The TUGBBS forums are completely free and open to the public and exist as the absolute best place for owners to get help and advice about their timeshares for more than 30 years!
Join Tens of Thousands of other Owners just like you here to get any and all Timeshare questions answered 24 hours a day!
TUG started 30 years ago in October 1993 as a group of regular Timeshare owners just like you!
TUG has now saved timeshare owners more than $21,000,000 dollars just by finding us in time to rescind a new Timeshare purchase! A truly incredible milestone!
60,000+ subscribing owners! A weekly recap of the best Timeshare resort reviews and the most popular topics discussed by owners!
Our official "end my sales presentation early" T-shirts are available again! Also come with the option for a free membership extension with purchase to offset the cost!
Wow indeed. That's who we're flying to BI in a few months. I surely hope they get their act together before then (they've already changed and/or cancelled our flights twice, and gave us replacement flights that were worse).
This seems to me like a case of a media outlet picking up on routine flight diversions and trying to make something more out of it than it is - or something "scary" (they even used that word). The same thing happened here in Charlotte a couple months ago when two Charlotte to Rome American Airlines 777 jets had to turn around enroute and divert within a week or so. Local media picked it up and made it sound like the planes were at risk of crashing into the sea. They even dug up a passenger or two who were willing to give them sound bites about how scared they were when the pilot said they had to turn around. For those of us in aviation (I'm an aviation-focused journalist), the way the non-aviation media often treats routine aviation things like these is a frequent source of frustration.
The reality is, airlines have very specific rules that dictate what circumstances require an over-water flight to divert or return to the point of departure. It used to be that only three and four engine jets were allowed to do long over-water routes. That's one reason why the Douglas DC-10s and Lockheed L-1011 jets that were popular in the 1970s and 1980s were built with three engines. But now, most all jets are twin-engine designs (four-engine 747s and A340s are being phased out and there are very few A380 super jumbos), so they have to comply with ETOPS (Extended-range Twin-engine Operations Performance Standards) certification for long over-water flights. ETOPS certifications come with certain procedures that require a flight to divert if certain onboard systems fail - that may even be a system with multiple back-ups, but if one backup fails, the rule may state the flight is required to divert, even through the plane could have safely continued on with the remaining back-up systems. Other times an onboard medical emergency might require a diversion. Any pilot will tell you that 99% of such diversions are totally routine and they happen a lot more than most people realize. But when a media organization picks up on it, it often gets highlighted or sensationalized. That's why right after the whole issue with the 737Max8 autopilot, the media started reporting seemingly every minor issue they heard of that happened on ANY version of the 737. Scary stories get eyeballs and clicks...
This seems to me like a case of a media outlet picking up on routine flight diversions and trying to make something more out of it than it is - or something "scary" (they even used that word). The same thing happened here in Charlotte a couple months ago when two Charlotte to Rome American Airlines 777 jets had to turn around enroute and divert within a week or so. Local media picked it up and made it sound like the planes were at risk of crashing into the sea. They even dug up a passenger or two who were willing to give them sound bites about how scared they were when the pilot said they had to turn around. For those of us in aviation (I'm an aviation-focused journalist), the way the non-aviation media often treats routine aviation things like these is a frequent source of frustration.
The reality is, airlines have very specific rules that dictate what circumstances require an over-water flight to divert or return to the point of departure. It used to be that only three and four engine jets were allowed to do long over-water routes. That's one reason why the Douglas DC-10s and Lockheed L-1011 jets that were popular in the 1970s and 1980s were built with three engines. But now, most all jets are twin-engine designs (four-engine 747s and A340s are being phased out and there are very few A380 super jumbos), so they have to comply with ETOPS (Extended-range Twin-engine Operations Performance Standards) certification for long over-water flights. ETOPS certifications come with certain procedures that require a flight to divert if certain onboard systems fail - that may even be a system with multiple back-ups, but if one backup fails, the rule may state the flight is required to divert, even through the plane could have safely continued on with the remaining back-up systems. Other times an onboard medical emergency might require a diversion. Any pilot will tell you that 99% of such diversions are totally routine and they happen a lot more than most people realize. But when a media organization picks up on it, it often gets highlighted or sensationalized. That's why right after the whole issue with the 737Max8 autopilot, the media started reporting seemingly every minor issue they heard of that happened on ANY version of the 737. Scary stories get eyeballs and clicks...
I understand your point.
However...
I live in California and I would venture to guess we do not hear if there is ONE flight to Hawaii being diverted. In fact, I don't remember hearing of any. (Although there was a recent birth enroute to HI-- which, now I am wondering how " Birth Place" was determined. )
I'm going to argue that 3 Southwest flights plus 3 Alaska flights == very unusual occurrence.
I understand your point.
However...
I live in California and I would venture to guess we do not hear if there is ONE flight to Hawaii being diverted. In fact, I don't remember hearing of any. (Although there was a recent birth enroute to HI-- which, now I am wondering how " Birth Place" was determined. )
I'm going to argue that 3 Southwest flights plus 3 Alaska flights == very unusual occurrence.
I'm not sure I totally agree. Think of how many flights travel to Hawaii from the mainland every day and every week.
It is certainly unusual to have three in three straight days with one airline, as was the case with Alaska, but the Southwest situation was two over a three-week period. I bet the SWA numbers are not all that unusual. And on the Alaska article, they didn't disclose whether any of these were even related causes. The rules for twin-engine long over water operations are much tighter than on regular routes over land, so maintenance items that wouldn't trigger a operational requirement to divert on a stateside flight could cause it to happen on a long over water route. That's the price to keep commercial aviation as safe as it is - plenty of safety margin.
So, I still lean toward the "the media picked up on something and now they're hyping it and making it sound worse than it is." For whatever reason, mass-market media tend to do that with aviation all the time. I live in Charlotte, American Airlines' second largest hub. You can usually bet money on it that if somehow the media finds out that a departing AAL jet had to turn around and land back in CLT due to a maintenance issue, over the next few days/week there will be at least one more report of another diversion. So, either these things always happen in pairs (they don't, obviously) or the first one causes the media to pay attention more until they have a bigger story to chase.
Just like with the COVID babble, until one can show that these are statistical anomalies (ie out of the norm for diversions in a reasonable timeframe), it's just lay-dummy opinion. I frankly don't know one way or another. I don't even know the cause for each or any of them, so can't even posit a dummy guess.
What I do know and think, just like with the pandemic, that there are people that have been working in the field for decades with the requisite expertise, who are paid lots of money to make sure that the planes are safe, unlike everyone here. U.S. flights are safer than they have ever been in the history of flight. And, your chance of dying from a car accident or fall, far exceed the miniscule risk of death aboard a commercial aircraft flight.
Yes, the latest Hawaiian one is a perfect example of what happens. It was crowd-sourced by a report from a passenger who read about the previous ones on that website and said, “Oh, my flight turned back too.” Without the other reports, it would have likely gone unnoticed.
So, routine precautionary diversions suddenly make news in bunches because some reporter starts looking for them. Other times they happen and are never noticed.
These things happen a lot more than anyone realizes. But then a media organization starts tracking them and looking for them and it seems like the frequency has increased.
To a non-aviator any minor issue on a plane in flight seems scary, and worthy of reporting, but most of these things are totally routine and driven by strict procedures.
Years ago, I was on a Delta 757 from Atlanta to Las Vegas. We got to 30,000 feet or so over Alabama or Mississippi, about an hour after takeoff, and we had to turn around and go back to ATL due to a cockpit warning light about the cabin pressurization system. It obviously wasn’t an immediate safety risk because he didn’t descend down to a non-pressurization altitude, but the rules said he couldn’t continue to Vegas. Diversions are usually routine in aviation.
Wow indeed. That's who we're flying to BI in a few months. I surely hope they get their act together before then (they've already changed and/or cancelled our flights twice, and gave us replacement flights that were worse).
These things happen a lot more than anyone realizes. But then a media organization starts tracking them and looking for them and it seems like the frequency has increased.
Fully agree. Plus, given that there are 30,000+ domestic commercial flights every day on average, some kind of issues happen on a regular basis and no one blinks an eye.
The only one I have personally (sort of) been involved with is a few years ago when my wife was flying from Denver to LA. They took off and not more than 20 minutes into the flight the pilots announced they had to return to Denver due to a mechanical issue. Must have been pretty urgent since they didn't circle to burn off fuel, but did a direct landing. She said that was a pretty crazy landing and over-speed landing due to the extra fuel weight and took them much longer to slow the plane down. When they got back to the terminal, the plane had to stop short because they needed the brakes to cool down before getting too close to the air bridge for safety.
Never saw any news report in the Denver area about that flight, so I don't think something like that is all that rare.
Yes, the latest Hawaiian one is a perfect example of what happens. It was crowd-sourced by a report from a passenger who read about the previous ones on that website and said, “Oh, my flight turned back too.” Without the other reports, it would have likely gone unnoticed.
So, routine precautionary diversions suddenly make news in bunches because some reporter starts looking for them. Other times they happen and are never noticed.
These things happen a lot more than anyone realizes. But then a media organization starts tracking them and looking for them and it seems like the frequency has increased.
To a non-aviator any minor issue on a plane in flight seems scary, and worthy of reporting, but most of these things are totally routine and driven by strict procedures.
Years ago, I was on a Delta 757 from Atlanta to Las Vegas. We got to 30,000 feet or so over Alabama or Mississippi, about an hour after takeoff, and we had to turn around and go back to ATL due to a cockpit warning light about the cabin pressurization system. It obviously wasn’t an immediate safety risk because he didn’t descend down to a non-pressurization altitude, but the rules said he couldn’t continue to Vegas. Diversions are usually routine in aviation.
Exactly. Non-aviators often think any time a plane turns back there must be a serious problem, but that's definitely not the case. Both TV and movies feed that misconception as does the dramatic/breathless reporting those events always seem to receive from the media. Drama sells on TV/movies and in the media, but real-life aviation is mainly routine, even boring, stuff.
While there are occasional situations where an engine has to be shut down or other more serious situations do develop, more often than not, it's not a serious situation and is just a routine issue where a minor mechanical failure violates some FAA-mandated minimum equipment rule. Those rules are out there on every flight, but the long over-water routes have additional back-ups and safety margins. Those rules are designed to provide a large margin of safety BEFORE things deteriorate to a potentially serious situation.
While there are occasional situations where an engine has to be shut down or other more serious situations do develop, more often than not, it's not a serious situation and is just a routine issue where a minor mechanical failure violates some FAA-mandated minimum equipment rule. Those rules are out there on every flight, but the long over-water routes have additional back-ups and safety margins. Those rules are designed to provide a large margin of safety BEFORE things deteriorate to a potentially serious situation.
Well stated. I'm not in the aviation industry, but I have watched many episodes of "Air Disasters" on the Smithsonian channel. What has made a huge impression on me is that almost every air disaster's root cause is a chain of several unlikely failures, and very, very rarely attributed to a single failure. Having those safety rules and back ups in place as you explained makes a full-on disaster extremely unlikely.
Wow indeed. That's who we're flying to BI in a few months. I surely hope they get their act together before then (they've already changed and/or cancelled our flights twice, and gave us replacement flights that were worse).
After a few schedule change alerts, Alaska Air notified us in late July of a change in our Sunday flight back from Lihue in September. They canceled our direct flight and put us on another full flight with a rather long layover, and we were assigned middle seats scattered throughout coach. After talking to Alaska, they managed to find 2 seats together, but more importantly, there are other life/scheduling factors that make the long travel day not ideal so they accommodated us on a non-stop flight a day earlier instead. Thank goodness for that, but we will lose one day at Waiohai as a result (note: they did give us $50 in credit per person for future use), and with any II exchange, you don’t get that extra day back in credits/points. I know this situation is probably better than other worse scenarios but is still a bummer nonetheless.
I know that this is getting off-topic and is not directly related to flight diversions, but I do wonder what compels an airline to cancel full flights a month before its scheduled departure unless there’s mechanical issues or routes are getting sold off?
And Hawaiian is not a 737-800 Max. Not getting into the arguments about whether these diversions were justified or not it does seem like the 737-800 has had a great deal of problems from the beginning, some of which were not just a minor problem but deadly crashes. We will be flying Southwest to Maui in a couple of weeks on a 737-800 Max and I am glad that the trip is only 45 minutes so that a diversion would most probably mean landing in Maui.
And Hawaiian is not a 737-800 Max. Not getting into the arguments about whether these diversions were justified or not it does seem like the 737-800 has had a great deal of problems from the beginning, some of which were not just a minor problem but deadly crashes. We will be flying Southwest to Maui in a couple of weeks on a 737-800 Max and I am glad that the trip is only 45 minutes so that a diversion would most probably mean landing in Maui.
I know that this is getting off-topic and is not directly related to flight diversions, but I do wonder what compels an airline to cancel full flights a month before its scheduled departure unless there’s mechanical issues or routes are getting sold off?
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
beatofhawaii.com
