An Alaska Airlines flight from Washington DC to San Francisco was allegedly delayed on Monday because the Captain had a disagreement with the First Officer and decided to walk off the plane rather than fly with the other pilot.
The incident aboard Alaska flight AS1080 left passengers speechless after the Captain took to the intercom to inform them that he was going to return to the gate because she wasn’t “getting along” with the co-pilot.
Passengers say the flight had already been delayed due to thunderstorms in the Washington area but they were then left on the aircraft for more than two hours while Alaska tried to find a new pilot to operate the flight.
The Airbus A320 operated service should have departed Dulles at 4:10 pm but in the end, the flight didn’t get underway until nearly 7:30 pm and eventually landed in San Francisco nearly two and a half hours late.
“This is a first for me. Alaska #1080 from IAD to SFO, already delayed due to weather, comes back to the gate. Pilot says he and his first officer can’t get along… so in the interest of safety..’ and then leaves the plane,” wrote Al Jackson, executive vice president of health at public relations from Ketchum in a tweet.
Another passenger said the Captain left the airplane “fuming” after returning to the gate.
A third said the pilot initially told the passengers they were returning to the gate due to a “failure to get along.” The Twitter user continued: “Very scary that your pilots could be this careless and flippant”.
Describing the incident on Reddit, a fourth passenger said the replacement pilot was met with “roaring applause” but passengers never found out whether they were flying with the “hard to get along with passenger”.
Pilots at Alaska Airlines have been in dispute with the airline for years now over protracted contract negotiations but things took a turn for the worse in May when pilots voted overwhelmingly in favor of authorizing strike action.
One of the main issues affecting Alaska pilots is that they believe they are being overworked and don’t have the kind of scheduling flexibility that pilots at other airlines enjoy.
If the pilot was in a hyper emotional state, I would say they did the right thing as they should not be flying in that position Having said this, they need to explore why one or both would let it get to that point.
Couldn’t agree with you more. I do not want two pilots fighting the whole flight. Sucks to be waiting, It has happened to me but he did the right thing by leaving. An investigation should be conducted, as you mentioned this situation should not have blown up like it did. Either way both pilots should be placed in CRM Training/refreshers.
If passengers only knew how many MAGA far right pilots their are in the cockpit they’d never get on a plane. I’m guessing 70-80%. And they don’t see a problem with spewing their hatred, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, while sitting next to someone because that hatred leads their life. They don’t see it to be a problem, as their fearless leader does the same. Pilot union don’t care since they are led by the same MAGA idiots. And airlines don’t care because these fools are just followers and way to manipulate. In any other office environment they would be fired rather quickly.
Prejudiced much? Your attitude is just as bad as the ones you rail against.
LM is right. I know a couple of pilots, both pretty liberal and one gay, who’ve mentioned their co-pilots are usually MAGATS. These two guys are smart enough to avoid political discussions.
They are humans and when you’ve had it, you’ve had it. I remember a flight attendant from United opened an armed door or the right, blew a slide and went down it to quit. I was on that flight. At least he didn’t do that! 😆
Like most today, some people are so wrapped up in their own “feelings” and absorption with “self”, they lose all sense of realism, much less professionalism. Thankfully, I flew for 30 years before this awful phenomenon and didn’t have to deal with it. Seems like nowadays, far too many stride around filled with nothing but anger and resentment at perceived wrongs by everybody and everything in everyday, normal life. Anything those people interpret as a wrong, sets them off, when actually there was nothing there in the first place. I’ve seen that many times.
In my day, the captain of the aircraft was the CAPTAIN. It didn’t matter if you just didn’t like the guy or not, he did his job, the rest of us did ours. End of story. If you had a disagreement with something, it was discussed in private just between the two parties involved. AFTER the flight. I’m so thankful I could retire before all this “people mess” of today!