Doug Cameron (00:01)
Hi and welcome to the KnowEntry podcast brought to you from KnowDelay, where you can get advanced weather information to make that flight experience just a little bit easier. Now today's, we might be calling this Geoff Murray's bad day at the office. Geoff, we'll come back to you in a second, but hello, Noam Alon. Hello.

Noam Alon (00:21)
Hi how are you?

Doug Cameron (00:22)
Dennis Taylor, how are you doing?

Dennis Taylor (00:24)
Greetings.

Doug Cameron (00:27)
So, Geoff Murray, one word for you, Bentonville. I've been to Bentonville, Arkansas a couple of times. Let's go through it. Maybe one of your trickier travel experiences. I wonder what we can learn both from your time there and also how it might filter down to travelers and viewers and what experiences. So give us the elevator version of what happened.

Geoff Murray (00:52)
Sure, so the elevator speech here was we were flying from Chicago to Bentonville and a lot of that area in the south was impacted materially by weather the day that we were flying down. Then we were supposed to go to one of the western hubs, Denver, Salt Lake, that kind of thing, and then we were going to end up in Palm Springs. And I had been looking forward to this trip for weeks. I've never been to Palm Springs.
You know, read about all the, you know, the Rat Pack, spending time there in the sixties and that kind of thing. So, it was a trip I was really looking forward to. And of course, you know, weather got in the way of that. And as we'll see, it got in the way just by every possible permutation you can think about.

Doug Cameron (01:42)
Well, I just looked up Bentonville's meant to have a subtropical climate so it didn't turn out like Palm Springs did it?

Geoff Murray (01:49)
Not at all. We ended up spending the night there, which we'll talk about during the podcast, but the day that we were there, they had in the 24-hour period they were there, they had about 14 and a half inches of snow. Yeah. And I'm from Rochester, New York and the weather there reminded me of the weather you'd see in Rochester when I was a kid. Heavy snow.

Doug Cameron (02:04)
That's a lot. So, it's kind of an unremarkable place to go to, it's a pretty new airport relatively at North West Ark and so what kind of start at the chain of events?

Geoff Murray (02:26)
So as Dennis and Noam can relate to, and I'm going to have them chime in, Bentonville is a smaller airport, so it is not used to having a lot of big aircraft, a lot of international aircraft, and one of the big deals is they don't have what's known as a cat-two approach. And Noam, just going to have you quickly explain the difference between a cat-one and a cat-two, which is important here.

Noam Alon (02:52)
Yeah, so it's a function of how low the visibility could be and still allow you to land. So, CAT I requires higher visibility and higher ceilings, and a cat 2 allows you to get even lower. So lower ceiling, lower visibility in order to land.

Doug Cameron (03:11)
Is a CAT, III, II, is that right? We go up to CAT, II? Yep, okay.

Noam Alon (03:13)
That's even lower. Right. Correct. Yes.

Geoff Murray (03:16)
Dennis, Dennis has flown CAT III approaches in his 787.

Doug Cameron (03:19)
Thanks.

Dennis Taylor (03:20)
But they need crew, special crew training to be able to do these type approaches. So, I fly an airplane that has CAT II capabilities, but I'm not allowed to do them because I'm not trained in that airplane to do them.

Doug Cameron (03:34)
Okay. Got it. Okay.

Geoff Murray (03:39)
Yep. So, so the reason this is important when we showed up at the airport, when I, we, I mean, mean the crew, the, the captain I was flying with myself, the flight attendants, we have to look at the weather. We coordinate with our dispatch and what we found out was the forecast, the aviation forecast, a forecast called the TAF, the terminal area forecast was forecasting one quarter mile visibility. And why is that important known for a cat two approach or a cat one?

Noam Alon (04:09)
Well, it's below CAT I.

Geoff Murray (04:11)
Exactly. So, Bentonville is again a smaller airport, great airport, like modern airport and all that, but they only have cat one approaches. So, the visibility forecast of a quarter mile meant that at the time we couldn't even dispatch to the airport. So, we were sitting around O'Hare waiting, know, calling our dispatchers. They were calling NOAA to see if we could get the forecast changed because the forecast was so low that we couldn't even go.

Sure enough, 30 or 40 minutes went by, the TAF got modified, the forecast got modified, which meant that, you know, the snow was dissipating to an extent, and it went up to half a mile, which meant we could dispatch to the airport. So, we'd already been delayed at O'Hare. We boarded the aircraft 30, 45 minutes late, boarded late, you know, pushed back from the gate late and all that stuff. And we took off legally.

because the approach minimums were met, the category one minimums, and that's a category one airport. It does not have the category two approaches that Noam was talking about were acceptable for us, half mile, so we could dispatch our way to the airport, took off from O'Hare, started making our way down to, making our way down to Bentonville.

Doug Cameron (05:29)
Geoff, we like to keep track of the kind of communications between the cockpit and the passengers. So, given that sort of to and fro and the changing weather, what were you and the crew and your colleagues sort of telling the passengers both at the gate and when they got on the airport? Because it's not a long way to Bentonville. you know, I'm sure everyone was, I don't know, a lot of dates might have been planned, whatever. So, what were you telling people?

Geoff Murray (05:54)
We were, as we always are, super transparent. We're like, look, here's what's going on at the airport. The visibility at the airport right now is half a mile, but the forecast is calling for quarter mile. Those forecasts often change. And sure enough, it changed to half a mile. We told them when it was a quarter mile forecast, we couldn't go, but we were going to wait. So, we told everybody wait in the gate area. We may be able to board, you know, in 10 minutes, in 20 minutes, in 30 minutes. So, we were very transparent and sure enough, the forecast changed. And we explained to everybody literally the way we're talking right now very clearly on exactly what was going on. The forecast changed, the forecast changed in our favor, so we were dispatched able to dispatch and fly to the airport.

Doug Cameron (06:40)
Got it. Okay.

Geoff Murray (06:41)
Yep. So, and again, I don't want this to be a monologue. We're making our way down to Bentonville. We're getting vector for the approach in Bentonville. The visibility is half a mile. So, we're legal for the approach. The ceiling was 200, 300 feet. We're all legal. We're getting vectors for the approach. And just as we're getting ready to get handed over to tower, they're like, hey, could you guys go around and give us a few minutes to sweep the runway?

Dennis Taylor (06:45)
Okay.

Geoff Murray (07:10)
There's a lot of snow on the runway. So, we break off the approach and Noam and Dennis have done this a million times. We break off the approach.

Dennis Taylor (07:11)
Yes.

Geoff Murray (07:18)
We enter a hold not far from Bentonville, not for very long, literally like 10, 15 minutes at most, enter this hold and then get re-vectored for the approach. we break out actually, it was probably three quarters of a mile when we landed in a 400-foot ceiling, but snow everywhere, compacted snow on the runway. The taxiways were a mess. The ramp was partially plowed in some areas. It was a really messy airport.

Doug Cameron (07:47)
We're going to do an episode later on and go arounds, but you kind of make it sound like no big deal. Dennis, just for passengers, just how big a deal is a go around? It's obviously something you train heavily for, but how routine is it? Because I'm coming down and I can see the weather, I know the weather's not great, I'm a passenger and I feel us going down and then we're going up again. So maybe you can just give us a little bit of as to how routine it is.

Noam Alon (07:47)
Geoff, I imagine...

Dennis Taylor (08:16)
We practice go-rounds frequently, always in the simulator. real world, it's completely safe. Is it normal? I wouldn't say it's normal. It's, you know, again, it's not something you do in the real world very often. Obviously, it's a challenge for the controllers also because

Doug Cameron (08:39)
Yeah.

Dennis Taylor (08:40)
Not only do we have a procedure on our chart to fly, but like in Chicago, if you go around, they're going to give you different instructions when you end up going around because they have so many airplanes in the pattern. So, there is a level of complexity to them. Are they safe? Yes. Are they normal? No. But all the pilots out there flying are trained to do them.

Noam Alon (09:09)
Doug, I'll say, you know, I'll just add that, you know, probably in a typical year we might do two or three that, you know, as a result of flying, but we brief them, at least in my airline, we brief them at least once a day as a crew. So, we walk through the mechanics, okay, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this, stepwise, just so that it's, to Dennis's point, it's not normal, but that it becomes as routine as possible.

Doug Cameron (09:34)
Geoff, had you ever had one before because they were sweeping the runway? I'm glad they were sweeping the runway, but it was the first for you.

Geoff Murray (09:40)
Yes, we were glad they were sweeping the runway. I've had a handful of go-arounds. I would say you probably do a go-around every three months, every six months. And just like Noam said, we brief these things all the time. mean, every single approach, it's like, okay, I'm gonna put the aircraft down in the first third of the runway. If I'm not on the ground by taxiway, whatever, call for a go-around.

The go around mechanics are, you know, flap to go around thrust, positive rate gear up. So it's a whole script. So, it's, I would say it's not, it's certainly not usual, but when we call for it, we're all primed for it. So, everybody knows where hands are going to go, what call outs are going to get made. So, so it's not like you're, you're, you're scrambling in the cockpit. It's like,

Okay, we're going around, I gotta do this, I gotta do this, I gotta do that, I gotta check to make sure he's done that, and then he's gonna tell me to do this. That kind of thing.

Dennis Taylor (10:45)
Hey, Doug.

Noam Alon (10:45)
Geoff, I have quick question. Just as they're telling you this and you're going around, I assume you obviously had an alternate and you had some amount of hold fuel, but you probably, after a flight that long, you're probably pretty tight in terms of overall fuel to be able to hold.

Geoff Murray (11:03)
Yeah. And in Great Point Noam, because the southeast was blanketed with snow that day. I mean, there were missed approaches all over. Memphis, Springfield, Branson, mean, Atlanta had snow that day. And we were dispatched with enough fuel. I want to say our alternate was Dallas, Texas. So, we had enough fuel for.

If I remember, like 45 minutes or holding, another approach, and then make our way down to Dallas and get down to Dallas with 45 minutes of reserve fuel. Yeah, so we were pretty heavily loaded with fuel. Yep.

Noam Alon (11:41)
Yeah, it makes sense, makes sense.

Doug Cameron (11:43)
Dennis,

Dennis Taylor (11:43)
Well,

Doug Cameron (11:43)
You were going to come in.

Dennis Taylor (11:44)
Yeah, the other thing, you know, it was kind of started this problem for Geoff and I saw this more this year, I think than any other year because of these big storm systems, winter storms that went south, but runway conditions. So, you get these arcane reports, you know, almost someone guy goes out there with a little bicycle and sees how slippery the runway is. But they couldn't get the runways taken care of. Dallas got to where they couldn't take any airplanes because they couldn't get the runways cleaned. And that was happening all over the, you know, pretty much from Missouri south. Kansas City was running the problems. They're running out of fluid to treat the runways. And it really was kind of a crazy time with these storms.

Doug Cameron (12:29)
Okay, so where are we at in your flight, Geoff? What are you hearing? What do have to do now?

Geoff Murray (12:30)
Yup. So, we land, the runways covered with snow, the taxiways are covered with snow. mean, they had ground equipment, snowplows all over the field. And we were joking that they were probably trying to get Jimmy Joe from the local tow shop to come over and do some plowing on the ramp and that kind of thing. Because it was bustling with activity. And this is.
This day, again, I don't want to be a monologue, it's like a never-ending story. They hook up the jetway. The jetway cab has been exposed to that snow and ice, but those guys have been out there, you know, trying to, you know, brush the snow off the jetway in the first, I mean, it's not funny. The first two people off the aircraft wipe out on the jetway. I mean, literally, like their feet slide out from underneath them. Boom, they're right on their fannies on the jetway. You know, everybody's paying attention.

Doug Cameron (13:21)
Bye.

Geoff Murray (13:29)
You know, we get all the blankets from the back of the airplane and start throwing blankets down on the jetway so that they can cover the snow. So that's that that delayed our deplaning because we had to take care of the folks that slipped and fell on the jetway.

Doug Cameron (13:37)
Got it. Yeah. When you land in that kind of conditions, and we've kind of touched on this in some other winter episodes, but, but Nolan, what can you do when, you when the runways and taxiways are that messy? Because you probably know that there are potential problems building up literally in the form of ice and debris and whatever else. So what can you kind of do physically on a taxi and to maybe try and either minimize that or just be cognizant that, yeah, there's going to be...
Even when we get there, there's going to be other problems in store.

Noam Alon (14:17)
Slow down. That's your only solution. Slow down. I had a, you depend on the professionalism of all these, you know, the people to clear the runways, because that's really the most critical. And oftentimes the runway is the cleanest of the surfaces, and the taxiways could be really, really challenging. But I had a flight going into O'Hare where we landed on time and then it took us over an hour to taxi because we had to go so slow because of the snow conditions. Runway was fine, taxiways were terrible.

Geoff Murray (14:49)
Yeah.

Doug Cameron (14:51)
This is my two teens who've got the driver's license now. This is their first winter, first Chicago winter, first time driving in the snow. And it seems like the advice is as simple as what I tell them, yeah, half your speed or whatever. mean, Dennis, is that what literally you do? You half your speed or quarter it? mean, how slow can you go, I guess?

Dennis Taylor (15:14)
You can go walking speed. You can go pretty slow because, yeah, once you hit the ice, there's not much you can do to stop. But it's amazing. Like in Chicago, we were coming in there one time. It was kind of low overcast, maybe about a thousand-foot nighttime, snow conditions. And we broke out and all you could see was a sea of red beacons around the whole airport because everything was getting messed up.

Doug Cameron (15:17)
Yeah.

Geoff Murray (15:18)
Yup.

Doug Cameron (15:23)
No.

Dennis Taylor (15:42)
People were stuck at the gates, people get out, so we landed and it wasn't because we had to taxi slow, it's because they had no place to put us. Everything was starting to back up. Then you hear two airplanes nose to nose where someone made a wrong turn and now they're sitting there, now they get tugs out there, they're pushing back and it just, it turns into a very long night.

Geoff Murray (15:44)
Yeah.

Doug Cameron (15:50)
Red light.

Yeah, and all the time it's maybe still snowing and they're trying to clear it around the plains as well. yeah, active, active is.

Dennis Taylor (16:09)
Right.

Yeah, we were there one time I saw it. was a triple seven. They had a tug on it. They're going to push him back. The tug couldn't get enough traction to push him back. So, they got another tug behind that tug to push that tug so that you get the airplane push back. So, I don't know if that was in the procedures, but.

Doug Cameron (16:26)
Thank

Geoff Murray (16:32)
Yeah, doubtful. Yup.

Dennis Taylor (16:34)
Doubtful.

Doug Cameron (16:35)
So Geoff,

what would be a kind of normal turnaround at Bentonville or North West Arkham? So what was your plan A as opposed to what sounds like plan B, C and D coming on?

Geoff Murray (16:46)
So

our scheduled turn time there is typically around 40 minutes. Enough time to get everybody off the airplane, get some more fuel.

You know, get the new passengers on the airplane, brief everything, prepare the airplane for flight. In 40 minutes is usually more than enough time. I mean, if we had to turn an airplane in a real rush, we could do it in 10 or 15 minutes. But, you we were scheduled for 40 minutes. It turned out to be a lot longer than that. You know, we had to take our time getting everybody off the airplane, getting the, you know, the new set of passengers on the airplane with a slippery jetway.

Doug Cameron (17:03)
Yeah.

Geoff Murray (17:25)
Even the rampers took extra time to load the bags, the fueler to get the fuel, and our fuel load was changing because we also needed another alternate. And Dennis and Noma, I'm going to put you guys on the spot. We needed what's known as a takeoff alternate because the weather was still so bad there. The visibility was half a mile, ceiling was 200 feet. You know, it was snowing and we needed this thing called the takeoff alternate. Noam, you want to talk a little bit about that?

Doug Cameron (17:57)
It's a very confusing term, yeah, Noam, you better tell us what that means.

Noam Alon (18:01)
Sure, so think about it like this. If, on a normal day, if you have an engine failure or some other mechanical problem, the assumption is you're not going to your destination. You're going to come back either to the airport you're at or something nearby. You're going to deal with that mechanical problem and then come right back. But if the weather is so bad at the place you're taking off that that's no longer a possibility, then you need an alternate plan, basically. I mean, we're very good about planning in aviation.
You need a plan where you're to go if you can't get back into, in this case, Northwest Arkansas. And so the good news is it's not extra, extra fuel. It's fuel you would have used to go to your destination. But it's just, it's really the alignment of the minds between the dispatcher and the captain and the crew to basically say, okay, if you have some problem, we're not going to the destination. We're going to go here. And the weather's good and or good enough. And especially, you know, when we talk about the scenario here where the whole region is probably struggling with whether that could be a challenge but in any case that's what a takeoff alternative

Geoff Murray (19:02)
Yep. So, so we needed to take off alternate and we got to coordinate with dispatch, agree on that. Okay. We're going to have, and I actually think it was, I can't even remember what airport we used as our takeoff alternate. needed a, you know, a takeoff alternate. can't remember. We were going to Denver, Salt Lake. We needed an alternate there. So was a pretty complex planning process, just getting the whole flight plan together. So we, you know, we miraculously managed to get everybody boarded, get the fuel on board.

Doug Cameron (19:03)
Got it.

Geoff Murray (19:32)
You know, we go outside, we do a preflight, make sure everything is fine with the aircraft. We're ready to push. Hey, you know, and we're coordinating now with operations at Northwest Arkansas. Hey, we're going to push. We're covered with snow. You know, we're going to need to be de-iced. And they're like, yep, we don't de-ice here at the gate. You go out to this cargo ramp, you know, quarter mile away. So we get the motors going. We head on over the cargo ramp.

Doug Cameron (19:54)
Yeah.

Geoff Murray (19:58)
We get the airplane configured for de-icing. We shut the motors down. They start de-icing. And what do you think happens next?

Doug Cameron (20:07)
Well, either something broke or something ran out would be my big guess there. And by the way, Geoff, you've said before you prefer the icing at a pad rather than at the gate because one, doesn't tie up the gate and usually it seems to make the resource management better at the pad. That didn't work out. So did something break or did something run out?

Geoff Murray (20:29)
Something ran out, but you remember from one of the early podcasts we needed, we were covered with snow. We were actually covered with snow, much snow that the front wind screens looked like your car when you go out to a parking lot after it's been sitting overnight in the snow. We couldn't see forward. We had to open up the side windows, get our gloves, know, wipe down the windows that we could see to just taxi over to the de-ice pad.

Doug Cameron (20:44)
Yeah. That's something no passenger should ever see, by the way.

Geoff Murray (20:59)
Yeah, yeah. Well, was funny when we were doing it, there were people in the terminal looking at us. And we're literally like wiping down the, wiping down the windscreen.

Doug Cameron (21:06)
Yeah.

Noam Alon (21:08)
They're taxiing like this with their heads out the side of the window.

Doug Cameron (21:10)
These are professional. The big glove. Great.

Geoff Murray (21:12)
Yes, exactly, But fortunately

Noam Alon (21:15)
with their goggles

Geoff Murray (21:16)
brought, yeah exactly, I got my ski goggles, winter gloves, all that stuff. So, we make our way out to the de-icing pad. We're covered with snow, so we need type one and type four.
De-icing fluid actually type one is the de-icing fluid to get the ice off the airplane then we need the type four anti-icing fluid we get all through the type one process plane is cleaned off that takes 30 minutes or so then they start with the type four they get about three quarters of the way through the airplane and We're now covered, you know the wings all the critical surfaces are covered with this fluid about three quarters of the way through the process And we can see the guy looking out the window and he's spraying and this sprayer runs out of runs out of fluid.

Doug Cameron (22:01)
no.

Geoff Murray (22:06)
So, we can't take off with just the left wing clean and the right wing still got some snow on it. So, so we coordinate, coordinate with ops and they're like, okay, you know, we ran out of fluid, you know, what can we do? And, know, they're, they're, figuring this out. Half hour goes by and they're like, Hey, we have a plan. We're going to send you over to the deicing pad for another airline. We're like, great. Yep.

Doug Cameron (22:10)
No. Okay, it's very collegiate.

Geoff Murray (22:36)
Different part of the airport. Get the motors going, turn on the seatbelts, make sure everybody's up out of the labs, all that stuff, which is in itself a process as I know Dennis and Noam can talk about. Make our way over to the other pad, shut down the motors. We're number two. There's an airplane in front of us.

Doug Cameron (22:53)
Geoff, just before you tell us what happens next, Dennis, you'd mentioned before, Dallas running out of fuel. Two things come to mind. I thought usually it's the airports responsible for de-icing rather than the airline. So, is it a mixture? Is it sometimes the airline has its own operation and sometimes it's the airport? I'm curious.

Dennis Taylor (23:15)
I would say that hubs, Noam, probably could be better to answer this. You know, when we were at the icing at the gates, the airlines took responsibility for that. Now that they've moved these to a pad, I'm not sure if the airlines have all ponied up money for that. To be honest with you, I'm not sure the correct answer on that. I know it used to be United at Chicago, at our gates. They were United people doing the airplanes. Right. So, I'm not sure. Do you know now what they're doing?

Geoff Murray (23:45)
And similarly, American or Delta, that kind of thing. Yep.

Doug Cameron (23:47)
Yeah. Got it.

Noam Alon (23:50)
Yeah, think you got it right. think when it's at the gate, it's the airline and when it's at a pad, it's a function of whether it's a shared pad or a dedicated pad. If it's shared, it's the airport and if it's dedicated, it's probably the airline.

Dennis Taylor (24:05)
Gotcha.

Doug Cameron (24:05)
So, Geoff you were getting a hand from another airline but...

Geoff Murray (24:11)
Exactly. So, we're primed, ready to go. We're like, hey, you know, we're behind this other jet for another airline, ready to go. The operations of the airline calls us and says, hey, hey, you're now number three because we got another departure for the other airline that needs to go. And of course they're going to take preference over the secondary airline. So, you know, this one airplane get de-ice, they take off, another one cuts in, effectively cuts in front of us, you know, they spend 40 or 45 minutes between the type one and the type four getting de-iced. The next thing we know, another one is going to get sequenced in front of us. We're like, you know, we're not sure this is going to end, because there could be another one after that. So we're, you know, basically placing bets on whether, you know, we'll actually get de-iced. And an important DOT rule starts kicking in when you get close to three hours, which you are probably familiar with from your time doing aviation reporting. Do you remember that rule?
Well, I think you'll find passengers are increasingly familiar with it as well. They'll see news stories about the fines that are levied on airlines that do go over, particularly substantially over the three hour rule. So I think it's something that's beginning to become more common knowledge. And I guarantee there would have been one passenger in your cabin who was looking at their watch thinking, yeah.

Geoff Murray (25:45)
Exactly. Exactly.

Dennis Taylor (25:45)
Hey Doug, Doug another on the deicing now that I'm doing it on the corporate side you know when we're flying the airlines you go to the deice pad you get the ice we don't think much about other than getting the ice and how long before we take off when you have a credit card you have to go pay for it and you go and I need to get the ice and it's six seven eight hundred dollars it's kind of a shock on how much this cost when there's the icing or a deicing event required at an airport.

Noam Alon (26:19)
I'll be honest, Dennis, that seems reasonable. thought it would be a lot more. How much is it for Geoff?

Geoff Murray (26:23)
Yeah, when you were saying six or seven, was like waiting for six or seven thousand. Right. But still, that's a lot of money. It's a lot of money.

Noam Alon (26:30)
I guess the function also of how big the aircraft is, how much fluid you're using. Yeah. Wow.

Dennis Taylor (26:32)
True. Correct.

Geoff Murray (26:35)
Right. So, so that DOT rule... Yep. So, the DOT rule, we're getting close. We're getting close to the three hours. It's like two and a half hours. We're all looking at our watches. We're talking to the flight attendants. We're making PAs. The guy was flying with was great. Literally, he set a timer every 15 minutes. He was every 15 minutes, hey, this is the latest. This is what's going on. And he's like, folks, we've all been on the airplane for two and a half hours.

Doug Cameron (26:37)
The clock is ticking on Geoff Murray's aircraft.

Yeah.

Geoff Murray (27:05)
There's, you know, two more aircraft in front of us to get de-iced. We're not sure this is going to work out. So, we're going to head back to the gate. So, so we, we, we, we leave the de-icing pad and you get the motors going again, get everybody seated down, make our way to the gate. Of course, the gate is once again, cover, I mean, the jetways covered with snow and all that stuff, but we're in front of it. This time we de-plane everybody, you know, figure out what's going on.

Doug Cameron (27:32)
Watch your step is what I assume you told everybody. I assume you told everyone to watch their step, deplaning.

Geoff Murray (27:35)
Pardon? Of course. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we're like, you know, stay near the gate area. You know, hopefully we'll figure out what's going on and what do you think happens next?

Doug Cameron (27:50)
I hate to think, go on, put us out of our misery.

Geoff Murray (27:53)
It is snowing so heavy that they can't keep the runway clear anymore for any aircraft, so they shut down the air.

Doug Cameron (28:05)
Okay.

Geoff Murray (28:06)
Yep. So, airports now shut down and by now we've been there for like five and a half, six hours. Like we've been there. We're supposed to be in Palm Springs now. I'm supposed to be enjoying a, you know, a cool drink by a pool somewhere. And instead we're sitting in, you know, in snowy Bentonville, Arkansas. So, the airport shuts down. And again, I don't want it to be a monologue. So, you know, we try to get a hotel. Well, a lot of people are stuck in Bentonville because flights are canceled, people can't depart, that kind of thing. So our crew team can't find us a hotel nearby. So, they're looking around, they finally find a hotel, realizing that another flight canceled and we're getting their rooms. So, and again, we're in Bentonville, not a lot of snow, lot of folks with experience in snow. Hotel Van comes and gets us, takes about an hour for them to get out to the airport.

Doug Cameron (28:45)
Okay.

Geoff Murray (29:04)
And the van driver is clearly not driven a lot in the snow, gets on the interstate and starts going 65 miles an hour. This story gets better in heavy snow and starts passing cars on the right. So as we're passing a car on the right, the van starts to slide out and we end up in a snowman. Nothing, nothing crazy serious. We don't.

Doug Cameron (29:13)
No. Yeah.

Yeah.

Geoff Murray (29:34)
you know, like roll over anything, but the car just kind of slow motion slides into a snowbank. We try to get, you know, everybody outside to push the van out. We can't get the van going. So we have to call for an Uber on the side of a highway in Arkansas to get up. And we're all in uniform. Like we're in uniform. We got our caps and all that stuff waiting for an Uber, which of course takes an hour. We get to the hotel. I could go on for hours and hours.

Doug Cameron (29:50)
Okay. Yeah.

Geoff Murray (30:04)
Next day was just as bad. We spend the night in Bentonville. Folks there were great. Took great care of us. Great hotel, great restaurants and all that. Nice spot. Head out to the airport the next morning. Still tons of snow. Still trouble clearing the airport. We finally leave Bentonville about 25 and a half hours after we were originally scheduled to leave. So it was just one of those examples and you could come up with a list of bullet points.

Dennis Taylor (30:12)
Thank

Noam Alon (30:27)
Wow.

Doug Cameron (30:32)
See ya.

Geoff Murray (30:32)
of why you want to avoid airports that are being delayed due to weather.

Noam Alon (30:39)
And one thing I would add, Doug, one thing I would add.

Doug Cameron (30:39)
And I was going to say particularly those which are used to particularly adverse weather and might not have the resources of a major hub in the north. I mean, sometimes you have to go there, you have to just increase your contingency planning, particularly during periods of adverse weather. Sorry, no, I'm on you go.

Geoff Murray (30:48)
Right.

Noam Alon (31:04)
Now I was going to say if you ever get notice from your airline that your flight is delayed because your crew was delayed getting their necessary rest, this might have been, I don't know Geoff if this happened to you, but if it took them four hours to get to the hotel and they were supposed to leave pretty early, you know the crew needs a little bit of rest when they get to the hotel and sometimes it takes a while.

Geoff Murray (31:22)
Right, need our 10 hours of rest. Yep. Which ended up not being the case in that example, but I've had other ones, Nome, where you get somewhere, and the van can't get to the airport quickly. I mean, it's delayed for whatever reason. I mean, it's just...

Noam Alon (31:25)
Right. Yeah.

Geoff Murray (31:38)
You know, you think of everything that could have gone wrong and it probably did go wrong. Starting with people sliding on the jetway, you know, not being a cat to airport. The theme here is you just want to avoid flying in those kinds of conditions. You want to try to fly in front of it before the weather gets there or after it if you can. And if it's a hub airport, you just want to avoid it. You want to fly over another hub.

Doug Cameron (31:47)
Yeah. It makes a good story, but Dennis, I'm sure you've got your own versions of these where Murphy's Law, everything that could go wrong, did. How do you kind of mentally shake that off? Because you are, you're going to fly again, there will be another flight, boxes will be ticked, the runway will be swept. But how do you kind of shake that off to go on to the next one, so to speak, when you have had everything go wrong?

Dennis Taylor (32:32)
You just take each problem as it comes, solve that problem and you move on. Kind of the day is a checklist. You're presented with a problem, you prioritize it. Where does it fall and what I have to get accomplished and keep moving forward to eventually you're going to get the airplane take off as long as you meet all the conditions that Geoff and Noam had mentioned, takeoff alternates, runway condition.

Doug Cameron (32:35)
Yeah. It's a checklist.

Dennis Taylor (32:57)
You know, are the passengers, can we get the jet way up there? You know, each problem presents itself, you solve the problem, and you move on.

Noam Alon (33:04)
I mean, I would say based on the way Geoff described the story, was a lot of delays, but actually they did everything right. Not just the crew, but the airport. They were all following the steps to make sure that the most important thing that everybody was safe was, in fact, accomplished. And sometimes that means you run out of time and you cancel the flight. But it actually seems like a success in terms of the processes of aviation.

Doug Cameron (33:13)
Yeah.

Geoff Murray (33:30)
Absolutely. Yeah, there was no doubt. I still stay in touch with the captain I was flying with that day. And we both, you know, we were rerunning checklists. I mean, your performance almost increases because you know, you're in, you know, you're in different conditions than, know, a normal everyday, you know, VMC type flying. So it was like no big deal. A feed call for a checklist and we did it twice because it was like, hey, let's just take our time.
make sure we got everything all set. I can't even tell you how many times I went back in the cabin, you know, to look at the wings. You know, I recognize, you know, the folks who were sitting in 11 alpha and that kind of thing. was just, you know, you're just taking your time.

Doug Cameron (34:13)
One thing that didn't maybe go according to plan was running out of a particular kind of de-icing fluid part way through the process. So, a couple of things spring to mind there. One, how common is that? And secondly, where do you go to get more? mean, did someone sign off to the store? Did someone forget to check the tanker? It was just so busy and so much going on that, yeah, maybe they didn't check the level, so to speak.

Geoff Murray (34:29)
Yeah. Yeah, they didn't and they admitted it. had, overnight they had sent another truck in from another airport or maybe one that had more de-icing fluids. When we came out in the morning, because we did need to be de-iced again, you know, they were in front of it, all over it. I think this weather system in particular, while it had been forecast to have some snow associated with it, the volume of snow was much, much higher than anybody had anticipated.

Doug Cameron (35:13)
And like you say, it was a large regional storm, so airports all over were all, I'm sure, all seeking additional fluid just to deal with the sheer volume of demand.

Noam Alon (35:13)
And I'll say...

Geoff Murray (35:18)
Right.

Noam Alon (35:24)
Yeah, Doug,

Geoff Murray (35:24)
Right. Yeah.

Noam Alon (35:25)
I'll tell you, mean, based on what Geoff said with what do you say 14 and a half inches of snow?

Geoff Murray (35:31)
it was Rochester, New York level snow.

Doug Cameron (35:35)
Yeah.

Noam Alon (35:35)
Yeah, that's just a lot of snow. That'd be tough even for a Minneapolis or a Chicago, even though they'd have more equipment. That's, because you're talking probably two inches an hour of snowfall. That's just challenging.

Geoff Murray (35:49)
Yeah, it was remarkable. I mean, the amount of snow, literally, it reminded me of being a kid in Rochester, New York. Tons of snow.

Doug Cameron (35:59)
So, Geoff, did you ever make it to Palm Springs?
Geoff Murray (36:02)
Still haven't made it to Palm Springs. That overnight went away. It's still on my to-do list. Yep, gotta get there.

Dennis Taylor (36:02)
Thank

Doug Cameron (36:04)
I know.

Noam Alon (36:12)
So, Geoff, can I?

Doug Cameron (36:12)
I haven't been

so I can't tell what you've missed or otherwise but I'm sure we'll make it.

Geoff Murray (36:16)
No.

Noam Alon (36:18)
In

the irony of ironies, you know where I'm going tomorrow, Geoff?

Doug Cameron (36:25)
no!

Geoff Murray (36:26)
Are you really?

Noam Alon (36:27)
Yeah.

Geoff Murray (36:30)
my god, and that's your overnight?

Doug Cameron (36:31)
Ugh.

Noam Alon (36:33)
No, I was just there for an hour, so I guess it's not quite the same.

Geoff Murray (36:35)
Okay, okay. I've

Dennis Taylor (36:35)
go.

Geoff Murray (36:36
Never even been there. I mean, I was going through, you know, the approach plates days in advance because there's all that terrain around the airport. I couldn't wait. Didn't happen. Yep, didn't happen.

Noam Alon (36:45)
It's beautiful.

Doug Cameron (36:50)
Gentlemen, anything else we want to add to this? This tale of woe, but which ultimately showed that the system works because of the training, because of the processes, because of the planning. Yes, it can be frustrating, but ultimately everyone got where they had to go safely. No, anything else you want to add here?

Noam Alon (37:08)
No. Exciting day for Geoff. Good job.

Geoff Murray (37:12)
Yeah.

Doug Cameron (37:12)
Yeah, well, you know, we'll all put our heads down and hope that one day he makes it to Palm Springs for another night. So, thanks everyone. You've been watching the KnowEntry podcast brought to you by KnowDelay. Feel free to subscribe at nodelay.com. You can find the button. So, know them along. Dennis Taylor and Geoff Murray. Thanks very much. See you all next time.

Geoff Murray (37:18)
One day. One day.

Dennis Taylor (37:37)
Thank you.

Geoff Murray (37:38)
Thank you.

Noam Alon (37:39)
Great day.