Follow Up on the American Airlines Flight to the Wrong Airport. An American Airlines flight from Philadelphia to Naples was forced to land at the Rome International Airport since it was too big for the regional Naples Airport. Is approximately 145 miles from Rome to Naples. American Airlines did not realize its mistake until the plane was 70 miles from Naples. After they diverted to Rome. What do you think happened to the 231 passengers?
American Airlines sent these passengers by bus to Naples. This is a 2.5-to-3-hour drive. The plane landed roughly 15 to 30 minutes late. To bus 231 people, you need at least 6 buses (typically, they carry 45 passengers). I am sure that American Airlines did not have the buses standing by once the plane landed. How could they if they were only alerted of the problem roughly 30 minutes before the flight landed. With corporate America figuring out how to handle this issue, I am sure it took a few hours to determine what to do and then line up the buses and allocate the passengers on each bus.
The net impact, I believe, is that the passengers were probably delayed 5 to 6 hours as a result of this mistake. I calculated this by figuring it takes 3 hours to drive from Rome to Naples. Add in two hours at a minimum to figure out what to do and then hire the requisite number of buses and have them pickup the passengers.
Basically, a whole day of vacation was ruined by the mistake by American Airlines. I hope that none of these passengers missed any cruise ship departure. Because once a cruise ship departs, you have to wait to board it until the next stop.
What a pain for the travelers!!!