Flyer23

So I am heading to PHL today with soon-to-be Mr. Flyer23. Flight 1302, scheduled to depart at 5:07 pm.

At around noon, I saw on XM Radio that PHL was experiencing 2+ hour delays. So I checked AA.com, but our flight was still running on time, so I figured either XM Radio was wrong or my flight was not affected. We got to the airport and boarded on time. Nothing out of the ordinary at all.

Once we finished boarding, the pilot came on to say: "Well, the good news is that we're all ready to go. The bad news is that PHL air traffic control is currently imposing a 3 hour delay on all flights due to weather. Unfortunately, everything is running smoothly here at DFW, and so they need our gate. So in about half an hour here, we are going to push back and then wait somewhere on the tarmac at DFW until we get clearance to leave."

Radar for Philadelphia looks totally quiet. There is some weather around Baltimore, but it looks like it's going to miss Philly. The flight attendant explained that the problems are actually somewhere in the NYC area, but those problems are clogging the airspace over Philly.

Right around our original departure time, AA.com got updated to put our estimated departure time at 5:45 pm. Now it is showing 7 pm.

OK, now I understand that AA cannot control the weather and cannot control air traffic control, and for a delay up to 1 hour, I would not mind. But three hours? I find it ridiculous that they could not push back our boarding time by at least 30-45 minutes. Does AA think I have nothing better to do on the day before Thanksgiving than sit around on an S80?

Also, I'm now strongly suspecting that XM Radio was right and there have been 2 hr+ delays in Philly all afternoon. In fact, I've been to PHL's web site, and it looks like just about every flight into PHL all afternoon has been delayed by at least 90 minutes, most flights by 2 hours or more. If that is the case, could AA not have shuffled around our gate and even potentially our aircraft (like they don't have any spare S80s sitting around DFW) to push the departure time back to something realistic and spare us the inconvenience of hanging out at the airport for hours?

Fortunately, we are in first class with a great flight crew and plenty of alcohol, so we are not doing too bad so far. But still, I wish AA had thought about its passengers just a little bit more.

justageek

According to http://www.fly.faa.gov/,

jsm

It looks like most people are going to be late today. Be thankfull that you are going to get there and that you are not going to be stuck in PHL.

Today is one of the busiest for every airline, so they are not going to have free gates laying around.

Happy Thanksgiving.

neilk

It sounds like you are on the plane, how are you posting? Laptop with cellphone modem? Treo?

Have a good flight.

Flyer23

Apparently, they did... shortly after I posted, the pilot said that we would be allowed to stay at the gate. (If anyone has free gates lying around, it would be AA at DFW... )

I'm just really upset that AA doesn't keep us posted on these things. If flights have been delayed all day, what are the chances that the 5:07 flight will leave on time? Why not tell your 5:07 passengers to wait a few hours before showing up at the airport? They'd save money on alcohol served in F

It's not the first time I've seen AA fail to inform passengers of obvious delays. One time, I was flying YYZ-LAX on the last flight of the evening. The flight was scheduled to leave at around 7 pm, but got pushed back to about 7:45. No problem so far. At 7:30 (after I had rushed to get back to the gate after dinner), they came on to announce that the FAs were stuck in ORD, so the flight would be pushed back to about 9:30. Again, not AA's fault that the FAs were stuck in ORD (the delay was due to weather in ORD, surprise), but think about it. If it's 7 pm and your FAs still have not left ORD (~400 miles from YYZ), they are not going to get to YYZ in time for a 7:45 flight. Why not tell your passengers that right away, instead of waiting half an hour? If I had known, I would have tried to route to LAX through ORD, which would have gotten me to LAX earlier than waiting in YYZ (even with the ORD weather delays). As it was, I sprinted next door to where the last flight was leaving for ORD, just in time to see it push back.

Back to today: I don't care that my flight was delayed. As jsm pointed out, I am fortunately terminating in PHL, and I have nowhere to be tonight. But I really could have used a couple of extra hours at home today getting ready to leave, rather than wasting those hours sitting on a plane that AA knew would be significantly delayed.

It's 6:45 pm, and AA.com is still showing us as leaving at 7 pm... fingers crossed

Flyer23

Laptop with cellphone modem (Sprint PCS). For $15 extra a month, I get unlimited high speed Internet. Has saved my life on many occasions, and is saving my sanity right now

HKG_Flyer1

AA's consistent failure to provide reasonable updates to flight status is a pet peeve of mine, as well. I started a thread awhile back about racing to check in for a flight in Omaha that AA was showing as an on time departure. I was highly dubious, since there was only one other AA flight coming in to Omaha around that time, and it was showing up as being delayed well over an hour. Nevertheless, after calling AA directly and being told directly that the flight was leaving on time, I left a meeting that was still in progress and proceeded over to the airport. Naturally, once I got there, I was told that the flight was significantly delayed (even though AA.com was still showing an on time departure).

An AA employee who responded to my posting said that they have some problem with the system which tracks aircraft not being fully linked to the system which shows estimated flight departures. The employee went on to tell me that they (i.e. ground crews, etc.) don't even get timely info on such irregular operations.

You gotta wonder what that costs AA in terms of wasted manpower due to inefficient scheduling, etc. (to say nothing of the opportunity costs associated with pax time).

Flyer23

We left the gate at 7 pm (2 hrs behind schedule), but are now waiting on the tarmac at DFW. Pilot says it will be 1 hr here, which would mean a total of 3 hrs of delay... exactly what justageek posted two hours ago. Now, why couldn't AA simply pass that information along to their customers?

Interestingly, AA.com shows our "departure" time as 7:03 pm, which is the time we left the gate, not the time we left DFW. The arrival time is 10:50, which is about right if we actually left DFW at 7:03 pm -- realistically, we'll probably get in closer to midnight. I'm glad I'm not trying to meet someone on this flight in PHL -- I might say, "Hey, AA.com says they've left DFW, so their estimated arrival time of 10:50 pm is probably pretty accurate." If I went out to dinner or something and planned to go straight to the airport from there, I'd show up 1 hour early. Thanks AA, you've now wasted your passengers' time and the time of their friends/family meeting them at the airport.

BLI-Flyer

Well, you're on the plane, sitting in first, free drinks, and have internet access to boot. Things could be worse! Did you bring any DVDs with you? Just pretend it's a flight to Paris and everything will be fine.

Flyer23

If AA credits me with EQMs like I went to Paris, then everything will be fine

MJonTravel

Keep in mind that my words are not meant to defend AA in this instance even if they sound like it. One day, I will write a book about my adventures working for the world's largest airline. And in that book, will be one whole chapter on why information doesn't flow. The reason it doesn't flow is that far too often, there is no information....or at least it isn't getting into the hands of those whom are in the best position to share it with you, the Customer.

I have boarded flights knowing that when it left the gate, it would sit for an hour or two down at the end of the runway. I can assure you that every passenger knew that would be the case, because if I knew, I told them or made sure the agents told them. On more than a few occasions, the flight was boarded and ready to go before we had any idea of a ground delay. I'd say at least 50% of the time, the ground staff or flight crew are not aware of a delay until the cockpit crew calls clearance delivery just before departure to get their atc clearance.

Regarding posting of updated departure times, HKG_Flyer1 is correct. There is a disconnect between the RES (Reservations) side of Sabre which is where your average agent on the phone is going to look for flight info, or FLIFO, and the DECS side of Sabre which is where the operation (flight dispatch, flight planning, etc., etc.) of the airline is actually handled. It's goofy as h*ll if you ask me, but AA never did. Airport agents use RES for their job of ticketing and check in, but can certainly access DECS because they play a role in flight dispatch. An agent on the phone typically does not have DECS access unless things have changed. And DECS is where the "true" picture of the airline's operation at any given time can be seen. IIRC, even though Sabre "knows" that a flight is late inbound, and displays that to the world, the departure time of the flight that the late aircraft is operating after it turns around won't update without human intervention. And at many airports, there's yet another "link" to a proprietary info display system that may or may not work. Some folks on here with more recent experience will chime in if I'm wrong about any of this stuff.

LarryJ

There are a couple of problems on a day like today.

1. An airline is staffed to handle an average day. They can't afford to staff for the exceptional day and their ability to call in additional help is limited.

2. The information on delays changes frequently. Moving a departure back in two or three hour jumps leaves you in a position where you can't easily get going earlier if the delays is shortened.

3. When a flight is waiting for equipment or crews they will frequently reshuffle equipment and crews to cover but there are a lot of implications to such changes and it takes time to run through different scenarios to see what the effect will be. This is especially true at a hub when equipment or crewmembers are unavailable at departure time. They will often make multiple swaps of crews or aircraft to get as many passengers as possible to their destinations with as little delay as possible. When you're only looking at what is happening to a single flight if often doesn't make sense because you don't see the bigger picture that they are working on at System Operation Control in Dallas. (SOC is quite a sight to see. It make Mission Control look like a small operation)

When there is weather like we had today the system will always be a big mess.

MJonTravel

^

It's my second favorite place at AA. The 777 simulator being the 1st.

AAJetMan

Are you suggesting that AA adds flights on the day before Thanksgiving? They may well, just wasn't aware of this if they do.

pdx1M

If you look at FAA delay programs (which is what you were experiencing) you will find that they project a wheels up time for a flight but that the time can and does move in either direction. In fact, on days like today they are pretty unpredictable in movement. I was watching a UA flight our of ORD today that at one point had a projected 4 hour delay but got out with only about 2. I have watched projected 90 minute delays from PDX to SFO go to leave now (and they meant *now*) and you can be on time. The trouble with this is that it requires the plane be loaded and ready to go if the FAA finds slots or otherwise alters the program. So telling passengers that they will be delayed 2 hours so come late doesn't work. In fact, generally flights get their sequencing from when they file to go which implies that they are indeed ready to go. AA does lots wrong - but honestly this particular type of issue really is a function of attempts to globally optimize traffic flow on a bad weather day at the strategic planning center at the FAA.