:: People Are Pissed Off That Planes Can’t Fly Into Volcanic Ash. Really.

Kris | 16 Apr 10

So, there I was, having a nice Friday night supper with the kiddos when this story airs on NBC’s Nightly News with Brian Williams. The lead in from Williams:

A lot of people have been wondering, what would really happen if jets tried to fly through some of this dust – this volcanic ash. A lot of people have not understood that this flight ban is not optional.

Really? I mean, REALLY?

Here is the piece from the broadcast:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Just wanted to let you know that the people who are questioning the validity of such grave consequences as “total engine failure” are the same ones who commit one or more of the following acts of idiocy during air travel:

  1. Get pissed off when security is “taking too long” when actually they should have gotten in line an hour ago.
  2. Get drunk before the flight and then wonder why the flight attendant will not serve them onboard the plane.
  3. When de-planing tell the pilots that “they didn’t like all those turns at the end.” (That happened to me on a recent flight. We got vectored off final approach to allow space for landing traffic on the crosswind runway prior to our arrival. The passenger said it was, “Too wild.” Yeah, but not as wild as colliding with a 737 at 100 miles an hour, pal.)
  4. Ask the flight attendant to call the pilots and tell them that deicing the airplane is un-necessary since it wasn’t snowing. (But we had about an inch of ice on our leading edges. Despite our announcement to the passengers explaining why this was necessary, the passenger still told us that we “made him late just so we could make a few bucks.”)
  5. Tell the pilots to just “punch through the line of thunderstorms and get us there on time.”
  6. Break their tray table/seat recline function/headrest/etc. and then blame the airline for “shotty” airplanes.
  7. Tell the gate agent that they want a 1st class upgrade comp’d because they had to change gates.
  8. Write a letter of complaint to the airline because a flight attendant didn’t give them more than one peanut/pretzel bag until they asked for it.
  9. Decide to get up to go use the lav during taxi-out to the runway.
  10. Think it is appropriate to tell anyone that pilots are under-worked and overpaid.
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2 Responses to “:: People Are Pissed Off That Planes Can’t Fly Into Volcanic Ash. Really.”

  1. Krista says:
    16 Apr 10 at 2244

    Excellent! Kris, you are right on.
    People really need to stop and think about the value of every line of work.
    I am glad that you enjoy and care about what you do as a pilot.

  2. Jonathan says:
    23 Apr 10 at 1543

    Of course, this has all turned out to be quite a bit of knee jerk going on over there. Noone was talking about flying through an active volcano plume, but really, that’s not what was going on over 95% of Europe. Reminds me of the knee jerk in Fort Worth last spring with Piggy Flu.