Hearing today:
http://globalnews.ca/news/3709996/air-t ... s-testify/
http://www.bnn.ca/ground-crews-detail-d ... s-1.843948
OTTAWA -- The captain of one of two Air Transat flights that was forced to sit for hours on a sweltering Ottawa tarmac last month said Thursday he considered keeping passengers aboard the delayed aircraft to be the lesser of two evils.
Allowing passengers to disembark would have only made additional delays more likely, as opposed to the 30 minutes he was repeatedly being told it would take to refuel, Yves Saint-Laurent told Canadian Transportation Agency hearings in Ottawa.
What's more, it would have taken additional hours to get everyone off the plane and then find a fleet of buses to transport them to a hotel for the night or to Montreal, the plane's ultimate destination.
Denis Lussier, who was piloting the other flight, said he, too, was repeatedly told the wait to refuel would only be 30 minutes more. Both pilots cited a series of circumstances beyond their control -- other planes jumping the refuelling queue, as well as delays getting and connecting external power generators -- that only made matters worse.
Saint-Laurent said he would have made different decisions had he known the delay would last more than three hours.
Nonetheless, he said, most passengers expressed their gratitude to him after they arrived in Montreal.
"The next day, I saw what I would call the media circus," Saint-Laurent told the hearing.
"I was shocked, surprised because I would say that most of the passengers who left the aircraft in Montreal that night said, 'Thank you."'
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This is a good quote:
"The experience of the conditions on board the grounded flights, however, was a “matter of perception,” said Matthew Jackson, the director of flight safety for Air Transat, when asked whether the pilots were aware of how passengers were feeling.
“If I’m managing a delay and I’m talking to a passenger who’s a very nervous flyer, a 15-minute delay may be a terrible thing for that passenger,” Jackson told the hearing. “Their perception is different than the frequent flyer … who’s used to delays.”
The flight safety director further suggested the pilots might have even been hotter than some passengers on account of the polyester uniforms they wear.
“I’m not traveling in shorts and sandals and a T-shirt,” he said. “So I think I would probably feel the heat a little bit more than some travellers.”
During Wednesday’s testimony, passengers told officials they would have given anything to be allowed off the planes, even if only to face further delays or long drives home.
Jackson, Air Transat’s flight safety director, said there was almost no way to accomplish that safely.
“The only way I’m going to let 360 people out on the runway is … because I have a fire on board the aircraft or a bomb threat,” he said. “I’m not deplaning on a runway for fun.”
from Cbc:
"It would have been a logistical and financial challenge — but not an impossibility — to stop in Ottawa, he said".
TS507 eventually spent five hours on the Ottawa airport's tarmac, with passengers telling the hearing there was no air conditioning on board and people were throwing up from the heat and anxiety.
Saint-Laurent said otherwise, claiming the air conditioning was working for all but a minute or two when they were on the ground.
Besides, Saint-Laurent said, no passengers asked him to get off. Flight director Julie Clermont said the same thing.