Are you excited for your upcoming vacation? We all become excited when we have some upcoming vacation plans. And when the day arrives finally, you rush to the airport before many hours due to over excitement to get through the security checking quickly. But what happens when the screen shows “Flight Delayed”? Well! That’s probably one of the worst feelings ever as you need to wait for hours to get the next flight and everything will eventually delay. After all, nobody in the world likes to get late while off for a vacation after the long hectic routine for a year or month. Those who often travel by air must have faced this delaying problem earlier as well.
However, there are certain events that are the most important reasons behind the flight delay. When flight cancellations and delays occur at airports, they are usually due to one of these following reasons. So from now onward, before you board a flight, you should check out for these reasons for the flight delays.
Contents
Top Reasons for Flight Delays:
Weather:
Weather is a big issue when you are travelling in plane. Even though we board in a gorgeously amazing weather, there is always a chance of bad weather or certain fog. Whether its snow or ice, thunder or fog, weather can affect aircraft and airports alike!
However, with the advancement in technology, there is always a weather update beforehand only, but still, it may take time for the aircraft to de-ice or land safely and properly as a result delays may occur.
One of the good news is that if there occurs any kind of extreme delays or a huge number of cancellations occur, in that case, most airlines will typically offer refunds to their customers.
Fuelling:
Do you know how long does it take to refuel an airplane? Well! It takes upto 2 hours depending upon the plane size especially for the long haul or the trans-oceanic flights. So possibly, if you see that the flight is making a delay, then probably the reason is due to untimely refueling of the aircraft.
This kind of issue is very common and you will surely not be able to acknowledge the fact before you reach the airport itself. In that case, you should ensure about knowing the proper rights for the passengers provided by the flight.
Maintenance Issues:
Before a flight takes off, a scheduled maintenance check is done on the entire flight as well as the system. Every time, it is strictly checked if the flight is maintained properly or not. However, if there is a maintenance issue found by the inspectors, the flight is not supposed to embark until the issue has been completely resolved. Sometimes, these issues are worked on even if the passengers have boarded the plane.
This means that you might experience these delays entirely on the tarmac. If the flight needs to be taken back to the garage, the flight services change the planes but it is a far longer procedure. No flight n the world is taken off before the maintenance check is completed and the engineer gives a green signal to take off.
Computer Glitches:
The air traffic control all around the globe is a very busy network. Even a small hiccup from the computer can cause many flight cancellations at the same time. Infact, No matter where you are travelling, there are many big services which needs to go through this every day. The whole network is very congested and the ATC needs to be accurate while a flight is taking off and while it is coming down. Thus, it is very important that the system should be working properly. Even if the flight is affected by the computer issue you should always be compensated. If the flight is cancelled, each and every passenger might get full refund of their tickets.
Congestion in Air Traffic:
There are over than 2 lakh flights running all throughout the globe at the same time. Infact, in a single zone, flights run through the air in a single route at an interval of 5 minutes. Thus, a lot depends on the air traffic and also the altitude of the flights. The ATC towers are very well equipped and they try to handle such situations easily. But, due to a holiday or any other event in a particular zone, the air traffic might be more congested which results in delays of flights. If you know that you are travelling on a busy day, you can check the status several times leading to the departure of the airport.
Baggage Loading:
Most of the flight services have only one baggage check-in queue. This means that if there are more than 4 flights to be scheduled by the single service in a short span of time, a lot of people together would be queued up at the same time. This will take more time to finish up the process of sorting bags and then loading them on the designated flight. These delays are aggravating, but they are meant to assure that everyone’s luggages are making to the destination with them. It is very commonly aid that even before the last minute of takeoff; the baggage is loaded on the plane.
Late Arriving Aircraft:
Another reason for the flight delays is due to the late arrival of the aircrafts. Due to heavy rotation, the flight may land up late or may take time to complete the previous trip as well. For example, when a flight is boarded from Chicago to LA, in between that trip, the flight will be refueled which may cause a delay in the arrival time at the other airport. The passengers should however be compensated due to the delays or switched to new flights may happen.
National Aviation System:
The National Aviation System is a broad term which usually encompasses different factors such as air traffic, delays, schedules, altitude and also the big computing network. There might be many technical delays in everything which can cause the flight to get delayed by a margin. If your flight is affected due to the general airport conditions, the flight can easily get delayed by a margin. This might not only be a factor to look for, but the National Aviation System might be a reason why the flights can get delayed by a stipulated amount of time.
Security:
While standing in a long queue for the security checking, almost all the travelers have only one single thought in their mind- whether this will cause them a flight miss? There can be huge line for the security checking especially during some special occasions or holidays. While the crew members makes some passenger move to the shorter ones when their flight is about to take off, sometimes the airport becomes so much overwhelmed.
Recommended for you:
Top 10 Things To Carry With You on a Flight
Passengers:
Well! To be honest, it is not about the flight crew members only. Yes! There are several news and stories in media regarding the passengers causing hundreds of problems while being on an airplane. Even after several calls from intercom for boarding, there are few passengers who always make it late and never on time.
Another thing that may happen is that the passenger forgets to cancel the ticket or don’t inform the craft of the delay and in that case, there may occur a delay. If a passenger checks in, but doesn’t make the flight, this can cause a plane delay as the airport staff then needs to find and remove that person’s luggage from the aircraft.
What can you do if your Flight gets delayed?
Is it really possible to do anything to prevent the flight from being late or to make it arrive on time? Well! Not really! You have no option left with you other than arriving beforehand in the airport to check yourself and get through the security. It is normally not the fault of the airline staff, in case, they don’t turn up late for work as that will be definitely their fault. The only thing you can do is to check down the previous records of the flight you have chosen as that can give you a fair idea about the reputation as well.
Final Words:
There are several kinds of people all around the globe and all aren’t same at all. However, there are some passengers who get anxious about the flight delays and that is completely justified. A flight delay or cancellation will cause huge negative impact to all those individuals who are travelling to reach family and friends or to attend any kind of important business meetings every single day. However, certain flights do offer other good options to make things go smoothly. All you need to do is to talk to the customer care executive for further details. But before that read this article to know the reasons behind the flight delays which may help you for future precaution.
