactively looking for people with international connections out of BNE, then those with domestic connections, and making sure that they were not offloaded. They'd tried to flow forward status passengers, and then protect them, and they also had to juggle the seating, because we'd gone from a 3-3 config to a 2-2 config and about 40 seats less.
Then, they had to decide how many they would have to off-load and send them away to return tomorrow, and how many to keep on standby in case there were any no-shows on the checked-in passengers. All whilst being pressured by passengers who were upset at having to stay overnight and fly out the next day - particularly being a Friday afternoon leading into the weekend. Plus there were hotels to organise for those who had to stay overnight and were not local.
This sort of thing happens frequently, all around the world. However, this was the first time I could actually watch the process in action, and observe the way the passengers acted. Some were understanding, but disappointed. A couple were glad to have another night away at someone else's expense, and some were just rude and abusive. Being a small regional airport, I had the opportunity to observe more closely than I would have had at a larger airport, where a lot of this probably happens in a back room somewhere.
What impressed me mostly was the apparent care and consideration given to the selection of those to be denied boarding, and the way in which the affected customers were dealt with. Well done, ground crew.
Oh, and as a footnote, on-board the flight, Flexi passengers did not get their meal, but received a $20 coupon to be used on a future flight, or in the BNE terminal on arrival.
