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A 7 Hour Wait?!
October 11, 2007
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  • One would think that after all the delays and complaints about the airlines trapping passengers in airplanes for hours on end they would learn. Well, these are the airlines…

    Check out this article from the USA Today:

    US Airways flight stuck on tarmac for 7 hours

    10/11/2007

    PHOENIX (AP) Ñ Passengers on a US Airways flight from New York to Phoenix spent nearly 7 hours sitting on the tarmac waiting for bad weather to clear, finally arriving nearly six hours late, and presumably a whole lot grumpier.

    Flight 17 from John F. Kennedy International Airport was due to leave at 6 p.m. Tuesday, but didn’t actually take off until about 1 a.m., airline spokesman Phil Gee said.

    Dozens of other aircraft were delayed because of a storm passing through the area, which closed the airport for about 90 minutes.

    Gee said the plane pushed back from the gate at 6:30 p.m. ET and spent hours sitting on the tarmac so it wouldn’t lose its takeoff slot.

    The plane finally went back to the gate to refuel, but then resumed its wait for a takeoff slot. Several passengers decided to get off the plane while it was being refueled.

    Flight 17 finally arrived at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport at about 2:45 a.m. MT Wednesday. Once they had taken off, the pilots shaved some time off the scheduled 5 hour flight.

    The incident comes nine months after Congress was flooded with complaints from passengers left sitting on airplanes for hours last winter. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., introduced a bill that would prohibit airlines from keeping travelers stuck on the tarmac for longer than three hours in February.

    http://www.usatoday.com