Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Communication Breakdown; Workload; Training / Qualification; Time Pressure; Physiological - Other; Confusion
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Vehicle
General Flight Cancelled / Delayed; General Work Refused
Company Policy; Human Factors; Weather
We arrived at ten minutes past the hour (21 minutes early). Rampers met the aircraft at the gate and marshalled us in. Rampers then opened the bag door (I assume; so they'd trigger an on time arrival) and then left to go service other aircraft; but didn't actually offload any bags. I called operations on the radio to ask if they had a jetway driver coming and they advised that four aircraft had all arrived at the same time and they were doing the best they could. We were sitting at the gate with no jetbridge; engines shut down; APU running; and main cabin door closed. About five minutes later we noticed the fuel panel opened. The Captain called ops to remind them that we are not allowed to fuel with the cabin door closed. Several minutes went by and the fueler began fueling. The Captain asked a flight attendant to open the main cabin door and block the aisle (since the jetbridge was still not attached.) The Captain called ops again and told them to immediately stop the fueling; the person on ops said that no one was around so she went on the ramp herself to tell the fueler to stop. Fueling stopped after about 500 pounds had been pumped. About twenty minutes after we blocked a jetway driver finally arrived and we deplaned at deplaned the passengers.We were unable to communicate with the fueler. The station seemed understaffed.We need to ensure ground crews/fuelers know proper fueling procedures.
When the EMB-145 flight blocked in early there were insufficient ground personal do deplane the passenger and they remained on board. The flight crew had to remind operations personal that their attempt to fuel the airplane was inappropriate with the doors closed and no egress available in the event of an emergency.