Do airlines lie about their weather delays? Not only is the answer “yes” as I suggested in a recent column, but the airline industry almost always gets away with it. There’s no formal audit of weather delays by any government agency; the Transportation Department basically takes the airlines at their word. But not if Howie Altschule has something to say about it.
Altschule is a forensic meteorologist who can tell you with pinpoint accuracy about the weather conditions on the day of your flight — even if you traveled days, months or years ago. I recently asked Altschule to explain what’s going on with weather delays:
Q: What’s a forensic weather consultant?
Altschule: A forensic weather consultant is a meteorologist that specializes as an expert witness. A forensic meteorologist goes back and studies different types of past weather records in order to determine what the weather conditions were at a specific date, time and location in the past.
Q: Who do you work with?
Altschule: I usually work on weather-related lawsuits, accidents or insurance claims and other events where people need to know what the weather was.
Q: Is it possible to go back in time to determine the weather?
Altschule: Yes. Most people don’t realize that we can go back and get very detailed weather information and tell what was occurring on a particular date many years ago.
Q: Can you give me an example?
Altschule: A small sampling of some of the cases I’ve worked on includes murder trials, arson cases reportedly involving lightning, motor vehicle accidents, plane crashes, slip and fall cases, boating accidents, work delays, flooding cases, Hurricane Katrina cases and many, many more. Right now, I work on close to 150 cases Nationwide and around the world. It is really amazing how detailed and precise we can be in telling what the weather was many years ago at a particular location.
Q: Are airlines playing the weather card more often?
Altschule: Yes, I do believe that bad weather is sometimes being used as an excuse for delays or cancellations when it really was not. I’ve heard many stories where flight delays or cancellations had occurred as a result of bad weather when the weather conditions really were not an issue.
Q: When an airline says a flight is delayed because of weather, what kind of options do passengers have?
Altschule: Well, I suppose it is depends on each person’s urgency to get home. The options are to either wait it out in the airport until the airlines get clearance to take off, cut your losses and stay in a nice, comfortable hotel for a night or get a rental car and drive.
Q: Really?
Altschule: I’ve done it before. Two summers ago, I checked into the airport in Buffalo, New York for my flight home just to find out that there were enormous flight delays due to the weather. So, I decided that it would actually be quicker and much less frustrating to rent a car and drive back to Albany, New York. I actually beat the flight back to Albany because it had to connect in Baltimore.
Q: Sounds like it would have been a bad idea to fly in that kind of weather.
Altschule: When there are legitimate flight delays due to bad weather, I do not like to fly. I would rather wait an extra day for nicer weather than fly dangerously in or near thunderstorms and snowstorms.
Q: And airlines feel the same way about bad weather?
Altschule: It seems to me that airlines don’t mind flying into or close to thunderstorms but the truth is, the storms can strengthen so rapidly that it could become very dangerous without warning. Come along with me on one of my Tornado Alley Chase Vacations in the spring and you will see how massive these storms can get. Until there are stricter regulations about steering clear of any thunderstorms, I will try my best to steer clear of those situations.
Q: The iPhone commercial with the pilot — truth or fiction?
Altschule: Absolutely true. Just about all real-time weather information is accessible on the internet and free of charge. On my
company’s Web site you will find links to all kinds of weather information including Doppler Radar images, weather warnings and advisories and hurricane reports.
Q: What should I look for?
Altschule: Look for the National Weather Service Doppler radar. These radar images, just like the ones you see on your local news, shows where it is raining or snowing and it’s intensity right at the time the image was taken. And the images are usually updated every five minutes. So, a pilot or anyone else with iPhone or internet access can get real-time weather updates.
Q: You’ve done this before?
Altschule: Yes, as a matter of fact, I did just that coming back from Orlando a few weeks ago. I had asked the gate manager if there were any delays on my flight back to Albany, New York and he said the flight may be canceled because of a snowstorm. I noticed he was looking at the radar so I directed him to my company’s Web site which has the more detailed Doppler radars on it, and we looked more closely at the Albany, New York radar and determined that the snow was still about 60 miles south of the airport.
Q: Did it work?
Altschule: The flight took off on time and landed in Albany ahead of schedule, thanks to a nice southerly jetstream that gave us a good tailwind.
Q: How can a weather consultant help someone who believes his or her flight has been canceled because of weather when, in fact, weather didn’t affect the flight at all?
Altschule: It’s very easy for me to determine if the weather played a roll in a flight delay or cancellation or not. If someone decides to sue the airline or ask the airline for a refund, then I can help verify exactly what the weather really was.
Q: How?
Altschule: My findings are based upon a detailed study of the past weather conditions and weather records that are available. If an airline makes a claim that bad weather at a certain location or along a route caused a delay or cancellation, I can access the data and determine if there is some truth to the bad weather claim or not.
Q: Where do you get that information from?
Altschule: Some records I would use include hourly surface observations that are located at all major airports, Doppler radar imagery that shows where the precipitation is and possible shear, past lightning strike data that can reveal whether lightning activity was present over a particular area and many other weather advisories and statements.
Q: Apart from hiring a weather consultant, is there any way of verifying that an airline is telling the truth about weather?
Altschule: People can go back and purchase some past weather information from the government but many of these records and Doppler radar images are either coded or difficult to comprehend. Many people have gone this route only to find out that they can’t understand the records and they end up hiring me to help them. As a forensic meteorologist, I do this kind of thing every day and know exactly what to look for.
Q: I would imagine your interpretation of the data would mean something to an airline, if not a court of law?
Altschule: Hiring a forensic meteorologist is worthwhile because not only do we gather the data, do the research and write a report on our findings, but we also prepare legal documents and testify in court for our attorney clients should it come to that. I’ve been accepted to testify as a forensic meteorologist in numerous courts around the country.
Q: And it’s possible to hold airlines accountable?
Altschule: In my opinion, the day has now come where we can verify what the past weather conditions were for any kind of case or lawsuit. Airlines that falsely use bad weather as an excuse may be in for a rude awakening should someone decide to challenge them.
✓ Get the latest travel news, tips and commentary from Elliott’s E-Mail, the subversive newsletter from industry gadfly Christopher Elliott. You’ll travel like a pro. Sign up here. It’s free.
Similar Posts:
- Forensic weather expert: What to do when you’re snowed in
- Flying in the snow: 6 lessons for coping with winter-weather delays
- You call that a weather delay?
- What’s new on Elliott: Pricing anomalies, dealing with weather delays, and trips you shouldn’t book online
- 5 things airlines won’t tell you about weather delays
Sign up for my 
{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
This guy should sooo be involved if there ever is going to be a lobby group for travelers.
Agreed. I think he would help hold airlines accountable.
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 . . . .
Liars – and stupid ones at that – most airline ramp agents.
Case in point – Denver Co. just recently. With my wife trying to return to Chicago, she arrives at the Southwest gate several hours before departure only to find that the flight is “delayed” by mechanics. The plane has not yet left PHX – it does on time, arrives in Denver on time and is rerouted to Florida instead of on to Chicago.The Chicago passengers then wait a full 3.5 hours before they get to leave enduring a variety excuses the best of which I head clearly over my wife’s cell phone as she spoke with an agent. It seems Midway Airport in Chicago was closed due to “wind shear”.
It was January 2nd and the temperature was 7 degrees and winds were NNW at 9 MPH. Wind shear my behind!
Bill, a little knowledge is a bad thing. Further, being a liar is one thing, being completely clueless and making up excuses to get passengers outta your face is another. I like to think that most airline employees are clueless – not liars. It is a much more likely excuse.
Anyway, on to your major complaint . . . Did you know you can have wind shear even though the winds at the surface are calm? [or 9mph?]
Have you ever heard of a temperature or pressure inversion?
Let me explain – often in winter there can be serious windshear only 2000 feet up. In fact, I have encountered, in a small airplane, change of direction and velocity of 30 knots in a 100 foot change in elevation. THATS wind shear – if I have an airspeed of 80 knots and encounter a 30 kt windshear I can immediately go to 50kts- at that speed, I am not flying anymore. However, in a small airplane, I can react with power more quickly and recover the lost speed without having too much trouble.
In a large jet, especially going into MDW where the longest runway is only 6500feet, you are a little slower than normal so that you can stop in time. It is common to see an aviation forecast read 35005 WS20 29045, translated, that means that the winds are out of the north northwest at five knots [6mph] but 2000 feet up they are out of the westnorthwest at 45. If the pilot lines up the 737 to land on 31C, at 3000 feet and his final approach AIR speed is 140kts, and his stall speed is 118kts, with that wind of 290@45 his ground speed is 97kts which is all well and good.
Now, when he comes through the WS layer, he loses 35 knots of airspeed – his AIR speed drops from 140 to 108 – which is 10 kts under the stall speed. What happens is that he aircraft starts to drop out of the sky until the speed is regained – yet, this jet, with 140 people on board – is now no longer flying, only 2000 feet above ground – is there enough space and distance to regain flying speed? No one knows. Well, they do, and that why you went to Florida.
What happens in the real world is that the pilot tacks on an extra 25 kts of speed so when he comes through the layer he does not stall – now, the airplane is indicating 175kts with a ground speed of 135 or so. When it comes through the layer, now only about 4 miles from the end of the runway, it is indicating about 130kts and is over ground about the same speed. However, this may be above the speed at which the 737 can land and stop. Remember – it is usiing power to maintain that 170kts of speed – and it is a careful balance to reduce power as you come through the layer so that the plane does not accelerate and stop descending.
It is probably outside the performance envelope of the aircraft to land in those conditions. Thus, the flight does not go into Chicago. A lot of people have died over the years so that the aircraft manufacturers could develop these performance charts. I presume you do not want to add to that knowledge base.
Bill, as much as you want the airlines to be lying to do, there is a layer of complexity to flying that most if not all non-pilots simply do not get . . . .
So, lawyers that do accidents and slip and fall cases are referred to as ‘ambulance chasers’. For someone that never even bothered to get a law degree that is cutting in on the action, what do we call an Altshule?
BTW – I’m anonymous, because the last thing I need is a wannabe lawyer trying to sue me.
A friend, who is quite travel savvy, was told that his plane was coming from Denver and was delayed because of snow. My friend knew that HIS plane was actually coming from Las Vegas and was not delayed for reason of weather (who knows, mechanical problems, a bird flew in the engine, landing gear fell off…). My friend was able to obtained his rightful overnight accommodations…
Airlines use the weather ‘excuse’ for one reason. It’s a responsibility loophole. It’s given to them by the FAA, that makes them not responsible for delays. For example, if there’s a mechanical issue with a plane that requires repair, there’s a delay. If they blame it on repair, people want free rights to stuff they don’t own. If they blame it on weather, it’s out of airline’s hands. Bottom line is, with air travel, there’s so many variables involved, the fact that anything is on time is almost a miracle.
So they use a loophole, the weather factor. You take that away from them, good for you, question is, then what?
You have a teleportation device we can use instead? No, you still haven’t solved any problems or made things easier for anybody. If anything, you’ll throw some extra coin in one already rich person’s pocket making air travel more expensive for everyone else. Kudos to you, what an awesome person you are.
What I can’t believe, is that weather testimony cannot easily be offset with simple logic. Pinpoint accuracy of weather information? Weather data collection points are miles apart from each other. If there are 2 weather data collection points 20 miles apart from each other, that’s an awful lot of pinpoints to cover. Hopefully the opposing parties don’t discover logic any time soon, for forensic weather consultant’s sake.
We’re not all as dumb as you think – most weather is fairly uniform over the distances between reporting stations in most developed areas of the country. The amount of snow between Hartford and Glastonbury CT is usually about the same, so reported weather at the Hartford [Hartford downtown, not the commercial field] is usually good enough for accident reconstruction, which is the life blood of the ‘forensic’ weather professional witnesses.
An airplane crash case usually happens at or near airports, so you have the actually reported weather, you do not need a forensic weather witness for that.
I’ve seen them advertised and I’m not sure when they are useful. If you get 8 inches of snow and get into a wreck and seriously injure someone, it is not rocket science, you were probably going too fast for the conditions.
In a class action against an insurer for Katrina damage [was it wind that took the roof off and caused flood damage or was the house flooded before then] I suppose that type of expert can testify that the winds were 140mph but the storm surge had not come ashore yet, so the damage happened first from the roof coming off and then from the surge- indicating coverage.
The weight of testimony from an expert is judged by a jury. A jury of 6 or 12 people are not stupid – they can see the BS when it is slung. If an expert overreaches or makes ridiculous statements that are not supported by common sense, well, jurys give the witnesses the appropriate weight – they do usually make the right call. . . .
This article is horribly one-sided. So is the MSNBC piece. Weather delays linger, just as an accident causes backups on a highway, even after it is cleaned up and the highway clear, residual delays remain for some time!
See pilot Patrick Smith’s debunking of the iPhone commercial in Salon, linked below:
http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2007/11/16/askthepilot254/print.html
Also – of course Altschule was able to drive from Buffalo to Albany faster than his flight could make it! Even on the best day with no delays, I can’t see how on earth you could make it between those cities (when you factor in check-in, waiting for bags, to/from airport transportation) when your flight connects in Baltimore! That’s what you get for flying Southwest, next time just take the Thruway.
If Patrick Smith wants to spend an entire column debunking a commercial, I’m cool with that. This article was a Q&A and meant to represent only one side — Altschule’s. As for the MSNBC piece, I’m having some trouble understanding how interviewing numerous airline experts makes an article one-sided. Maybe you could enlighten me.
It’s funny how clueless ’some’ people are about the weather. Do you really think that we only rely on the weather that’s reported at major airports? There’s a reason why we are called “experts” and there’s a reason why prepared attorney’s call on us to assist them with their cases. The tools and resources we have at our disposal are incredible. Never before have been able to determine the past weather conditions so accurately. The attorney’s that don’t use Forensic Meteorologists may not realize that. In the past, I have had the opportunity of destroying some attorney’s cases in front of a jury because they thought they knew what the weather conditions were.
Since so many people claim to know everything about the weather, I pose these few questions:
Question 1: Without the presence of any salt or other treatments, tell me why snow and ice sometimes melts when the air temperature is 23 degrees? Now tell me when it begins to refreeze to ice if the air temperature was below freezing all day?
Question 2: Tell me the difference between sleet and freezing rain? Which is more dangerous on untreated surfaces?
Question 3: If you want to determine whether cloud to ground lightning struck a house, are you just going to see what the airport 5 miles away reported?
Question 4: What about wind shear in a thunderstorm. Are you really going to look at Newark airports weather report to see if a Thunderstorm caused severe winds 20 miles away? I’m sure you realize that thunderstorms can cause damaging winds in one place and it can be sunny 3 miles away.
Now I’d ask you again to think about the importance of Forensic Meteorologists because some of the posts I have read are ridiculously elementary.
To: Joe
Thank you for your lengthy but accurate disertation on wind shear, a/c performance specs and the like. You obviously know your stuff.
What I didn’t bother to mention in my “rant” was that on that evening in question, ops at MDW were pretty much normal for everybody with the exception of some de-icing for a/c that had been on the ground a longer period of time due to frost – not normally a SWA concern given their turn-around time.
Further, I have many “friends” at MDW as I fly into and out of that facility quite often myself. The people I questioned all reported no problems nor were there any reports regarding any wind shear issues. Further, when I did arrive at MDW, any delays were of the 15-30 minute variety and most flights were listed as on-time.
I have over 12,000 hours logged over the past twenty years and carry a double I rating
(instrument-instructor) in almost everything from a Warrior to a Gulfstream 2.
(I probably should have gone and picked her up myself!)
And, let’s not forget the real issue that started it all – redirecting the inbound to another destination.
Oh, well, it’ll happen again and what can anyone do about it except take out one’s frustrations in a blog. Good luck, Joe -remember GUMPS!
Mr. Altschule – Meteorology is a science – most pilots know an awful lot about it since it’s progeny, weather, can kill us . . . here are the answers – without the benefit of google –
Question 1: Without the presence of any salt or other treatments, tell me why snow and ice sometimes melts when the air temperature is 23 degrees? Now tell me when it begins to refreeze to ice if the air temperature was below freezing all day?
Is the sun shining? Then the surface temp was obviously above 0C! Unless the ice was under pressure – which lowers the freeze point. Or maybe it was snow mold on the bottom . . . I suppose it can be supercooled, but thats only IN the clouds – not once it precipitates into crystals. My money is on pressure at the bottom of the snow. It refreezes when the temps get below -5C.
Question 2: Tell me the difference between sleet and freezing rain? Which is more dangerous on untreated surfaces?
Sleet is rain that falls through a below freezing layer of air and freezes prior to contact with the surface. ZR is rain that freezes on contact with a surface, forming ice. ZR is dangerous, SL is not as bad since it does not generally create ice on surfaces, it is ice.
Question 3: If you want to determine whether cloud to ground lightning struck a house, are you just going to see what the airport 5 miles away reported?
No, I’m gonna use my storm scope. Or, use the records kept by the power companies which display cloud2ground lightning strikes – or – subscribe to Accuweather and get the same information from their website. Its what is displayed on the TV weather stations when they report lightning strikes.
Question 4: What about wind shear in a thunderstorm. Are you really going to look at Newark airports weather report to see if a Thunderstorm caused severe winds 20 miles away? I’m sure you realize that thunderstorms can cause damaging winds in one place and it can be sunny 3 miles away.
Wind Shear at ground level in a TSRA is not reportable except vby specialized equipment which detects different wind speeds at different sectors of a runway environment. Now, if it is precipitating, you can see from the doppler radar radial velocity image whether there was a change of direction in the scan image in a certain area.
Can I get a grade professor? ;-) Gee, a pilot, a lawyer, and knowledgeable about weather . . . . hmmm. But I would need an expert to testify about all that . . ..
Now – Bill – maybe they just forgot? hahahaha – you know – ooops, I was supposed to go to MDW BEFORE MCO? Did you check the flight in Flightaware.com to see if it was diverted or if the flightplan was actually to MCO?? Go check out your flight #
This topic is fun!
Not bad for some of the answers but there are some incorrect responses.
First, your answer to Question A is incorrect. My assertions were that the air temperature was below freezing for the entire time. So, no, the temperature obviously was not above freezing. Snow and/or ice can melt on exposed and untreated surfaces when sufficient incoming solar insolation acts on it. So, the correct answer is that melting will occur when the strong sun and air temperatures are near 23 degrees or higher. Clearly cloud cover plays a role as well. Once the sun starts to go down as the air temperature is below freezing, the melting ceases and refreezing occurs. This usually begins about an hour before sunset. I’m afraid that since the majority of weather related suits and claims involve slip and fall accidents, your undertsanding of this could have been catasrophic for your case had you not consulted a Forensic Meteorologist. :)
Nice job on answer #2. You nailed it. The majority of non-Meteorologists do not get that right and don’t understand the difference. Many also refer to sleet as hail.
The answer to question number 3 doesn’t answer my question. I was asking about determining lightning strikes in the past (that’s part of what this story refers to right…past weather determination?). We have access to archived ground sensor information that will show with 99.9% accuracy, when cloud to ground lightning struck a particular address or location. The datas includes the exact time to the millisecond as well as amperage and polarioty information. Most people do not realize this is available.
Answer 4: Good answer. But i usually like to refer to Storm Relative Velocity also. We also would review the Vertical Azimuth Display winds to see how the winds change with height. But archived Doppler Radar imagery is very useful in showing where convection was occurring.
All in all, not bad answers but certainly not an A+. My point for all of this is to defend some of the comments stated in earlier posts and to show why Forensic Meteorologists are helpful and useful. Lawyers included.
@Joe-F:
“Further, being a liar is one thing, being completely clueless and making up excuses to get passengers outta your face is another. I like to think that most airline employees are clueless – not liars. It is a much more likely excuse.”
So, making up excuses isn’t lying? So, if my kid tells his teacher that the dog ate his homework, he’s NOT lying? THAT’S a stretch…
Steve – it is airline ‘truth’ in the 21st Century.
The airline companies do not give out good information to the front line staff. Basically because every decision is made by committee. The flight canceled? why? Only the guy in operations knows why s/he canceled it. Ops might be in Dallas in the case of the American or Atlanta in the case of Delta. The information does not get to Des Moines. The gate agent has 112 angry passengers to re-route and no real reason why- depending on what the airline has GIVEN them to accomodate passengers, and how much authority they have generally. People are screaming at you, generally p/o’d and you need to deal with it, for $12 an hour.
Yeah, you make it up as you go along. . . . is it right? Nope. Is it honest? No. Does EVERY corporation do it – yep.
I tend to think lying as being more intentionally misleading – if you have no idea why the flight was canceled and you are given no authority in the instance to accommodate people, you find an applicable excuse to fit the facts. Now, if they KNOW the reason – well – thats a lie!!!
So, here’s a scenario, I walked 6 blocks in NYC one day (streets not avenues – short distance). Within 15 minutes. It was snowing when I started and raining when I finished. Since the data collection points are much further apart than 6 city blocks, how you can you justify the statement ‘pinpoint accuracy’ when it comes to forecasting, or historical data records?
Note that there’s no actual claim that the discussion with the gate agent at Orlando changed anything – which it wouldn’t, of course.
Also note that all this is puffed up from: “In my opinion, the day has now come …”, “may be in for a rude awakening” and “should someone decide to challenge them”, i.e. there’s nothing behind it…
BTW Howard- I SAID was the sun out for #1 – seems like that was the right answer. Further, if the snow melted in the SUN, under the laws of physics the temp of the snow/ice at that point was ABOVE freezing – don’t try to sell a jury anything else. When it gets BELOW freezing, it freezes.
I then answered #3correctly – you get the lightning strike info – the sensor information is ALWAYS in the past – no matter if it is on the weather channel, on the tv weather or in the ‘archived records,’ the information displayed is ALWAYS past information. So, THAT answer was correct as well since I referred you to the SAME source.
The issue with doppler is resolution. The further you go from the site of the WSR-88D the less resolution there is since the waves propagate outward – the inverse square law means that the distance from the doppler means an ever large slice of space is being noted – which means that very small scale vorticity cannot be discerned, give me an A .
C’mon, Howie, you hate to have me cross-examine you . ..
Joe:
Yep, Flight Aware is first on my laptop; one of those 21st century tools that makes life really hard on any gate agent who’s trying to give passengers a song and dance about a particular flight. And yes, that inbound was Chicago’s all along – have taken it several times myself although it’s now changed in SWA’s system. It now comes in from New Mexico rather than Phoenix and the flight number is changed.
Seems like SWA is trying to hide something here (joking).
Joe F Said: C’mon, Howie, you hate to have me cross-examine you . ..
How will I ever know who you are since you hide under the name Joe F.? Besides, I would love to have you cross examine me. I love proving those attorney’s who think they know it all wrong in front of a jury.
Despite your attempts to clarify and restate your answers in a more correct sounding manner, you’re original answer the way it is written is incorrect. Accept it. Anyway, it seems that this conversation is not going anywhere. I’m not here to play professor because I have real work and important cases to work on. So, i’ll let you continue to believe that you know everything about Meteorology, Law, Aviation and anything else you’d like to proclaim your specialty in on this blog. I take that back, you probably know a lot about Law since that is your career.
Constructive questions and responses from posters I would be happy to comment on. All the best to you Joe F.
Anyone know what the heck Gwyn is talking about?
OK, OK. Let’s be nice, people.
He said, tongue permanently in cheek . . . relax Mr. Altschule – we’re all friends here!
Howard – as Q#1 you left out some facts, such as if the sun was out! But as it may, I was wrong . . . but pressure works too, as in the pressure at the bottom of a glacier. I think we are saying the same thing for #3 . . . but, if Q#1 was a hypothetical as an expert witness, and you left out the little fact that the sun was out, I’m not sure a jury would think kindly of an expert leaving out such a crucial fact when providing an expert opinion on a hypothetical!
AS for aviation, meteorology and law, I’ll freely admit that I know merely a small fraction of what there is to know – about anything to be honest. I just try to have logical opinions which take into account human nature . . . thats all. And while I do practice law, once again, none of us can ever know it all ;-) and, a good lawyer on cross does not need to disprove anything, merely attack credibility logically within the realm of the common sense of the jury.
and BTW – I never ever cast doubt on the value of forensic meteorology – like every other science it has value within the limits of the science and the technology applied to the science.
Very Good. Now we can all be friends again!! :)
As a travel agent, I’ve had 2 occasions in the past 6 months to help flyers who had seriously delayed flights. They were told by the airlines that the delay was due to weather but they called me and I looked up flifo for the flight in the airline computer and saw that in both cases, the problem was related to crew issues. Access to that info is available for only a limited time after a flight, so I printed the information. Armed with that information, these passengers got reasonable offers from the airline customer service department when they wrote a letter. Had they been unable to indicate they knew the real reason for the delay, I am convinced they would have received nothing.