Horizon Flight AS2478 Cancellation 8-14
 

Well; I knew it had to happen eventually. One of the weedeater-8 junk
turboprops Horizon uses from Seattle to Santa Rosa, CA. broke down. The
last flight scheduled for 6 PM Friday. It had some problem with the cabin
pressurization system (or so that was the story). The pilot and a
technician could be seen fiddling around at an access panel outside trying
to figure it out. A couple of shrugs later and we get the announcement that there will be a delay while they run an engine to attempt to figure out the problem. At this point 70 of us have been in the double-wide they use for the "gate" in Santa Rosa with bad AC for 45 minutes already. They mess around running an engine on the thing for another 45 minutes and finally shut it down. I see the baggage cart wheeling up to the cargo door, and I know what's coming. At this point it's 6:45 PM (we got into the double-wide at 5:15). The announcement comes that it's canceled and we should all go to the ticket counter to make other arrangements.
Picture this: 60+ people lining up at the ticket counter at once, and ONE person running it. She got no help for the duration, and by the
time I got up there it was just about 9 PM. Of course, by this time there are No flights for Saturday so my only option is to be put up
overnight, come back to the airport, and get a bus down to SF in the morning to catch an Alaska actual airplane back to Seattle. It's hard to
point out what's more negligent; the bad airplane, the unnecessary delay
in getting us out of there, or leaving only One person at the ticket counter
(and She's the only one who gets any credit for having to deal with the
mess her idiot employer left her). If you must fly into Santa Rosa, avoid
any late flights since it's likely if anything goes wrong (and it's likely), you'll
be stuck.

They should have had another agent or two at the ticket counter. However you can't fault them that badly about the mechanical situation. EVERY airline has mechanical problems with their aircraft. Take any airline in the world of any size, and they will likely have at least one airplane a day that has something that needs fixing. Doesn't matter the type of plane (although some are more reliable than others.)

In this case, it sounds like the pressurization system was the problem. When an airplane engine sucks air in the front, some of that air is directed into the cabin. That is how the plane is pressurized. Even if they are recycling the cabin air, there still has to be a certain amount of new air entering the cabin because there is no airplane in the world that is perfectly sealed. So you are never flying in an aluminum balloon. This is why it tends to be colder near the exit doors.

1. Horizon uses the Dash-8 400 series. I tried a Google search for the exact date but I believe they took delivery of their first "Q400" in late 2003 or early 2004 so the oldest aircraft in their fleet is about 6 years which is not old at all for a commercial airline. Some of the commuter aircraft used by other airlines are 15+ years old. Also I think you meant to use the term "crop duster" not "weedeater." If you have issues with this type of aircraft why did you book these flights. (It appears that you've made this trip at least a few times?)

2. The airline has little control over the facilities at a given airport. Santa Rosa is not a major airport. It's not even a secondary airport like Sacramento or Spokane. Horizon is currently the only commercial service @STS. I'm not sure why you would have such high expectations for such a small airport. If it's any consolation to you I did read on the airport's website they received stimulus money recently so perhaps some improvements are on the way.

3. How many people were there when you checked in? Santa Rosa only has a couple of flights per day. I doubt they have staff on reserve. I guess you expected the outside ramp employees to jump in and handle re-booking everyone? I highly doubt they are trained to do so.

4. So you are saying one is likely to experience a significant delay or cancellation because of your experience with one flight? I'd say that's blowing things a bit out of proportion, wouldn't you? Sure it's not a pleasant experience but you'd have people believe this is a regular occurrence when it's not. I'm sure that putting you up in the hotel and busing you to San Francisco the next day was the best option available. Even if they were able to hire a bus at the point they knew the flight was canceled by the time the bus got to the airport, loaded up and reached SFO the last flight to Seattle (8PM) would have been long gone.