Delays and cancellations at the Arcata-Eureka Airport (ACV) have caused a community uproar in recent weeks as construction work has taken a key piece of navigation equipment offline. This interruption of service to the airport’s instrument landing system (ILS), which helps incoming pilots navigate in low-visibility conditions, has long been foreseen, but angry travelers, armed with horror stories, are arguing that neither airport personnel nor commercial carriers are doing enough to inform travelers of conditions. Late this afternoon, however, United Express agreed to issue refunds to passengers whose flights were canceled. Read on.
The impacts of the delays and cancellations have been widespread, forcing many travelers to rent cars or seek alternate modes of transportation at their own expense. A Facebook page called ACV Airport Blues has been created as an informal gathering spot for sharing information and comparing tales.
Zuzka Sabata, community coordinator for the Dell’Arte theatre company, said in a phone interview today that she’s had firsthand experience with such headaches and has heard countless similar stories in recent weeks. She feels that attributing the problems to weather is inaccurate. “It’s quite obvious that airlines are taking advantage of the situation — not giving people information and not copping to the fact that it’s not the weather, it’s the equipment,” Sabata said. “They’re relinquishing responsibility.” In preparation for an east coast tour, Dell’Arte recently elected to ship costumes and props via FedEx — at an increased cost — rather than risk a delay or cancellation at the local airport.
County Supervisor Mark Lovelace said he sympathizes with these woes. “It’s a tremendously frustrating situation, especially for someone stranded at one end or the other” Lovelace said when reached for comment this afternoon. The Board of Supervisors has been receiving a large number of phone calls and e-mails, particularly in the last few days. And while Lovelace expressed sympathy for stranded travelers, he said that the construction work is a necessary and temporary inconvenience.
The airport is installing what’s known as an Engineered Material Arresting System, or EMAS, an emergency measure designed to stop a plane from overrunning the runway in much the same manner as runaway truck ramps can rescue semi drivers on steep downhill grades. This project, which was required by the FAA, should allow more service from regional jets once it’s completed, Lovelace said.
While individual experiences are certainly frustrating, Lovelace said that the scope of the problem has been overblown. Of the 481 flights scheduled from Aug. 1 through Sept. 9, 408 have landed sooner or later, according to information provided to the BOS from County Airports Manager Jacquelyn Hulsey. And of the 73 flights that didn’t land, only 55 were canceled due to the ILS being down — again according to Hulsey.
The airport manager promised to send the Journal information by e-mail no later than 4 p.m. today, yet nothing had arrived by 4:30 p.m. Hulsey did, however, e-mail Lovelace late this afternoon to inform him that United Express has agreed to issue full refunds to customers whose flights were cancelled. Lovelace said it’s his understanding that other airlines have agreed to do the same thing. It’s unclear how or if this applies to passengers whose flights were redirected, Lovelace said, and he added that affected customers should contact the airline (United, for example) and not the carrier (Horizon Air, say).
Sabata gives some of the blame to the county, saying officials should be doing more to inform travelers. “The thing that really shocked me is that there is no information whatsoever on the county website about the construction or the rampant delays and cancellations,” she said. “It should be in bold letters across the top or on a sign at the airport. It seems like a real failure of responsibility that that information isn’t available.”
Bill Davidson, a local pilot and member of the county’s Aviation Advisory Committee, said the construction work was poorly planned and that many of these delays and cancellations could have been avoided. During his own flights in and out of ACV recently, Davidson has observed conditions that in his estimation would not preclude the use of ILS equipment. “There’s no reason ILS can’t be up and running when there’s no construction equipment in the way,” he said. Davidson also suggested that much of the construction work, which entails surface grade changes to the primary runway, could be performed at night, thereby minimizing the impact to travelers. And the work shouldn’t have been done at this time of year since fog is often most prevalent in the fall, Davidson added.
Lovelace countered that the work was necessary, and the rainy season would be impossible. He agreed with complaints that more information should be given to travelers but said very few people check the county website when they’re preparing to travel. Instead, he suggested, the airlines and online ticket agents like Expedia.com should make an effort to notify travelers of potential delays.
The ILS is scheduled to be shut down through at least September 24.
This article appears in Hooked.
Mark seems to be missing that as business that generate the tax base that helps pay his salary, a nice one btw, that this is more than an inconvienance- it’s a revenue hit.
Trying to discuss proper management and accountability with him appears to be futile or there is just a big gap between gov. and the private sector. Mark, you should be representing your constitiuents and ease up on the cya- help manage what is an obvious operational failure for all those currently stranded- this saga is not done- and ones that could be stranded until the construction is complete
Airport Manager…
“There’s no reason ILS can’t be up and running when there’s no construction equipment in the way,” — This confirms my suspicion that the project could have been organized and managed in such a way that fewer flights would be disrupted. And are there incentives in place for the contractor to finish early or on time?
I’m less interested in how many flights got canceled and more concerned about the late flights that caused many of us to miss connections. After all, we’re not flying to San Francisco, for the most part–we’re headed somewhere else. Just because the plane left Arcata the day it was supposed to does not mean people got where they were going the day they were supposed to.
And as for people not checking the county website–the point is that the airport should have set up some sort of communication system travelers could use. A website, an email list, Twitter, a recorded phone message–create something, then advertise it to the public. Put up signs in the airport. Do PSAs. Etc. There are ways to keep travelers updated; the airport hasn’t done it.
I am really disappointed in Marks response. The argument is not about the repairs, though clearly they could have been managed better. It is about how the information has been put out about this. To say nothing was put on the website because no one reads it, is sanctimonious and untrue. And have you ever tried to get information out of an airline? Why didn’t the county get specific arrangements and contingencies in place with the airlines BEFORE this all came down?
This is a management problem and the current airport manager could do a lot more to address the problem both in the short and long term.
Short term = protocols to keep the ILS up and running as much as possible and hiring a local weather spotter to serve during the crisis.
Long term = working with FEMA to get ACV designated as the regional emergency response airstrip, which would qualify us for a control tower that would alleviate ALL of these problems.
Supervisor Duffy in an e-mail notes that she personally always has a contingency plan when using ACV and suggests we all should too. My response is: it seems to me that in today’s technologically advanced world where one can walk around with a telephone-come-computer-come-game player that fits in one’s hand, instead of telling us that everybody needs to come up with their own contingency plan, the powers that be at the airport along with the airlines should have come up with a solution or two for us, especially since there was no mystery about what the outcome of their current plan would be.
Hi all,
I absolutely agree that we could be doing more to inform the public about the potential for delays or cancellations, and about their available travel options. I have been working on this issue over the weekend, along with our Airport Manager and the Director of Public Works, and I believe that you will be seeing an increase in the flow of information starting Monday. However, I do need to correct a couple of statements in the article above.
Mr. Davidson’s suggestion that we can turn the ILS on and off as needed is simply not true. The work being done has the potential not just to interrupt the ILS, but to affect its accuracy. That is why the FAA required it to be shut down until constuction is finished. As you can imagine, any system that is to be relied upon to allow pilots to make their approach blind had better be accurate!
It’s my understanding that the FAA has to fly a test approach with a specially-equipped plane to test the accuracy of the system before they will allow it to be used again for commercial flights. This simply can’t be done on a minute-to-minute or even a day-to-day basis, as suggested by Mr. Davidson.
Similarly, his suggestion of scheduling this project during another part of the year was also not feasible. The nature of the work demands that it be performed during what passes for dry weather here.
I apologize to anyone whose flight has been delayed, cancelled or redirected as a result of this project. I promise you that we are looking at every option available to us, but the main issue here is to get through this project and get everything up and running again as soon as possible.
Mark
(snark alert)
Yes, I sooo enjoyed returning on August 20 from a six week trip to Mongolia and being diverted to Redding due to fog at the local airport after a 3 hour flight from Ulaanbaatar to Seoul, Korea, a 13 hour layover in Seoul and then a 10 hour flight from Seoul to San Francisco and another hour, I’d foolishly thought, to home.
It was so nice to have the opportunity to try the mediocre Chinese food at the Redding airport while I waited over three hours for a ride home with a neighbor whose husband drove over to get us since the ETA for the bus back over the hill ranged from 30 minutes to 2 hours. Maybe. So instead of getting home at around 3pm (in time for the Giants game), I got home at 1:30am.
Difficult to make contingency plans, Jill, on two weeks notice (which was what a couple of fellow passengers said was the case as far as public notification of the ILS being taken down) when one has already been gone for four weeks.
But maybe Jill and the airport folks don’t travel much themselves or realize that some of us actually LEAVE THE COUNTRY and are busy doing other things that may put us out of touch with what’s going on here in the Center of the Universe. And that it just isn’t practical to pick up a rental car in Mongolia to get home to northern California.
What I see in the above article is the usual circle of blame and no one taking responsibility.
Is it really possible that it never occurred to the locals involved in this project that putting pilots on visual, during what is well-known to be the foggiest time of the year, was not going to cause all kinds of problems? And that maybe the public needed to be informed ASAP to be able to make the needed “contingency” plans?
I must admit I received more information about the problem at the airport from friends and neighbors than airport personnel. My sister flew from Illinois only to be rerouted to back to Redding to take a 4-hour bus ride to get to the Arcata Airport. A whole day shot. For the return flight, we were notified by Alaska Airlines of cancellation at 10pm the evening before her 6 am flight. I spent two hours on the phone with United, then Alaska, then United, then Alaska since no one wanted to take any responsibility for rescheduling the departure from Arcata Airport. Finally, she was rescheduled two days from the original departure time. When I saw the fog the day before, we changed tickets to depart from Redding. I took a day off work, got a motel room and my sister finally flew out after waiting 70 minutes for pilots to arrive from San Francisco.
So, $200 later, 280 miles later, and the loss of one day of work for me, two for her, the pain was over.
I am a local and love my home but I am more than disappointed at the way this has been handled by the Eureka/Arcata Airport. The buck has to stop somewhere folks. Grow up and take some responsibility.
I arrived at the airport on the morning of Sept. 11 at 5 a.m. for the 6 a.m. flight and waited to board.There was no information posted or announcements made regarding the flight. At about quarter to 6 I asked the TSA people why we weren’t boarding. They said the flight was canceled. When I went to the counter I asked why there was no information posted. A Skywest person told me that there were plans to install monitors such as are at larger airports but they had not been installed yet. I asked why the board that had formerly been at the counter area with flight info posted had been removed. I was told that Airport Manager Hulsey had ordered it removed because it was “ugly”. Nice job.
I’m scheduled to fly out tomorrow morning and have zero trust that I will be notified in advance if it’s a no-go. And zero trust that I will make it home as scheduled later in the week. From what I’ve seen of Hulsey’s work over the years, she is very good at escaping responsibility and NOT communicating. I hope and pray this is not like the baggage tent where we all had to stand in the rain to get our bags for month after month. That must have been the slowest construction project in the history of the universe.