Instead of Delta pressing charges on the guy, it might have been more fitting a punnishment for Delta to have point out (to the 170+ passengers scheduled to ride the outbound flight, now grounded due to the deployed slide) exactly who was responsible for their flight being delayed.

Two points, from an airline dispatcher who files flight 40+ daily flight plans (electronically)...

1. While he change is going into effect on Sunday, June 29th, it actually will start on Saturday evening. ATC operates on UTC/GMT or "Zulu" time, and thus the changeover from the 28th to the 29th is also based on his. The difference between UTC and local time on the east coast of the USA is currently 4 hours, so the midnight UTC changeover from the 28th to the 29th is at 8pm eastern time, and you can figure the rest of the US time zones from there, 7pm central, etc.

2. It's imporant to realize exactly what is changing. Here in the USA, when the dispatcher issues a dispatch release, the flight plan information is a part of that, and electronically goes from the airline's computers to ATC's computers. What's changing is the format of this electronic message as it concerns domestic flights. Today's format for domestic flight plan filings differ from the ICAO format and the airlines are reprograming their internal computers to use the ICAO format for all flights effective June 29th. The various airlines will be testing their work between now and then, and fixing any bugs they find.

Come that Saturday night, what you'll probably see is that most (if not all) airlines have successfully made the changeover. If any problems do occur, they will probably be airline-specific. How will it affect one's flight? Flight plan's will have to be filed manually, and there may be a delay in doing so when the volume is considered.

It's not the end of the world...

A post by Joe F. on the guy's site says it better than I could....

On January 15th, 2008 Joe F. said

Speaking as a litigator - it is not as simple as Mr. Altschule makes it out to be. Look, I am NO fan of the airlines and their lame excuses but there is another side, and then another, and then another to this debate.

He speaks out of both sides of the proverbial mouth - on one side is the distress over thunderstorms and flying too close to them and other summer weather woes, and then there is the 'we can beat the storm into Albany' claim. The gate agent has ZERO say in whether the flight is canceled - that goes to ops and the pilot.

Here is one example -

Delta operates flight 567 from CVG to BHM on Sunday night. There are thunderstorms over CVG which causes the fight to arrive late on Sunday. In order for the pilots to get the required rest period, the morning departure is delayed 2 hours. This AIRPLANE goes from BHM-CVG and then to Charleston, SC. After CHS, the aiplanes goes from CHS-CVG-ATL-DFW-ATL.

What does Delta do? They cancel the flight segment from CVG-CHS-CVG to allow the airplane to get back on schedule in CVG by skipping the turnaround to CHS.

Now, is that a weather-related cancellation for the people in CHS? Delta certainly can argue that. Other airlines have done that in the past. It probably happens every day at some place in the country.

How contemporaneous does the weather need to be in order to be a weather delay.

If the airline choses to cancel, in Mr. Altschule's case, the MCO-ALB flight because of the impending weather, yet, there is no weather yet, is it a weather cancellation if infact, within an hour of arrival, it starts snowing heavily in ALB? What is the next flight out crashes due to snow on the wings? SHOULD the flight have been canceled then to prevent the crash? The crash lawyers are gonna argue that.

What if, in Mr. Altschule's case, the weather closed into ALB early, creating a serious risk at landing. The pilot then chooses to go to Hartford [BDL] for a safer landing. What is the airlines responsbility then? Does Mr. Altschule insist that they be bussed to ALB, despite the fact that the aircraft left MCO based on HIS request and 'showing' the gate agent that the snow would NOT be there before they got there?

Here is another one - A CRJ sits on the runway for 3 hours because of thunderstorms enroute from BDL-Washington Dulles. ATC has all of the Instrument Flight Rules flights backed up for hours due to the weather closing the busy airport for 60 minutes. However, if the flight departed under VISUAL flight rules, they could leave right now, without the delay, fly in bright sun and no clouds, and land visually at IAD with no delay.

The airlines internal rules mandate that ALL flights operate IFR, instead of VFR. It would be 100% legal for the flight to depart and arrive under VFR rules. Is that a weather delay? I would argue not - it is the choice the airline [and perhaps their insurer] to mandate IFR rules. This happened to me - and they paid me for a hotel room. Weather did not cause the delay, their choice of flight rules caused the delay.

I'm the FIRST person to claim that there need to be some rules around this so that the airlines cannot use 'weather' as an excuse for everything. But at the same time, discretion to the pilots and dispatchers seems to indicate that there be some looseness to the rules for safety sake. I am not certain how to make the rules except on a case by case basis . . . .

>>>I remember during training (in the 80's) that every year, 20 planes crashed due to rodents chewing thru control cables.

You do realize that control cables are made out of steel, right? The mice are going to chew through -that- ?

They don't do C-checks just because a rodent(s) were found onboard either. Inspections (for damaged electrical cables), yes.

Replace 'goat' with 'manager' and you might be on to something...

>>>The Today Show reports that investigators think the China Airlines 737 that dramatically exploded on the runway last week may have been caused by a loose bolt. The bolt may have slipped from its washer on one of the slats used to slow the plane on landing, shot into the engine, puncturing the fuel tank and causing fuel to spray and ignite.

This kind of media hyperbole is yet another example of how they "spice-up" a story for their own purposes.

It *didn't* happen on a runway-it happened as the aircraft stopped at its parking place.

It *didn't* explode, dramatically or otherwise. Yes, there was a small fire, and it ended up turning into a big fire. What looked like one or more "explosions" from the bottom of the aircraft were main landing gear tires losing their 200 psi pressure. That pressure release moved some flames around as well as upward, and while it looked like a "fireball" it really wasn't one-the "explosion" from that supposed "fireball" didn't result in a major breach of the wing tanks that would have rapidly spread the fire underneath the aircraft.

The slipped bolt *didn't* "shoot" or otherwise go into the running engine. First, the engines had already been shutdown, since the aircraft had arrived at its parking spot. Secondly, there have already been pictures released that were taken from *inside* the wing fuel tank that clearly show how and where the fuel tank was breached by the slat hardware when the slats were being retracted.

For the last 40 years, *all* 737 models (not just this latest "Next Gen" version) have shared the same design of how the slats retract into the wing, and since no other aircraft have burned up like this China Airlines flights has, it strongly suggests that the 737 is a sound design. The accident aircraft recently had been through a major maintenance check where the slats had been removed, and conventional wisdom is leaning towards the theory that they were not properly reinstalled, i.e. it's a *human* problem, and *not* an aircraft problem.

But hey, the folks at the Today show are all professional accident investigators, and we call take what they say as 100% Gospel. (Not!)