AIRLINE EXCUSES

Have you ever boarded a flight that went nowhere? Maybe the plane just rolled out onto the runway and then returned to the gate, or worse still, it never even moved?

It happens all the time. Neither the Department of Transportation nor the Federal Aviation Administration collect statistics on mechanical delays, experience tells that roughly 5 percent of all scheduled flights are hampered by some kind of "technical" trouble.

Take a look at an airline's delay numbers, discount the weather, and you will have a good idea of the kind of havoc mechanical problems can wreak on a carrier's schedule.

Mechanical Semantics
Nobody would be in favor of taking off with broken engines or flaps. Is that what they're talking about when they tell you that your flight has been grounded because of mechanical trouble?

Often it's not. It seems that some carriers have begun adopting a very generous definition of "mechanical" trouble. When an apologetic flight attendant gets on the PA system and announces that you're stuck because the aircraft is experiencing mechanical problems, it might not be your flight that is having trouble. The problem might not be the kind that you would think would ground a plane—a clogged toilet, perhaps, or a button that's not illuminating.

Airline insiders say that carriers have canceled flights for everything from a broken coffeemaker to wet glue under the windshield to rather vague (read nonexistent) "engine irregularities".

"They call it mechanical trouble," says Frank Kogen, president and chief operating officer for corporate travel agency Advanced Travel Management in New York. "But it isn't. Not the way we think of it."

Well then, what is it? It could be a couple of things. According to Paul Hudson, executive director of the Aviation Consumer Action Project, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., "there's an interest in exaggerating mechanical delays, because they're excluded from on-time performance statistics kept by the FAA."

So if a plane is running late then the best thing for an airline to call it is a mechanical delay. Then it won't go on the airline's record. They could cancel the flight and it wouldn't even be on the record.

Convenient Excuse
Airlines routinely cancel under-booked flights for "mechanical" reasons, and send travelers out on a later flight. What the airline won't tell you is that your plane works just fine. It's another aircraft—perhaps one that has more passengers on it that has the problem.

"It's a joke," admits an airline crewmember. "We're telling passengers that the flight is canceled because of a mechanical problem, but what we really should be saying is that their plane is needed elsewhere."

If you're a skeptic then check out the "departures" screen on your next layover in Denver or Atlanta. Try this on a day when the weather is quiet and there are few passengers in the terminal (Saturdays and Sundays are best). Count the number of cancellations and think about the odds of that many flights having mechanical trouble at the same time?

Worst Offenders
Charters are the worst. Mostly because they only operate a limited number of aircrafts.

Not all airlines do this. Last year, after one of its flights from New York to London broke down, British Airways offered to re-book the stranded passengers. Only one traveler, who happened to be related to a flight attendant, refused to go. He wasn't in any hurry and he would gladly take the flight once it was fixed. He ended up being the only passenger on the Boeing 747.

"It was a little embarrassing, to be honest, having only one passenger on that flight," says British Airways spokeswoman Margie Vodopia. Her carrier's rule is simple. It operates the flights whether they're overbooked or under-booked.