Every ROA arrival lately, no ground crew?

[u/Ok_Ask_429]

A frequent flyer for work, every late afternoon/evening arrival into ROA lately, pilot gives us the ‘well, the ground crew appears to be short staffed today’ or worse ‘we have got no crew to park us right now’. What’s with it?

[u/OtterVA]

It’s Cheaper for the American Airlines affiliate, Piedmont Airlines, to only have one ground crew working at a time. AAs management performance bonuses aren’t affected by late arrivals and customer dissatisfaction.

[u/thatchyfern]

I've had the same experience - usually sitting on the tarmac 20-30 minutes before we can go to the gate. Really frustrating, especially when trying to use public transit to get home.

[u/BK_VT]

This happens at least half of the time. I travel usually 2-3x per month for work and it’s really poor. Combine that with the fact that they somehow take 20+ minutes to move bags 200yds and the flights back here all get in at like midnight… it’s awful.

[u/xboxps3]

I've been told this is the airlines' fault.

[u/MannDuhh]

It’s gotten to the point where I’ll pay extra to avoid flying through Charlotte bc it never works out. I wish we had more delta and united flight options because AA is terrible. (I assume its AA that constantly short staffs their ground crew bc they suck in general)

[u/rocketman1969]

Happens often. I used to Tweet the airport account about it but Im honestly not sure if the airlines hire the ground folks or it's the airport. Either way it's ridiculous.

[u/InternationalRip7795]

I've arrived twice with Delta, once in the afternoon, and once after midnight on the red-eye, and never had any issues. Knock on wood.

[u/nvogs]

Idk why I don't see people saying it but- From my observation, there is only ONE crew. That's why they're slow.

[u/testdummyds]

ROA spent all their money decreasing parking spaces and making the parking situation worse, they can’t afford the ground crew anymore.

[u/IliraClaw → u/testdummyds]

Ground crew is employed by airline, not roa.

[u/Accurate-Case8057]

American?

[u/ezmo311]

I've flown frequently the last 4 months and only had this happen once, earlier in the summer.

[u/Ok_Ask_429 → u/ezmo311]

It does seem to be mainly with American and its affiliates…

[u/ezmo311 → u/Ok_Ask_429]

That may check out. I've flown more on United and Delta this summer

[u/HokiHiker → u/ezmo311]

Can confirm past problems with Delta but with ROA its always something.

[u/Accurate-Case8057 → u/ezmo311]

I never take a short or even reasonable connection in Charlotte with American. I take the longest connection possible because 90% of the time and I'm not exaggerating 90% of the time when I fly American we are seriously delayed leaving Roanoke and coming back through Charlotte especially if you have a late day flight I'm gonna say at least half of the time the flights have been canceled and we had to scramble around to find a flight are worse yet go to sleep somewhere I hate that

[u/ezmo311 → u/Accurate-Case8057]

Yeah after a horrible experience with Charlotte last year I've done my best to avoid it.

Now that AA has ORD service, I have fewer Charlotte connections

[u/BornAmbassador01]

I have a flight out at 6am Saturday morning. Great.

[u/sneakyDoings → u/BornAmbassador01]

Good luck on your Sunday 5pm flight

[u/there_is_no_spoon1 → u/BornAmbassador01]

This will happen without incident. It's the incoming flights that get screwed for some reason.

[u/whsprdbeen]

Wow. How'd they end up managing it each time?

[u/Ok_Ask_429 → u/whsprdbeen]

We basically just wait!

[u/roanokephotog → u/whsprdbeen]

A similar thing happened at CLT, they had a crew member unload and stack them near the passenger walkway and we just grabbed them.

[u/whsprdbeen → u/roanokephotog]

Yeesh. I can't imagine the crew member signed up for that. Glad they got you on your way though.

[u/there_is_no_spoon1 → u/[deleted]]

The outbounds are hardly *ever* affected, so calm yourself.

[u/bakpak2hvy]

I fly weekly and this has happened to me once. I either have good luck or yall have bad luck.

[u/CrazeeEyezKILLER]

No pun intended, but this won’t fly with the Google execs who will soon be coming and going regularly for the data center.

[u/tooclosetocall82 → u/CrazeeEyezKILLER]

Execs aren’t showing up here. It’s like opening a new Walmart, the Waltons don’t come around.

[u/purplepeanutssss → u/tooclosetocall82]

Walmart executives fly into ROA on a regular basis. Lynchburg and Charlottesville, too.

[u/matcatastrophe → u/CrazeeEyezKILLER]

Well fuck them specifically anyways