Thursday, November 13, 2008

Northern Airline Heartbreak....once again!

Nameless northern airline strikes again at being crappy. Tonight I sing the northern airline blues once again, like I have done so many times in the past, like all northerners have sung at some point. Two airlines fly into my community but I usually fly with one in particular, but really both airlines are clones of eachother and both run up the same amount of irritation with their customers. Still, most of you know which airline I am speaking of when the blood vessels in my eyes pop and I grind my teeth together.

Why am I so upset in particular today? Well my sister-in-law, brother-in-law and their oldest son were supposed to be sitting, relaxing on my couch all of 24 hours ago and will not reach said couch destination until tomorrow at 4pm (fingers crossed).

Their story starts off in Ottawa, being stranded because of a mechanical issue. Mechanical issues happen, so do weather ones, especially up north, understandably. Today after finally making it into Iqaluit, my family were unable to fly the rest of the way into our community because of "weather issues". The flight has been canceled right out. After clarification I find out that the weather issues are not coming out of Iqaluit, but in fact with regards to landing in our community. Understandably there is less flight equipment here, many times we have been stranded because of fog and visibility to the runway. Today the flight was canceled here because of our apparently horrendous weather conditions. Lets all take a look now at the terrible weather conditions we were suffering from today in my community.

Remarkably bad, blue sky and sunshine, I can understand why they would cancel the flight... even though other nameless airline landed this afternoon. Would wind possibly be a factor in todays cancellation? No, not at a whopping 9 km/hr, it was a gentle kiss on the cheek. It was seriously a gorgeous day out today. I had made mention of that to my husband as we took the dog out to the park for a leisurely walk this morning, before we even knew the flight had been canceled.

Meanwhile Nameless Airline in Iqaluit did not want to pay to put my family up in Iqaluit, as it was a weather issue and not mechanical. My most amazingly convincing sister-in-law pointed out that if it hadn't been for the mechanical issue the previous day they would be at their destination already, as their connecting flight successfully made it in last night (not on time though, what a shock). Thankfully they relented and are paying for their accommodations tonight.

The last shred of hope I have is that they get in tomorrow on the only scheduled flight, because they don't come in on the weekends and they only fly scheduled flights. Thus meaning if they cancel a flight, they don't just make up a new one, you just get bumped (hopefully) onto the next scheduled flight. That is also of course if their are no rogue snowflakes over here, that would be another absolute cancellation for sure! BTW I have seen both airlines land in blizzards and less then ideal (A LOT LESS ideal then today) weather many, many times. Sometimes it feels like they just cancel because they are not in the mood to run a flight out here. And landing/take off times are suggestion only, what is time schedule really?

If I sound a little bitter it's only because I'm hormonal and Nameless Airline has prevented this pregnant lady from A)Receiving her Food Mail today and B) Receiving her much anticipated loved ones for the second day in a row! Not to mention this happens every aggravating time I want something off the plane, fly with or have family flying in on this airline. It's a little exasperating the kazillionth time.

I can only hope they redeem themselves tomorrow with the arrival of food and family.

10 comments:

Kennie said...

That just blows monkey chunks Jen. Nameless Northern Airline for some odd reason has actually been landing here as of late (amazingly). I just hope that Nameless Northern Airline which all of us teachers love doesn't fark up over xmas holidays as that will cause many angry teachers.

AND Nameless Northern Airline better not pull this kind of poo out when Jen is supposed to head to civilization either. If they do ... it won't be pretty.

Hang in there - I"ll do my good weather dance for you tonight.

Matt, Kara, Hunter and Cavan said...

You poor thing!!! Now why doesn't anyone want to ahead and name CRAPTACULAR FIRST AIR outloud?

I'll say it for you all: FIRST AIR BLOWS CHUNKS! Yep. I said it. Loud too.

Anonymous said...

How could a pilot possibly see in all that horrible sunlight?

Anonymous said...

Oh, but we have the same thing here with another craptacular airline. They develop mechanical problems if there are 5 seats empty on a flight.

I guess it has to do with the euqal distribution of weight in the plane... As if!

Kate Nova said...

That totally sucks dude. I'm glad she stood up the them and at least got the accommodations paid for though.

KOTN said...

Happened to me when I was in your community, and it is all about the $$$.

If there is a flake of snow, why bother to fly half full? Cancel a few days, and then send a full plane over.

Save some $$$ for the 1.5 million you paid in bonuses to your board of directors.

Our First Air flight was canceleld for two days, and we finally got out on Kenn Borek....

Anonymous said...

A touch of explanation:
Your airport could be fine. Each flight has to have an open ALTERNATIVE airport within range. Flights can be cancelled due to the lack of an open alternative. This is part of general safety rules for aviation.

I have been thare several times. Trying to get home, Rankin is clear but no alternate, so we sit and wait. It sucks farts from dead seagulls.

jen said...

Thanks Ralph, it's good to have a possible small explanation.

However I'm thinking that in my community's case the only other closest alternative is to return back to Iqaluit. Other then one other small community that can not handle the size of plane, there is nothing else around. I'm assuming they just don't want to fly out to fly back, which would make sense, except that the leaving community (which I'm assuming is also the alternative landing community) and arrival community both had appropriate weather conditions for yesterday's flight.

One other suggestion someone made to me was the dude that makes the weather calls in my community might just be overly cautious, but then again Nameless clone airline landed here no problem yesterday.

Who knows really, it just all seems a little fishy. Like KOTN said they canceled their flights but then got out on another airline no problem.

Aida said...

that is just so annoying, i had a hunch it was First Air and the issue is "political", never flown with them and dont think ever will. We flew with CN on our previous trip and he weather was bad in Iqaluit when we left Ottawa and they said they were going to try and land and if they can't, we are turning to Kuujjuag, refuel and back to Ottawa. Of course that didnt happen, we were fine.

but glad your SIL stood her ground and got the first night acc paid.

Shelley said...

Wow that sucks, I have heard they've had cancellations all week.
Good job venting!
(Thanks for the advice on my blog have passed the message on, means more coming from a third party too).