Passengers Give Up After 4 Aircraft Swaps
On Wednesday, Allegiant Air had mechanical problems with 3 different aircraft. Unfortunately for the passengers headed from Orlando to Grand Rapids, it was all with the same flight.
One of those worst-case scenarios. Flight 682 initially took off and then had to return the gate for mechanical problems, the second aircraft was boarded but never left an issue was discovered, and the third aircraft of the night had problems with cabin lighting. The flight eventually left the next morning on a new aircraft. Total delay time: 16.5 hours. Not too bad all things considering it’s a small, low cost airline.
One family rebooked on a later flight the next day which also had mechanical problems decided enough was enough, renting a car to drive home to Michigan.
I’ve rented a car to get home versus waiting for the next flight, but draw the line at around 6-8 hours. What about you? At what point would make the decision to drive?
I would have serious doubts about my safety if an airline cancelled three times in 16 hours on three different aircraft attempting to complete a single leg of a trip. Not a well maintained airline, it seems! (Obviously canceling shows that they aren’t willing to dispatch a broken airplane – OK, that’s minimum safety requirements. But they are running much too close to margin if that many planes go MX in less than a day on one scheduled departure).
All you need to do is “google” the airline name and safety. That will tell you everything you need to know.
Wow. And I thought the 12-hour delay my wife and I had with Allegiant was bad. (Broken deicer, followed by gear that wouldn’t retract when we took off five hours later. Had to wait for a replacement aircraft to be flown that night from Vegas to Fargo.) We received a whole $50 voucher in compensation – which we never used because we won’t fly that death trap. Several of my friends have had similar equipment issues.