A tragic story of two Chinese tourists critically injured enroute from Baltimore to New York on a bus chartered by American Airlines is a perfect example of why airlines should not offer bus service.
The Washington Post nicely tells the story, but is a very lengthy read. One Mile at a Time also provides details from an eyewitness account. In a nuthsell, I’ll trace the timeline for you:
- AA flight from Minneapolis to New York La Guardia (LGA) diverts to Baltimore (BWI) due to poor weather
- AA chartered bus to take passengers on 200-mile journey to New York
- With whiteout/blackout conditions and traffic accidents further north, after 10 hours the bus had traveled only 30 miles
- Bridge closure forced bus to turn around
- The bus stopped at a rest area with a McDonald’s, Applebee’s, and Shoprite grocery store
- Food and water not provisioned on bus
- Chinese couple onboard ventured over to Shoprite, found it closed
- In walking back to bus, they jaywalked and were struck by an oncoming vehicle
- Bus was about to leave without them when one passenger noted they had not re-boarded and told driver to wait
- She found the Chinese couple had already been transported to a local hospital
- Bus driver did not contact AA: instead simply began journey back to BWI
- Back in Baltimore, she took their personal items, found their checked bags, and did her best to track down their family
- At the time, AA only offered to pay for a one-way cab ride to the hospital
- She found the couple, who were in critical condition, and waited with them until their son arrived from New York
- The following day she reached out to American Airlines to explain the incident and was offered a $500 voucher as a “gesture of gratitude” for helping customer
- Voucher amount was later raised to $700
Is AA on the hook for these damages?
Probably not. I don’t think a traffic accident caused by jaywalking is a reasonably foreseeable result. Even so, I expect a lawsuit of some kind.
But that’s note the point. The point is this couple was critically injured on a trip that should not have occurred in the first place. Yes, they made the mistake of crossing the road in the wrong place. But should airlines charter busses when the weather outside is so bad?
Why Airlines Should Just Not Offer Bus Service During Inclement Weather
My answer is no, airlines should not charter bus service. I get why AA did it in this case and airlines around the world do it. It is laudable that AA wanted to get passengers to their destination, New York City, as quickly as possible.
But think about it. When weather conditions are so bad that flights are grounded, are the roads any safer? What is an acceptable risk quotient to subject passengers to dangerous conditions on a road–often far more dangerous conditions than in the air?
We can blame AA all day long for dropping the ball here. They did not provide food and water for passengers, they probably failed to even check Google Maps before departing to see that it would be a futile journey, and they proved unaccountable for keeping track of their passengers.
For all the reward of getting passengers home a few hours earlier, I simply do not think it is worth the risk.
CONCLUSION
I’ll fly on the most “janky” airlines, but there is no way I am getting on a bus in the middle of a fierce storm. I guess we all weigh risk/reward differently. But it just seems to me that sending out busses during fierce storms is always a recipe for disaster. While I always have a personal solution (just don’t board the bus), I fear that even offering this bus service opens up passengers to unnecessary harm and airlines to unnecessary liability.
While your argument logically makes sense, airlines are in a no-win situation in cases like these. Charter the bus, and they get blasted if an accident occurs, or the conditions on the buses aren’t great. If they didn’t charter the buses, though, I can guarantee you’d be hearing from people blasting AA for stranding people at BWI and making them sleep on the airport floor for days without compensation because the delay is weather-related. I don’t know that securing ground transportation was the right answer here, but I can understand why they did.
Give the passenger the option of bus transport. Let the passenger assume the risk of taking the bus, or wait at the airport for a few days until flights resume and a seat opens up.
Thing is, if this bus had made it to NYC without incident we wouldn’t even be discussing this topic. I can’t blame AA for wanting to be proactive about getting their passengers to their final destination. Frankly, I ultimately think if the charter company agreed to transfer these passengers the fault lies with them. Why they agreed to the trip in the first place is a mystery, but they could’ve said no. I agree with one of the above comments that they (the passengers) should’ve been given ability to opt out of the bus ride, perhaps with a voucher for food/lodging for 1 night.
Just my two cents. But back to my original point, I don’t think airlines should radically change a policy like this based on one unfortunate incident for which they are not liable for anyhow.
What would AA’s contract of carriage require? They are not on the hook for hotels/meals arising from weather-related delays (if I recall correctly) but I also don’t think AA could have just left the passengers in Baltimore to fend for themselves. Would be a different case if the flight never left MSP.
The article says this happened on Friday. I was in Baltimore then, including at the airport, and while there were very high winds it certainly wasn’t a fierce storm with “whiteout” conditions 30 miles north. There were about 3 minutes of flurries around 7am and then it was overcast and partly sunny the rest of the day. No accumulations of snow at all, and no rain either. That’s why the NY flights diverted to BWI in the first place. Something smells fishy about this story…
I would not suggest that airlines should never charter busses but I would suggest they need take more ownership of the journey. That starts with evaluating weather and traffic conditions to determine if the trip can be completed safely in a reasonable amount of time. The busses should certainly (except for a short journey which BWI-LGA is not) be equipped with restrooms and the airline should provide snacks and water. There also needs to be ownership of the airline in terms of making sure the bus arrives safely and in the event of an incident like this basic human decency says the airline should take care of the injured customers luggage and make sure that family members get notified.
This journey clearly fails this test in nearly every respect. The bus was inadequate for the journey which due diligence would likely have indicated was doomed to failure. They customers were dispatched on what would be a multi hour journey under the best of conditions without food or water and then when things went wrong utterly ignored and abondoned by the airline that accepted compensation and liability for transporting them safely to their final destination. If their is going to be compensation I suspect it will result not from the injuries (which as Matthew note were not the airlines fault) but rather from the conditions the airline subjected these customers to and the lack of care for them when the worst occurrred.
Here’s another issue to consider when an airline sends you on a bus. I was scheduled to fly on United Express from Denver to Aspen, but the Aspen airport was closed, and United sent us on a bus. We showed our tickets to the United agent as we boarded the bus, and we assumed that United would treat us as though we had flown the trip. When I went to check-in for my flight back, though, I found that my return ticket had been cancelled by United because I didn’t fly the leg from Denver to Aspen. I was astonished, and I told the airline that United, not I, was responsible for sending me on a bus, but they said their procedure is clear-cut and long-practiced: If you don’t fly on a leg the rest of your trip is cancelled. Flying today is filled with these absurd situations just waiting to grab you. Anyone who isn’t paranoid about the airlines is not a frequent flyer.
That is absurd, did they end up reinstating your return? If not, did you file a DOT complaint?
Yes, they gave me the return again, without penalty. United said that it was merely following the standard rule, and in the future I would just have to expect how they would handle it. Most of us frequent flyers have heard about what happens to your remaining legs if you don’t use one of them, but this was a completely unexpected interpretation of that rule. I thought I had “used” the leg and that United understood that; to United, I didn’t fly, so I didn’t “use” the leg. To me it seems like a strange and unthinking interpretation.
Yeah, that’s nuts.