lhrsfo

I'm not a great fan of EU261 type legislation as it seems unfair, especially when delays are genuinely outside the control of the airline (I'm thinking ATC strikes, Icelandic volcanoes etc., airports making a hash of snow clearance). Also, because airlines know that they will be hit by it anyway, there's no incentive on them to encourage passengers to mitigate their losses when a delay is coming up (something US airlines are good at and European airlines generally won't contemplate).

Having said all that, the great thing about EU261 is that it gives airlines a strong financial incentive to run a better and more reliable operation. Passengers are faced with grossly one-sided contracts when dealing with airlines and it helps redress some of the balance. And, in my view, is far more sensible than the 3-hour tarmac delay rule which does nothing to encourage airlines to get people to their destination nearer the scheduled time - arguably the opposite.

neuron

Regulation, or even a policy for emergencies is not just about consumer choices in the future, its about protecting consumers who are aggrieved.

United was delinquent in communicating with the stranded passengers and was horrible in accommodating them, in addition to their amateur recovery of passengers (flying them to EWR, THEN to LHR, vs directly). Having a policy for emergency situations would have gone a long way, and its not as if this is the first stop in Goose Bay by UA. They also have a Star partner who operates in Goose Bay (Air Canada, oper by Jazz) who they could have tapped into if they had standing agreements. A few options, none obviously necessary in United's eyes.

I wonder if the 5 Wings Goosy Bay CFB can bill United for the accommodations and food. Why should Canadians get stuck with the tab for United's failures.

fly18725

If there's more slack in the fleet, it provides an opportunity to recover from cancellations. There's also more opportunities for line maintenance with domestic operations. It's ultimately a tough balance with no clear answer except that it costs ALOT to maintain hot spares.

Justwondering1

Some poster had asked were these situations handled differently prior to the merger, from my experience, yes. I worked in a station that has since been out sourced, how ever prior to the merger I recall about 5x over the years, that there were instances that a United aircraft had diverted to a city that had no United representatives, and the employees were asked in my station were there any volunteers willing to jump on the next flight to that city and be the eyes and ears for the head office. They would relay information back to head office, or they would call the station and ask other employees to look into the customers reservations and make changes, since they never had access to a airline computer system. So in a nut shell, it was handled differently according to my recollection.

nautical

we were, and i have $150 in data and voice roaming charges to prove it. i called MP line at least 3x throughout the day and they all held the same story. "a replacement is flying from EWR to take you onto LHR direct." i continued calling when the flight status showed that inbound delayed over and again for maintenance. the, about 3pm (15 hours after we arrived), they changed their story to "nevermind, another plane is coming from EWR to take you back to EWR, then to LHR."

in all that time, we could have arranged alternate routes. at minimum, been able to just relax and maybe even explore the town. but no, it was hourly delays with no new information.

again, i don't know a single passenger who was mad that the crew stayed in a hotel and we did not. the media sensationalized that. everyone i talked with was very appreciative of the Goose Bay accommodations, less the part about not having heat nor blankets. even then, once explained, it was understandable.

FlyWorld

Are they refunding the flight or only the specific segment at some contrived rate?

BearX220

If UA (or any airline) kept enough hot spares around to enable fast recovery from the current cancellation / failure rate for longhaul ops, they would be called out for lame fleet utilization. They must have decided that displacing, rerouting, delaying, rebooking, etc. thousands of passengers a day is more efficient. This calculus discounts the customer sat issues and reputational damage that comes with the current strategy, but there you go.

Airlines, cable companies, very large banks, Chinatown bus lines, Ticketmaster... their market position gives them the luxury of exploiting, abusing, and lying to customers.

physioprof

This has been debunked over and over and over: "The plane didn't crash" is not the end of the discussion for assessing airline customer service during IRROPS. UA had many decisions that it made once the plane was safely on the ground, and those decisions are what is being discussed here.

BearX220

Whenever there's some technical problem at UA commingled with typically horrible customer relations, zero service recovery, etc. we can count on some [edited by Moderator per FT rules] to pipe up, in effect: "Just be glad you weren't killed. Would you rather be dead?" This is absurd -- there are outcomes possible beyond getting killed or treated like garbage.

Besides, "Hey, at least you lived through it" would not a very inspiring marketing slogan, though it fits United in its current parlous state.

AAExPlat

The problem as I see it is that it isn't just long haul ops where reliability is well below standard. I have had three mainline cancellations in 4 weeks. In essence, only 1 out of those 4 business trips did I not have a cancellation. And recovery has generally been problematic because of sky high loads system-wide. In week one, I missed one workday as a result of cancellation (timed out crew), in week two, I got home 6 hours late and missed a day of work after a cancellation (mechanical) and was one seat away from not going home at all that day. Week 3 was normal and this week, my entire trip had to be scrapped because no suitable alternatives could be found getting to work (timed out crew). So net/net, I have missed 4 full days on site and one at home from delays in a span of 20 work days. That is 25% of my productivity impaired by UA.

If this keeps up, I will have to consider flying DL or AA even if it means connecting since the UA non-stops apparently keep cancelling.

fastair

That's a question for Nautical. I think upthread someone posted they were getting this flight refunded (not entire ticket,) but if it was part of a connection, I don't know if it's the entire single priced part or a prorated part.

Bonehead

You guys need to check out T-Mobile.

On topic, it sounds as if some of you kept in close touch with UA, and probably communicated what you knew to whomever was still awake (or to the masses in the morning). At least that's what I would have done (and not paid a cent in roaming charges )

FlyWorld

Why are we debating such extremes?

I never read stories like this before 3/12.

I haven't heard about similar stories on other respected airlines.

Isn't there a way to properly manage IRROPS that has a solution between the two extremes of a) Having no customer service and no recovery capability and no customer service and just throwing people into barracks for 20 hours with no communication vs. b) Going bankrupt to finance a huge fleet of fully staffed hot planes to recover stranded passengers every time there's a problem?

Do other airlines have to choose between the two extremes of a and b, or are there other more reasonable strategies for being profitable while also serving customers properly?

I suspect the root cause is that budget cuts to increase margins so that executives can get bigger bonuses have reduced maintenance activities because it seems anecdotally like the current "strategy" is to just let things break and then fix them when they break whereas I know that United Airlines used to be extremely proactive about doing preventative maintenance, figuring out when things would break based on early warnings and/or usage timelines, and then *scheduling* maintenance in advance to *reduce* the number of things that are discovered to be broken just a few minutes before takeoff when the pilot is checking the plane.

I'd love to hear from someone who knows the truth about proactive maintenance practices before and after 3/12 and how they have changed under Smisek control. This, to me, seems to be what's bringing United Continental to new lows. The customer hatred is of far less importance. Let's be honest: United Airlines was never exactly customer friendly either. But, it didn't matter as much, when they did what they promised to do and had high reliability.

I've said this time and time again since 3/12.

Safety is not binary.

The only reason we get to live through the experience of flying through the sky in an aluminum tube is because there are hundreds of thousands of safety systems that make it safe, and they're layered in a network of redundant controls, such that each control protects against a failure of another control.

When you start tampering with that network of controls, when you reduce redundancy, then the odds of something catastrophic will increase. It's simple statistics. The fact that we're seeing so many flights cancelled due to mx appears to me like an indication that raises questions as to whether or not layers of controls have been removed to save money, because if United Continental was doing what United Airlines used to do, in terms of proactive and preventative maintenance practices, then I surmise that many of these issues would have been fixed before the plane was presented to a pilot for take-off.

* Legal Disclaimer to avoid attacks from <will not name to comply with censoring> * - The above statement is a hypothesis, a question, and a concern. It not meant to be represented as a fact and therefore cannot be construed as libel.

Let's look at this event in the context of what is written in these articles:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/united-s...ots-1424900742
http://www.wsj.com/articles/faa-call...ted-1428623965
http://www.thestreet.com/story/13079...-concerns.html
http://www.streetinsider.com/Insider.../10447852.html
http://www.travelpulse.com/news/airl...-airlines.html
http://www.travelpulse.com/news/airl...-airlines.html

Then let's consider the list of mx reported on other routes.

What is going on?

AMLFlyer

This is the type of diversion every airline knows will happen at some point and dreads all the time. YYR is a piece of cake compared to what will happen when a plane gets stuck in a place like SYA, BRW, LYR, YKS, GDX, PKC, YZF, AKN, or CDB. The Canadians are much nicer than the Russians. In some places there are not even barracks or even benches. Just a room. These are the events that airlines plan for but know there is no real good plan when it does happen. It is the price to pay for operating long haul flights over areas with sparse population. Airlines train dispatchers and pilots to try to divert to the better suited cities but this isn't always possible for a laundry list of reasons.

Airlines do not have pilots sitting around all day and night. One interesting fact is that 50-60% of pilots do not live in the city they are based. They live all around the country and world and non rev to their base to work. If reserve crews are available and at the base, they need to be called in. The crews that are in the base don't always live or stay close to the airport. Airport reserves don't sit around all night waiting for planes either. To call a crew in from home with take two to three hours. They could try to steal a crew from another flight but this isn't easy and that crew might call in fatigued. Airlines also do not keep all company pilots certified on every type. Just the type they will be flying. Thus even though the hub has a lot of flying, each fleet in the hub represents a smaller sub group.

Planes also do not sit around. The plane sitting around at night are either at an outstation or undergoing maintenance checks. Very few if any planes sit around at hubs overnight just waiting for the morning flights. Most are there for routine required maintenance. Airlines route aircraft so these checks can get done while allowing the other planes to operate the schedule. Thus for an airline to have more spares you would need even more extra planes that aren't being used. The planes that are being rotated for maintenance are your spares.

During the normal operating hours, it is easier to grab a plane meant for another flight. Once those planes have left though, you have to wait for your planes going through maintenance to be ready before you have a plane ready to be used.

Communication could definitely be better. However, United isn't the only airline in the situation. Delta, American both also dread these types of diversions and the communication from both would be similar. Airlines don't base customer service people in each ETOPS diversion airport though there should have been a contract airline point of contact person there to assist in this sort of thing.

Sadly, this is the ugly face of international travel. Planes are so reliable diversions are uncommon and even more so the need to have to divert to a place like YYR instead of making it to a more suitable landing point where the airline has better customer and maintenance handling services is very unusual and rare. Most diversions to these places are medical emergencies or pre-planned fuel stops that involve a different set of logistics. The fear every airline has is one day getting stuck there.

United gets the blame here but sadly other airlines will have this happen to them too given the expense and logistics of operating flights over these areas.

There are definitely lessons to be learned from this and Im sure UAL will do internal reviews to see what went right and what went wrong and how they can learn from it. Every airline would do the same.

Next time you fly to China or Japan, just think what would happen if you lost an engine or had some other dire emergency. The airports you could divert to are not the most pleasant of places. Its the inherent risk of intercontinental travel.

BearX220

I don't think we're debating extremes, we're just analyzing the sad state the airline has collapsed to.


Absolutely, and other airlines manage it, but it's not part of the UA profit gameplan.

In a word, overambition. The fleet is insufficient to fly the timetable and can't keep up. Turn times are too short, downtime is too short, and non-essential problems are kicked down the lane until they balloon into serious issues at some outstation or (perhaps in the Goose Bay case) inflight, and it keeps the UA system in perpetual crisis. The schedule unravels every day.

This is a management problem, full stop. Their timetable reflects a fantasy view of fleet utilization and availability given the age of some of these planes, real-world hub congestion and delays, etc. But this is what happens when people in high offices think they're smarter than everyone else.

(I write corporate communications for a living. I can, theoretically, deliver 15,000 words a day. They won't be deathless prose, but they'll be OK, at least at first. In the real world, however, if I commit to that output day after day, my imagination will wither, my tolerance for bad grammar will rise, my devices will wear out faster, I will stop proofreading and just hit send, and quality will decline; eventually I will have a nervous breakdown and alienate my clients. That's exactly what is happening to United now: a systemic, real-time nervous breakdown. And it is at the behest of Team Smisek.)

I think it is fair to say that flight crews have become an essential defender of safety values, confronted as they are with suboptimal aircraft at the gate that have overdue service needs. Everyone here would no doubt choose safety over reliability every time, but having to make that choice is a catastrophic aspect of the United system. Things do not have to be this way.

It is not that planes are being deliberately dispatched in unsafe order. It is that trying to fix them on the run between flights when they are 100% scheduled is a recipe for meltdown.