Fog delays spark policy re-think for Etihad

Passengers on EY 183 were told by flight crew the airport was too crowded to let them off the grounded airliner. Rithvik Reddy / AP Photo

ABU DHABI // Etihad Airways will review its policy on how long delayed aircraft can remain on the ground with passengers aboard while waiting to take off.

The announcement came as the airline and its passengers dealt with the aftermath of delays and cancellations caused by heavy fog in Abu Dhabi.

Passengers complained of being forced to wait on the plane for 12 hours or longer before take-off, without either information or food.

Etihad said it expected a normal flight schedule to resume on Tuesday and was operating four relief flights – to Jakarta and Jeddah on Monday and Bangkok and Phuket.

The airline apologised to passengers and said it had been an “extremely challenging few days” amid an “unprecedented” fog disruption that affected all airlines.

Etihad mobilised more than 500 additional staff at Abu Dhabi airport and city locations to help passengers, served more than 15,000 meals at the airport and provided more than 2,000 hotel rooms.

The airport’s closure from 2.30am to 3.40am on Saturday led Etihad to cancel 20 return flights and divert seven inbound flights.

Passengers flying to San Francisco landed on Monday after what they described as a 28-hour ordeal on EY183 from Abu Dhabi – a 12-hour wait on the tarmac before the 16-hour flight.

“No one was angry about the delay itself. If it’s unsafe to fly, we don’t want to fly,” traveller Ravali Reddy said. “It just didn’t seem to make any logical sense why we had to stay on the plane.”

Flight crew told passengers the airport was too crowded to allow them to get off the plane.

Etihad said passengers were given refreshments and informed of the reasons for the wait.

“The delay was then compounded by the requirement to replace the aircraft’s ultra-long haul operating crew who had exceeded their flight time limitations,” Etihad said, and the circumstances were “largely beyond our control”.

Regulations in the United States say passengers cannot be left on the tarmac for more than three hours for domestic flights. US carriers operating international flights must specify their own time limits for disembarking passengers, with exceptions for safety or security.

Airport procedures slow significantly in low visibility, said Ahmad Al Haddabi, chief operations officer at Abu Dhabi Airports. There can be up to 70 movements of flights every hour in normal visibility, but this drops to 14 an hour in low visibility because of the required separation time between aircraft in those conditions.

“Below 100 metres’ visibility, there are no movements at all, as per General Civil Aviation Authority regulations,” Mr Al Haddabi said.

* Additional reporting by Associated Press