I can think of worse places to be stranded for 3 days.

[The Raven]

According to the chat on FlyerTalk, the 757 that Westjet has been using for the Maui run has been having some mechanical issues lately. People were stuck in Maui for 2 days. The 737 sent to pick them up blew some tires on landing. That made for a third night in Maui for the passengers. Still, I can think of worse places to be stranded.

More bad luck for WS and the passengers (including my brother and his family) the rescue plane blew a couple tires on landing in Maui and is now stuck here as well with the 757. So most of those passengers who were not able to get onto WS's YVR flights or unwilling to buy flights on AC as there were no guarantees from WS to cover those are now spending their 3 extra night in Maui.

I fully understand about planes going MX and have had it happen to me before more then once but with AC you have the ability to be placed on their partners such as United and US Airways by calling the IROPs line

.

[Realitychex]

According to the chat on FlyerTalk, the 757 that Westjet has been using for the Maui run has been having some mechanical issues lately. People were stuck in Maui for 2 days. The 737 sent to pick them up blew some tires on landing. That made for a third night in Maui for the passengers. Still, I can think of worse places to be stranded.

More bad luck for WS and the passengers (including my brother and his family) the rescue plane blew a couple tires on landing in Maui and is now stuck here as well with the 757. So most of those passengers who were not able to get onto WS's YVR flights or unwilling to buy flights on AC as there were no guarantees from WS to cover those are now spending their 3 extra night in Maui.

I fully understand about planes going MX and have had it happen to me before more then once but with AC you have the ability to be placed on their partners such as United and US Airways by calling the IROPs line

.

Hmmm.

A tire change, (always done in pairs) on a 737 takes 30 minutes or less and most people sitting at the gate or even on board would never know its occuring.

It's not as if WJ ramp maintenance doesn't keep a supply of tires at each base and if they were short, they would typically pick up the phone and call Alaska ramp maintenance, or any other airline operating NG's.

At worse, they'd have tires thrown on any one of the hourly Hawaiian / Go flights from HNL from the HNL maintenance inventory.....

In other words, I highly doubt the accuracy of this particular post.

[The Raven]

I don't know why a passenger would lie Mark. Anyway, you spend a lot of time in Hawaii, maybe you can find out how the 757 operation is doing.

[stickontheice]

From what I know the 757's APU went U/S in YYC. We needed a tire change once in OGG and Aloha Cargo brought it over for us from HNL. About a 3 hour delay. I can't speak directly at this particular IROP however I will say that WJ is second to none in IROP recovery. If the guests had a delay of that magnitude then they'd be put up at a hotel and kept apprised of the situation. With the two YVR flights a day in and out of OGG and given the time of year (kids being back to school) I would doubt that anyone spent three extra days there.

I suspect you're trying to be a DB and stir the pot. You've been particularly quiet this winter. With all this Regional talk I've missed your rants and raves with such passion and vigour. It's good to see you back.

[The Raven]

Not trying to stir the pot at all. It appears Westjet has had a problem with the 757 operation the past couple of days and are playing catch-up. Good to see they've put the passengers up in hotels though. By the way, here's another comment....

"The problems of only chartering one aircraft for a service like this showed itself yesterday. My brother and his family were scheduled on WS3005 OGG-YYC on Jan 26 however the plane had mechanical issues and eventually was cancelled after a few delays to the departure time waiting for a part to be flown in from HNL. Well low and behold their new departure time was set for 5:00pm today (WestJet put them up in their original hotel, the Grand Wailea, so not a bad deal there! ) and the flight has been cancelled again so they are spending another night in Maui. Of course the flight to Honolulu from YYC today was cancelled as is Saturday morning's YYC-OGG flight. It's going to take sometime for WS to catch up on the backlog of people stuck in Hawaii and Canada and I'm pretty sure many of these people will not be happy.

Kind of makes me glad I flew AC to Maui (I am typing this from the comfort of the Westin Ka'anapali Ocean Resort Villas) as AC has the aircraft and partnerships to cover themselves when issues like this arise".

ps...maybe Bean can comment

[DaveP]

Hi,

There is a767 is on it's way to clean everything up as I type.

Also, an internal memo is in crew mail for wj'ers.

cheers.

[CpnCrunch]

It's always a risk when you don't have any backup. I was once stuck in Manchester for 9 hrs when a Zoom plane had a technical problem and they had to get a replacement.

However, given that WJ has codeshares with AA (who fly to LAX from OGG) as well as other airlines, I don't understand why this should be a problem.

[The Raven]

Westjet passengers stuck in Maui
_QR77 Newsroom
1/29/2012
Passengers trying to get a flight home from Maui on Westjet for the past 4 days are still out of luck.
200 passengers have been stuck on the island since Thursday when their flight canceled.
Over the next four days every flight has been cancelled as well .

One Calgary couple says the matter has gone from inconvenient to ridiculous...
Westjet hopes to have parts delivered to the broken aircraft today ...

[twinpratts]

Yawn.

[Troubleshot]

Yawn.

No doubt WestJet is looking after them while they are there.... but 4 days? seems a bit weird. I know if I had to be at work and had to wait that long "yawn" wouldn't really describe how I felt about the whole situation. If WestJet cannot handle an AOG in the states it is probably good they plan on going regional rather than international.

[The Raven]

I see today's (Monday) Westjet flight (WJ3006) to Maui is cancelled again. Sucks to be stuck in Calgary.

[rudder]

Amateur hour.

[Realitychex]

It's always dangerous to throw stones in glass houses.

[rudder]

1 day is a glass house. 2 days raises serious questions. 3 days may be the former record.

4 days is inexcusable. I hope that there are lessons learned.

[wee_in_yyc]

It wasn't cancelled just the flight number changed and some help was brought in:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wee_in_yyc ... hotostream

[Rotten Apple #1]

rudder, why the angst?

[rudder]

No angst. Just wondering how some can make light of what most carriers would consider to be a significant failure in commercial performance and IRROPS recovery. And like most events, hopefully lessons will be learned. I actually suspect that this will lead to WJ finally adding its own larger gauge equipment or dropping the route. The experiment with third parties would seem to be ending. Go get some 757/767's and paint them teal You will love flying them even though they are a little dated.

[twinpratts]

.

[aroundthewing]

What I'd like to know is why this story isn't plastered across every newspaper/news cast/web blog in North America??
Oops sorry.....thought it was Air Canada!!

[Flying Nutcracker]

I am sure the crews and staff involved in dealing with this appreciates the support from fellow peers on this board...

This is an IROP and as such is being dealt with in the best way with the available resources.

Embarrassing? Sure it is. But extraordinary circumstances happen from time to time and this time, like many times before, it will be resolved eventually and the lessons will be learned.

As peers, please show some gratitude towards the people who are in the middle of the music doing their job! Most of us have to deal with this at one point in our careers and I for one know how it feels to show pride in my work when the crowd is turned red because of your shortcomings as a company.

It doesn't matter what color your aircraft is...

IMHO