Saturday, July 22, 2017

When a broken iPad grounds your flight home

I've heard of flight delays caused by mechanical issues, bad weather, sick passengers, air traffic issues...but today's issue was a new one for me. My Delta flight from Charleston, SC to LaGuardia in NY was delayed because the pilot's iPad broke. 

That's right. The plane was all boarded, flight attendants ready for taxi and takeoff, when suddenly the pilot announces that we're going to be delayed for about an hour.  The reason: his iPad broke, and as a result, he is unable to fly for the rest of the day, and we have to wait for a replacement pilot (with a functioning iPad) to show up.

I'm assuming this has something to do with pilots logging their Hours of Service via their iPads, but....seriously?  I have an Hours Tracker App on my phone that I use for my freelance work, and all of the info I enter is backed up on the Cloud.  If my iPhone breaks, I simply log in from any other electronic device and be up and running again.

One would think this issue could have been easily resolved by providing the pilot with a replacement iPad, kept on the aircraft for exactly this purpose.  Alas, no.

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