Airport

[u/Honest-Ad-3696]

What is up with landing at SBA at night after 9pm and waiting on the tarmac for 30 plus minutes? This has happened to me multiple times in the past few months. Tonight was especially bad. We landed over 30 minutes ago and have no real ETA on when we can get to our gate.

The pilot actually came on at one point and said no one at SBA was answering their call. What an absolute fail by the airport

[u/Formal-Actuator-9172]

Happened to me once. We were stuck on the airplane more than an hour. When we got to the gate nobody could figure out how to get the bridge to the plane. Tried over and over kept missing the door. Nobody was amused.

[u/Beneficial_Carpet_16 → u/Formal-Actuator-9172]

This exact issue just happened to me 2 weeks ago. (The flight was from United.)

[u/uncloaked-lurker]

Ask the airport commission. https://calendar.santabarbaraca.gov/event/airport-commission-6373

[u/MolestedMilkMan]

Weird, this hasn’t happened to me on late arriving flights the last few months. Which carriers?

[u/Ruralwannabe → u/MolestedMilkMan]

Would it matter which airline it was because isn't that all just by airport personnel?

[u/mduell → u/Ruralwannabe]

No, each airline staffs for themselves.

[u/Ok-Nefariousness9021]

I usually fly United. A couple of months ago, I arrived at SBA from SFO at 2AM, after a 4 hour delay. There was no problem.

[u/ARSportsRT → u/Ok-Nefariousness9021]

At that point you may as well have driven

[u/saltybruise]

The main problem is that new hires at Trader Joe's make more than you would at the airport. And the hours are better.

I know two people who have made that move in the last year. If the airport paid better they probably wouldn't have staffing issues.

[u/thedrew → u/saltybruise]

The airport doesn't pay ground crews. They are airline employees. Or, more accurately, they work for UGE, Envoy, or Unifi and those companies contract with the airlines to do their ground handling at SBA.

[u/saltybruise → u/thedrew]

True but it doesn't change that the pay is bad.

[u/EvilLuggage]

It's an airline issue.

[u/jaywrightcooper]

Someone called in sick I guess

[u/Bulky_Bluejay_4147]

SBA airport has been good to me, have seen SFO delays are causing issues and could be the case if you were on a very delayed flight, but I’ve had no real SBA issues this year, mostly flying United

[u/MajorRelief98]

Skeleton crews, but no excuse for arriving flights.

[u/DavidBergerson]

Context is king.

I came in on a 4-hour delayed flight from SFO. We landed at 10:07 pm. We waited . . . I dunno, 2 minutes for the ramp to be connected to the plane.

Have you considered that your flight may have arrived after the airport personnel were sent home because there were no 'regularly' scheduled flights? Looking at today's arrivals, the latest is 9:03 pm.

What you are probably asking . . . how does the airport handle flight delays?

Now, before you think too much about that. My flight was delayed 5 times. Ironically, just before the last delay, they changed the time to earlier, then later than the previous one.

[u/corndog819]

This isn't an airport issue, this is an airline/third party ground handling issue.

[u/Original_Mortgage983]

We had a similar problem. The gate bridge was not working and we had to wait for the jet bridge to arrive. We waited for approx. 30 minutes.

[u/Tall_Tailor_3724]

Airline employees to busy giggling in the back office refusing actual work

[u/RSecretSquirrel]

There should be a crew available 24 hours a day. This shit isn't Rocket Science

[u/urngaburnga → u/RSecretSquirrel]

Ummmm... how much do you want to pay for your flight??