Congress and the airline industry are struggling to find ways in which to accommodate passengers who get stuck for hours on aircraft with delayed take off times. Moving passengers back to the terminal to await a new departure time appears to be a major stumbling block for the airlines for a number of reasons. Pilots do not wish to lose their place in the take off queue which they surely will if the aircraft returns to the terminal. Even if aircraft do return to the terminal and passengers are deplaned the there is a built in additional delay to herd the passengers back on to the aircraft when required and a time slot in the departure queue may be missed. At smaller airports finding an area in the terminal where TSA security agents are available to monitor passengers may not be available at late hours and prevent passengers from deplaning. There is a much simpler solution than moving passengers back to the airport terminal if there are waits of several hours on the tarmac and that is to bring mobile lounges to the aircraft on the tarmac and extend the floor space and facilities of the plane.
Mobile lounges have been around since the 60's before we had moving walkways and driverless trains. In fact Dulles Airport Washington DC still has a dozen of more of these strange vehicles in service ferrying passengers from the main concourse to island terminals. Two companies made these vehicles, Chrysler Corporation and Acessair Systems, a Canadian company. According to their web site Accessair still makes the Plane Mate which is a vehicle 54ft long by 16 feet wide by 17.5 feet high that can accommodate about 70 persons seated and 30 standing. These vehicles which can trundle along at about 25mph are constructed with the weather resistant aircraft connecting ramps that butt against the doorway of an aircraft to provide a seamless connection between the two vehicles.
So imagine a mobile lounge retrofitted with fewer seats and a more open plan standing area, a snack bar, several toilets, satellite TV and Wi-Fi pulling up to an aircraft in a queue where it's been stuck for hours. Once the doors of the aircraft and mobile lounge are opened maybe 50 or so passengers can leave the aircraft at a time to visit this mobile comfort zone. The additional toilets in the lounge would relieve pressure on those in the aircraft which are typically the first facility to fail in long delayed take offs and the one to cause passengers most distress. The additional 800 square feet of space in the lounge would allow passengers to walk around and stretch their legs, purchase food and drink and even watch TV, check emails and more. Even if the lounge accommodated only half the passengers of the aircraft at a time it would relieve congestion in the plane itself and allow those people to also move around.
The mobile lounge would effectively act as a secure extension to the aircraft and therefore passengers could leave their possessions at their seats whilst using the lounge and this would enable the aircrew to get passengers back in their seats within a few minutes and allow the lounge to move away as soon as the aircraft was ready to move on again.
The government might consider using stimulus funds to provide loans to companies willing to manufacture and lease the mobile lounges to local operators located at airports across the country. Just the sort of operation that local taxi companies might consider as good fit with their existing business and train some of their drivers to be on call to provide mobile lounge service at the local airport whenever flights are delayed. If the air mobile comfort zone was established at airports nationwide it is hard to see why airlines would not wish to take advantage of the service and possibly agree to pay an annual fee for the service to be made available on demand. A very small price to pay to keep the passengers happy.
Vince Waterson is VP of business at a telecommunications company in California. He can be contacted at email vwaterson@aol.com
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