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Originally Posted by innerSpaceman
When I heard this story yesterday, I was wondering what kind of airport doesn't have a place on the airplane side of security barriers inside the terminal?
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With large airports the problem frequently isn't with having a secure place inside the terminal for them but getting a gate to which the airplane can return and then sit without just passing the problem on to another airplane. Big airports are good at keeping gates at or near capacity during the day.
Plus, in situations where boarding passes are consumed it is difficult to reboard the plane with proper accounting and security.
None of these things are really justifications, just contribute to my understanding how it comes to happen.
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Was this like the last airport in the U.S. where you board from a rolling staircase on the tarmac? Even in those, you have to exit to the tarmac from somewhere. WTF?
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If it is a small airport then the security check may very well be at the door to the tarmac meaning that to reboard everybody has to go through it again. If you're in a situation where you're being told every 15 minutes that you'll be cleared to go in just 10 more minutes it becomes psychologically difficult (tests show this is a cost/benefit calculation that people find it very difficult to make rationally) to decide to accept the 90 minute minimum delay in the face of the 15 minute promised delay. And after an hour it gets hard, not easier since you start thinking "well, it's already been an hour so we must be getting close right?" A bit of a gambler's fallacy; that is, the belief that previous outcomes inordinately influence future outcomes such as the idea that since the last five coin tosses were heads (or the last ten 10-minute promises were false) the odds are increased that the next coin toss will be heads (the next 10-minute promise will be true).
Like I said, not justifications for it happening. In fact, the easily understood causes and statistical predictability should make it easy to come up with general policies that will minimize the pain.
Fortunately I've never really had a bad tarmac experience. 20 minutes or so once. But it was very hot out (Orlando or Houston, I think) and even in that time without air it was getting uncomfortably warm.