Why would a plane only be able to be moved by its pilot?

Upvote:6

Regardless of whether someone can move the aircraft, there's no way you're delayed 8 hours because one gate is occupied. If that were the only reason, they would have sent your plane to another gate and told you to board there. United has multiple gates at LAX.

I suspect that the explanation was poor or misunderstood and that the delay is because you were waiting for the pilot/flight crew of your flight to arrive. Delays because crew aren't available happen from time to time.

Upvote:8

Put simply, no, that does not make sense - or at least, not as the full story.

LAX is a major airport for United Airlines - they have around 20 gates available to them (all dedicated to United/United Express), and upwards of several dozen flight movements per hour. They also have a strong "ground" presence (ground staff, tugs, etc) as a result.

If they needed that gate for your flight, or any other flight, they would have been able to tow the plane somewhere else. Alternatively, they would have moved your flight to a different gate that either wasn't occupied, or which was due to be cleared quicker than you've described.

That said, that doesn't mean that what you were told was wrong - likely it just wasn't the full story. It's very possible that the crew that was due to fly that aircraft were in Arizona and were flying into LAX. However that, in itself, wasn't the reason you would have been delayed.

The fact that your gate was changed shortly before departure is an indication that they were shuffling planes between flights. This is common when there is disruptions - most likely they choose to use the plane that you were due to fly on for another flight, and assigned your flight a new gate.

The plane you were then assigned to was either delayed, or potentially not even due to arrive until after your scheduled departure, which is why you had to wait. At some stage before your aircraft arrived, they moved the plane that was parked at the gate.

There is no way that a four plus hour delay (and all of the flow-on delays that would cause) would be triggered just because they had nobody to move the plane - at least not for United at LAX.

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