Flight 1073 shows how easy it is for a situation to go from bad to worse, especially when carriers operate with little, no slack

Date: June 10, 2007
Source: Chicago Tribune
Author: Julie Johnsson

David Scheibelhut and his wife, Joann Schulte, and teenage daughter Jade were numb with grief as they boarded United Airlines Flight 1073 bound for Chicago. Schulte's mother had died during their spring vacation in Montego Bay, Jamaica, and they had just one day to get home to help plan her funeral.

Steve Gerard, on his first trip overseas since the Sept. 11 attacks, was also anxious to return to his home in northwest suburban Cary. He had run out of his blood-pressure medicine.

Jeff and Laura Jacobs, like many parents on the plane, were stressed just thinking of how to entertain two small kids during what was supposed to be a five-hour flight.

A consultant who travels extensively, Jeff Jacobs was among the first to sense trouble as soon as the plane's TV screens flipped down. Instead of the usual pre-flight safety video, an episode of "The Office" flickered overhead as the jet baked on the runway.

Jacobs braced for a delay but never imagined that over the next two days he and about 140 passengers would be stranded in a foreign airport as a cascade of mishaps -- first a lack of common parts, then no mechanics and finally having to wait for a rescue plane from Chicago -- turned Flight 1073 into an "irregular operation," airline jargon for a flight from hell.

While statistically rare, such miscues are illustrative of how far U.S. airlines have stretched resources -- planes, employees and infrastructure -- in attempts to regain profitability. "You have no slack in the system," aviation expert Darryl Jenkins said. "Trying to recover [from disruptions] takes days. It's the worst it's ever been."

Flying has never been so fraught with possible misery.

U.S. commercial flights were delayed a staggering 97.4 million minutes during 2006, according to Bureau of Transportation Statistics. That's the equivalent of 185 years of lost time for passengers stuck on jets or in airport terminals.

And this year is shaping up to be even worse, as bad weather and simmering labor problems are expected to hammer travel during the summer. The peak is expected the week of June 21-27. That's when 1.7 million people are expected to traverse Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, about 14,000 more passengers than last year's peak period, according to the City of Chicago.

Major U.S. airlines are still struggling financially despite the massive increase in air travel this decade: 78.3 million more passengers flew in 2006 than in 2000, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. But domestic airline revenues, when adjusted for inflation, fell from $84.5 billion to $71.9 billion over that 7-year period as consumers sought the lowest fares, according to AirlineForecasts, a Virginia-based consulting firm.

To offset that $13 billion drop in revenues, major carriers dumped older aircraft, deferred purchases of new planes and shed more than 150,000 full-time employees -- nearly 40 percent of their labor base.The result: jammed jets and grumpy employees, many of whom are working longer hours after losing one-third or more of their take-home pay in concessions.

United ranks last among major carriers for customer service, and its marks have dropped the farthest of any airline from 2006 results, according to the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index.

Following a brutal winter for flight delays and cancellations, United officials assembled a team to dig into the root causes of its worst failures. By improving internal communications, flagging problem flights and limiting the time planes sit on runways, the carrier says it has reduced the number of planes stuck for three hours by 68 percent and four-hour delays by 50 percent versus the same period in 2006.

"There is nobody at United who isn't taking this seriously, working on it," said Barbara Higgins, who only the day before the Jamaican fiasco began to unfold was placed in charge of coordinating the airline's dealings with passengers during and after irregular operations. Her interviews with the flight's passengers played an instrumental role in how United now responds to bad flights.

What follows, pieced together through numerous interviews in person, over the phone and via e-mail with passengers, the crew of Flight 1073 and United officials, provides an inside look at how seemingly simple problems can grow into major breakdowns, especially as airplanes and mechanics have been reduced to cut costs, and other work has been outsourced.

Saturday: Breakdowns begin

Flight 1073 was scheduled to take off at 1:55 p.m. March 31, a Saturday. Passengers boarded late, around 2:30 p.m., but slight delays were typical at Montego Bay's Sangster International, one of the Caribbean's busiest airports.

Soon after they had buckled in, Capt. Karl Hjerpe announced that a minor hydraulics problem was discovered that wouldn't take long to fix. To kill time, Laura Jacobs began reading to daughters Caroline, 4, and Lindsey, 2. As the delay dragged on, Hjerpe announced that United was searching the island for a common part needed to fix the Airbus A320.

Nervous about missing the Monday funeral for his mother-in-law, Scheibelhut flicked on his cell phone and dialed the number for United's reservations center. He couldn't get through.

Jacobs, the road warrior, guessed that the plane might not take off. So he checked his BlackBerry for alternative flights, to no avail, while Doug Jackson, his brother-in-law, scouted for hotel rooms.

More than two hours later, Hjerpe finally let passengers off the plane. About 5 p.m., the flight was canceled. United had decided to ship in its own mechanics and the missing part on the next day's flight from Chicago. At this point officials at United's operations center were confident the plane would be fixed quickly, Higgins said.

Maintenance at United is lean these days. The carrier's pre-bankruptcy workforce of about 15,000 mechanics has shrunk to just 5,000, according to union officials. And hiring workers to fix planes at airports where United has a small presence is a luxury the airline can't afford. Instead it relies on contract workers who tend to be less experienced for quick fixes, and it jets in its own staff when things go badly, as on Flight 1073.

United isn't alone when it comes to outsourcing an increasing share of its aircraft repairs. Spending on outsourced maintenance industrywide increased from 37 percent to 62 percent of the total maintenance budget between 1996 and 2005, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Back at the airport in Montego Bay, passengers were instructed to go to United's departures counter. But airport officials wouldn't let them retrace that morning's shorter route for security reasons. Instead, they were told to exit through the arrivals area and cross a parking lot -- about a half-mile walk, Jackson said.

"This is the point where chaos ensued," said Jackson, an investment banker.

The trek took its toll on passengers. Many were overdressed in long pants and sweaters that were meant to be worn in Chicago, and they were bogged down with carry-on bags and car seats. By this time some families had been at the airport for seven hours. "Our older [child] was really rattled," said Laura Jacobs. "She was scared by all of that: How are we going to get home?"

Scott Farrell, who flies more than 100,000 miles per year on United, sprinted ahead only to find no staffers at the check-in counter. "We waited there a good hour for anybody to at least acknowledge our presence."

Farrell had good reason to worry. His father-in-law was flying into Chicago that evening, but there would be no one there to meet him, and no place to stay.

Passengers queued in a long line but were confused as to why: Were they re-booking tickets on other flights? Or getting hotel rooms? And what about their bags?

Some got on their cell phones to snap up rooms. It wasn't easy to find lodging. Cricket's World Cup, one of the sport's biggest events, was in full swing. Plus, it was a Saturday night at the peak of the spring holiday season.

Because it only operates a handful of flights per week out of Montego Bay, United outsources its ground work to AJAS Ltd., which provides customer service staff to several airlines at the airport.

Tempers flared as a contract worker announced that staffers were trying to find hotel rooms.

Since most passengers already had lined up lodging, one frustrated passenger yelled out, "We just want our bags back."

The agent snapped back: "You people are messing me up because you're getting your own rooms," recalled Steve Gerard, a retired Chicago Mercantile Exchange trader.

Travelers had no other way to get information, and United did not have kiosks in Jamaica to ease the work load for staffers."It was chaos," Jackson said. "We were getting mixed information from people who were standing next to each other. One said the bags were coming to the gate; the woman next to her said, 'No, the bags are going to be outside.' Then the two got into a debate."

Brian Wiggan, a deputy manager for AJAS, deferred all questions about the ground staff's conduct to United. United's Higgins acknowledged that communications were poor, and added: "We should stress this is a highly unusual situation. It's not something the agents were accustomed to dealing with every day."

AJAS employees did find rooms for about 50 travelers at two hotels, however. And they started searching for ways to get Scheibelhut and his family to Chicago.

Finally, about 8 p.m., a tractor pulled up with luggage. In the darkness, a melee ensued as people lunged for bags dumped on a sidewalk at the airport's entrance. "It was just crazed," Gerard said.

Sunday: The longest day

United's check-in counter at Sangster International is in a cramped area, shared with Air Turks & Caicos and other carriers. Long lines are common.

Anticipating a replay of the previous evening's chaos, Chicago lawyer Michael Choate and his family arrived at 9:30 a.m., anticipating their flight would leave around 2:30 p.m.

But United's counter wasn't staffed when Choate showed up. About an hour later, a worker told Choate that the flight had been delayed until 5 p.m.

The staffer, said Choate, added: "It's your fault: If you'd stayed at the hotel where we sent you, you would've known the flight was delayed."

A passenger in line piped up: "We stayed at the hotel and they didn't tell us either," Choate related. "Now, the anger is rising."

Meanwhile, Jacobs noticed the later departure time posted on United's Web site. However, no one at United could guarantee that the plane wouldn't leave earlier. If he missed the flight, they warned Jacobs, he wouldn't get off the island before Wednesday.

"We decided it was not worth the risk," he said. "We got to the airport at noon."

Scheibelhut and his family, too, headed to the airport after trying in vain to find another way home. Workers at United and AJAS were sympathetic with the family's plight. But no seats were available.

By this time, Scheibelhut had run up $400 in roaming charges on his cell phone trying to arrange for another flight.

Passengers streamed into the gate area to wait for their flight. While the airport was being rehabbed, they were stuck in the old terminal, which was sweltering and grimy, passengers said.

"That was the last we heard from anyone at United for at least six hours," said Farrell, a software executive traveling with his wife and two small children. "They essentially left us in the airport with no communication."

The United throng spread out, now a collection of little tribes. Most people had bonded with others who shared a common interest: a suburb that they lived in, the resort where they vacationed, the schools their children attended.

The Jacobs and other families set up an amusement center for the kids: pooling laptops and portable DVD players. At one point they had four movies running concurrently, each for a different age group.

Jackson, the investment banker, viewed the clusters of people as something primal, a manifestation of their survival instinct. "I don't want to be sexist, but the women would stay with the kids, stay with the camp, while the men would go out hunting," he said. "But instead of food, we were hunting for information."

Gerard had only agreed to vacation in Jamaica after much prodding from his wife. But now the retired Merc trader was in his element as passengers exchanged scraps of information. "I kept thinking this is like being on the trading floor: There's a rumor, and how do I make money off this rumor?"

Many people had trouble getting through to United's call centers for updates, and those who did found that workers couldn't tell them much beyond the scant details about the flight posted on the airline's Web site.

United has moved much of its customer service to overseas call centers. In fact, the transportation industry has become one of the biggest users of off-shore call centers as airlines moved to slash costs following Sept. 11.

However, carriers have had difficulty providing ample staffing and capacity when thousands of travelers' calls flood phone lines. Higgins said United is studying increasing staffing during peak periods.

At least one airline, Continental Airlines, was so concerned about the potential loss of customers that it decided a couple of years ago the savings didn't justify the switch overseas, said spokeswoman Julie King.

At the airport, the United passengers shared food and bottled water, which were in short supply. "We were buying as much water as we could," Choate said. "If you had water, no one was husbanding it. It was like, if you need water, here's water."

Through the long afternoon, there was no mention of the flight on the departures board, no sign of anybody representing the airline.

The passengers couldn't know, but United's streak of bad luck continued. First, the flight carrying United's mechanics was delayed by bad weather in Chicago. Then the part needed to fix the crippled A320 got hung up somewhere in the airport.

The 5 p.m. departure time passed and passengers still didn't know when or if they would be leaving.

About 6 p.m., one of the AJAS ground agents started handing out vouchers for Jimmy Buffett's Air Margaritaville, a restaurant in the new terminal. There was another mad rush as passengers scrambled to lay claim to tables. Over pitchers of margaritas, the Jacobs and Jackson families decided to book two rooms at the Ritz, just in case.

Around the same time, the flight's co-pilot, who declined to provide his name or be interviewed, walked into the gate area to calm passengers. He told them that in running checks after fixing the plane, the mechanics had found another problem. It didn't appear likely they would get out that night.

He was the first uniformed United employee passengers had seen in more than 24 hours. "He promised to give us updates, and he did," Jackson said. "He was the first person who did what he said he would do. He was a stand-up guy."

About 7:45, the flight was again canceled.

"We just lose it," Choate said, of the passengers' response. "If someone had told us on Saturday, just go back to your hotel, you're leaving on Monday, I would've been fine. I maybe would've had a one-hour temper tantrum."

Passengers again faced the long trek and the wait to get hotel rooms from United or to claim their bags. The process went more smoothly this time. But it was approaching 10 p.m., and they were told to be back at the airport at 6:30 a.m. for an 8:30 departure.

"People were now reaching the breaking point," Jacobs said. "You're going to make us come in early so we can wait again?"

Although exhausted, Jacobs couldn't sleep that night. Eventually, he sat in the bathroom and sent e-mails to everyone he could think of: newspaper reporters, friends who work at United, even the airline's CEO, Glenn Tilton. "Please, help us!" the messages said. One of his missives was forwarded to Higgins, who eventually responded.

Back in Elk Grove Township, United's flight operations team decided to send another plane Monday morning to rescue the stranded passengers.

Choate, who also couldn't sleep, got word from his United contacts that the rescue plane would be there about 10 a.m. He spread the news to other passengers: You don't have to be at the airport at the crack of dawn.

Monday: Rescue and recovery

Why didn't United decide to send another plane as soon as the original flight was canceled? That's a question passengers kept asking all weekend.

"Because we believed, and the ground agents believed, the flight would be up and running within an hour or so" after the mechanics arrived at mid-day Sunday, Higgins said.

Jacobs' clan showed up at United's counter at 7:15 a.m., joining a growing mob of passengers. Again, nobody was present to check them in.

Jacobs phoned Higgins, who was surprised to learn of the scene. She called the general manager for operations in the Caribbean and, within minutes, staff appeared. They were courteous, helpful and reassured passengers that, yes, they would take off on the jet United provided.

But that final day in Jamaica, the airline's contract workers would commit one last gaffe.

As passengers gathered in the departure lounge a final time, they noticed that their group had shrunk. In fact, no one who had stayed in the hotel provided by United was there.

Staff at Sunset Beach Resort & Spa had notified passengers in the middle of the night that they could sleep in: Their 5:30 a.m. shuttle had been canceled and their flight would leave later. But United had failed to organize transportation to get them to the airport. When no bus appeared by midmorning, Farrell and two other passengers hired buses and drivers.

Choate touched base with Farrell at the hotel, and then corned Hjerpe, the United pilot. "I told him there's a group of 50 to 60 people who just got word. You can't let the plane leave without them," Choate recalled. "He said, 'Don't worry,' and just shook his head."

Back in Illinois, Higgins and her team swung into high gear to make the most of the weekend disaster. This was a flight full of the passengers that United most covets: lawyers, consultants, bankers. Many were loyal customers with high status in its frequent-flier program.

"What would've been ideal was to have a better support system in Montego Bay," Higgins said. "What we tried to do was acknowledge the utter failure of our service on that flight."

Higgins and her team prepared to greet every person returning from Jamaica with apologies, $300 travel vouchers and a special lane to speed them through immigration in Chicago. The airline would later agree to reimburse passengers for all out-of-pocket costs.

From that experience, Higgins created a special customer service team to take care of passengers when flights go badly off-schedule. "We want to proactively acknowledge that this is not the service we want to provide," she said.

United put the new team into action three weeks later when Flight 891 from Los Angeles to Tokyo was delayed for two days. United's management at Los Angeles International Airport met with passengers in the gate area and worked with staff stationed in Tokyo to rebook passengers who had connecting flights and to handle special service issues.

But the changes didn't come early enough to prevent the black eye United suffered with Flight 1073.

The waiting, the heat, the uncertainty, were hard on the youngest travelers. Farrell's 5-year-old boy suffered a fever that spiked at 103 degrees once they were on the plane. "This is the worst experience I've ever had in my life -- ever," Farrell said of the weekend ordealMany cheered as their plane finally roared down the runway and then banked over the azure Caribbean waters below, passengers said.

But Scheibelhut's wife and daughter had tears in their eyes. The funeral for Schulte's mother was beginning. They would miss it.

"It really hit them hard," Scheibelhut said. "We weren't even sitting together."

They huddled with Schulte's extended family after they got home later that afternoon, but it was little consolation. They are still thinking of holding a small, private ceremony. "Funerals are for the living. It's a way to get closure and they need closure," he added.

Gerard, who hadn't taken blood pressure medicine since Saturday morning, had a resting heart beat of 122 for three days after returning home. "My wife says she will never go to Jamaica again," Gerard said.

The homecoming for the Jacobs and Jackson clans was joyous. It was Passover, and the sundown start of the religious festival was fast approaching. "We went straight from the airport, as filthy and disgusting as we were, to my mom's house" for a huge family Seder, Laura Jackson said.

Throughout the waiting, their mantra to their children had been: "When you get lemons, you've got to make lemonade. Let's have fun with this."

Laura Jackson made sure that her parents had lemonade on hand for the kids, and stronger libations for the adults. "There was a giddiness and a sense of awe that we'd made it," she said.