sherpa

I am pleased that you call me an idiot. I have spent many, many of days in Venezuela and watched what has happened first hand. I am well aware of their political system. I am well aware of Jimmy Carter going down there to judge their elections, elections that were "democratically" conducted, as he endorsed them. Otherwise, he would not have gone. Want to tell Jimmy that it is not a "democracy?" He went down there to endorse a dictatorship? I would prefer to not insult posters here, but you sir, are absolutely ignorant.

You can "LOL" all you want, but it is a democratically elected government. Total failure, as they always are.

So I guess that means that Venezuela is your model? Good Lord.. the gross, abject acknowledgement on the failure of socialist economic institutions is astounding. How many generations need to pay that price?

This is the single most stupid thing I've seen the idiotic Charlottesville City Council do in the 22 years I've lived here. I drive by that thing nearly every day. The statue was a tribute to the Lewis and Clark Expedition, conceived and brought about by Thomas Jefferson, a local, and including William Clark, also a local. Sacagawea was depicted in a manner showing her doing her tracking thing. It was in no way "demeaning." An idiotic waste of money.

The pax bill of rights would not apply to Air China anyway. Per your post, I am shocked that the flight operated. Given the delays you mentioned US regulations would have made the flight illegal regarding cockpit crew duty time. What the passenger bill of rights has done is result in multiple more cancelations. When the forecast is indicating there will probably be huge delays, they simply cancel. This is most especially done when it looks like deicing will be involved. Deicing is a very time consuming and labor intensive operation. My favorite story of a crazy delay occurred in July of 2013. I was going from JFK to Tokyo, 777. Left the gate on time late in the evening. When number two for takeoff, was told the airport was shutting down for two hours. A highly publicized solar airplane was going to land at JFK, and they were shutting down all airspace as this 25 mph airplane came in. The original agreement that got them permission said they had to land at 3am. At 3am the fiasco would have been avoided. They claimed they had a tear in a wing and needed to land at about 11pm. I never believed it and it made no sense. Anyway, there are a bunch of international departures in line. Many European carriers do not provide "augmented" crews, (meaning one extra guy), for trips to western European destination, like London City Airport or Paris, since they are not over the eight hour limit requiring an extra guy. Still, you can't go over eight hours, son one by one about five of them tell ground they are cancelling and going back to gates. As this event was unannounced by anyone, airplanes trying to get into LaGuardia are holding and starting to run out of fuel. Three separate domestic flights declare fuel emergencies on land at JFK. A total idiotic near disaster. Anyway this piece of trash lands and we get airborne two hours late. Of course arriving that late in Tokyo, public transportation is shut down, so the passengers had to deal with that.

An odd habit if you consider various posts in this thread. By the way, for the individual who claimed that these folks were "hiding behind the rules," that is a grossly absurd conclusion. The "rules" happen to be the law and the penalties are massive. If breaking those rules intentionally, it can lead to certificate action and criminal charges. Further, there is no hiding. Data link messages are sent and an undeniable electronic track is created on all these things. One example. A few years ago Congress passed what was called the "Passenger Bill of Rights." It was passed to penalize carriers for extended delays without deplaning. I was a 777 captain. I once computed that if I ever broke that time limit, with all the passengers we carried, if they got the max amount, it would have been far cheaper to simply blow all the slides and evacuate the airplane. Know what the penalty is for allowing an intoxicated passenger on the airplane? $20,000. Coincidentally, the Mrs. and I have to enter that hellish madness known as US civil aviation this afternoon to visit our daughter and her husband. I hope I make it.

Probably should have added this on the end of my previous post, but doing what has been suggested by people who don't know the situation may not have been possible. I'm not interested enough to find out, but it is somewhat likely that these message board suggestions were not an option at all.

One of Van's best calls was when Calvin Murphy hung 68 on Syracuse when he did the Niagara games. What are the chances that hair is natural, untreated Van Miller hair?

By simply reading the media reports of this, you have absolutely no idea what accommodations the inconvenienced legally compliant passengers were provided, either by hotel and meal vouchers and other probable "awards" to lesson the inconvenience. They don't get published unless the passenger reveals them. And again, keeping a passenger's bags onboard who has been taken off a flight for non compliance with regulations the fed has imposed is an idiotic, illegal and potentially criminal action. I guarantee you that if I did that intentionally the FAA would have been after my license as soon as they found out. Same thing with other cargo issues the carrier agrees to abide by in compliance with FAA and DEA directives. It can get complicated, and things in the cargo compartment are a really serious issue. There are situations where it is permissible, and I'm not going to go into them anymore than I'm going to discuss other issues that frequently arise that have years of experienced professional and legal guidance governing those issues and informing those protocols. Medical diverts would be an example. Forming and expressing an opinion rife with hostility regarding a situation one knows very little about is a bad habit.

Wrong on so many levels. Not going to touch the above, with the exception of pointing out that they absolutely do not profit from a delay. Pure nonsense.

And I would like to point out that you don't know the regulations or protocols. What I "suggest" is what I know, and breaking those rules is corporate suicide.

This is an example of why people's views on message boards, when commenting on things they are unfamiliar with, should be completely disregarded, and I mean no personal offense. Doing what you suggest would result in an airline losing its operating certificate. In plain English, instantaneous corporate suicide.

Lots of issues here, and lots of corporate experience that industry had in dealing with this type of thing, and paying large sums defending their actions. First, he can't simply disembark and airplane and re-board it. There are security issues that I'm not going to go into in detail, but essentially, if you are denied, your checked bag is denied. Not hard to connect the dots on why, but running a bag in the cargo compartment and removing it takes time. Running, potentially, thirty of them would take a long time. Second, when you attempt to decide which kids are the problem, you open yourself up to claims from those who will claim they weren't, which would probably be most or all of them. There is no time or legal apparatus to handle this at departure time when a number of clocks are ticking, unknown to passengers or readers of message boards. Ergo, you get into a situation that is unsolvable in the time frame essential to solve it. Responding to another post, police have jurisdictions. You can't call a department of your choice and have them handle an airport situation. Without arresting them, requiring cause, you can't hold them. Providing that due cause would require witness testimony. None of that is going to happen in the window of an airline departure. The best solution is what was chosen. I'm sure these kids viewed the results of their actions as counterproductive to their Bahama vacation. The airline paid for hotel and meals for the other passengers. Sucks being part of a culture that has these miscreants, but is is what it is. Further, I really doubt any rational human being would view punks as "heroes to emulate," and I think upcoming court cases and fines are going to dissuade such "heroes."

You can't simply get them off and get the others on. There are security issues and that takes time and manpower. Again, there was a lot of off schedule stuff there because of severe storms earlier, so the manpower was undoubtedly stressed, limiting who could handle the issue. Regarding the issue of them staying at the airport, that was the only possible solution and although it wasn't mentioned, I guarantee that personnel were in place to watch the situation closely and protect against any other incident. It is simply the best solution. Other proposals would have been far more risky. Those kids were probably provided blankets, pillows and supervision. Yep. If it would have been one two or maybe a few more, that's what would have happened.

The airline is not a law enforcement organization. Are they supposed to sit everyone down and have an illegal hearing? Airport cops are not staffed enough to handle this either. Nor do they want to. Thirty kids to handle and decide who stays and who goes. Way too much work and way too much time and would undoubtedly result in lawsuits. Are they to take statements from the other passengers? "Mommy and Daddy" are not going to come from Boston to Charlotte to pick them up, so do you fly them back to Boston? Not likely, and the lawyers would be overwhelming, because they'd all be individual cases. It would be a legal quagmire. What about the bags? How long would that take to get sorted out? How many people? Charlotte had a very rough weather day that day. The airplane had already been swapped out once and that certainly took some time. How about crew duty time limitations? Probably not an issue, but how about destination curfew issues including customs/immigration and the current presence of Covid screeners? Regarding a previous post about "teaching them a lesson," that is hardly the airlines' task. The point is that it is much more complicated than it was presented in the very limited story published. It's unfortunate that those not involved had to wait until the next morning, but when a group of idiots behaves like this is has effects on others.

Because it's a lot more complicated than that. One, two or three passengers, not that big of a deal. Thirty, and minors is a big deal and presents a very complicated issue that would require a lot of people and a lot of time to sort out.

Simpson and Barry Sanders were the only running backs I ever saw that if you watched the body language of singular open field tackers, you could see they knew they were already beat.

Seriously? Ever been to Texas? Ever eaten BBQ? I slow cook it least six times a year.

Simply a brilliant document. "And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor."

The Navy is well aware of laser caused plasma images in the IR spectrum. They've been working on it for ten years as a missile decoy system. In fact, they have a patent on the technology.

Simpson had this technique that I've not seen anyone else display. He would take the hand off, and if not immediately engaged, he would drop his shoulders to lower his center of mass, enabling him to cut quicker. A kind of "glide" mode, waiting for defenders to commit. Then he would cut and make the defenders miss, coming out of the glide. Of course as an Olympic level sprinter, if he got away from the second level it was al over. Just a special athlete and joy to watch.

Simpson never worried about anybody behind him, and being faster than the guy closest to him didn't much matter either. The guy had a gift. He was simply more in tune with what you could do to him than you were, and he would prevent it. I saw him in practice about five times. He was at another level.

Simpson was a remarkable athlete. Somebody, some time ago, I think it was Sports Illustrated, did a thing about a concept called kinesthetic sense. It discussed the ability to predict what would happen based on looking at what was happening now. In short, in a sports related application, the skill provides one with the ability to foresee what will happen. Kind of boring and complicated, but they talked about the truly great athletes. I remember them mentioning Larry Bird and Juice. Bird could run a fast break, and remember where every single defensive player was, well after the break. Simpson was the same. If you look at videos of him and especially the ones that show his eyes, you can see that he is already not worried about the closest defender, he is setting up the next. Great fighter pilots have that same skill, though it is a lost art. The ability to project kinesthetic sense at a high level is a rare skill. Simpson was like watching someone further evolved.

I heard one of their execs talk about it for about 15 mins last year, and it's quite complicated on a lot of different fronts. Much more involved than I thought.

Nobody said we were going to die if we didn't invade Iraq. Iraq was in gross violation of the 1991 ceasefire agreement. The US was running a no fly zone combat air patrol that was getting shot at, and there was no way that was going to continue. That mission was going to end, one way or another. The US Intel services had nobody on the ground there. They relied too much on defectors that proved to be useless and self serving. Both House and Senate Intel Committees received the exact same intel an judgements from that intel that the White House did. They voted.