wrp96

They're going to wait 4+ months to get serious about something that is an issue now? The middle of winter weather season sounds like a great time to start this push.

LarkSFO

This is a reported story, not a press release from UA.

So, no idea why people are bringing 'Friday afternoon' in to the conversation.

Regarding your comment: is UA management stating they have inferior operational performance relative to DL?

What else would you read this quote from UA management to mean?

""Delta is running a very good airline, and I want to equal that," Lee said."

(Vice President of Network Operations Tracy Lee)

It took WN a year (sbm please correct me if it took more or less than one year) to correct the disastrous effects of their schedule tightening / rebanking experiment, and the dreadful operational performance caused by the rebanking.

These are the kind of changes (I believe) that do take time and careful planning to execute effectively.

nerdbirdsjc

"United plans in January to alter its schedules to resemble the way rivals circulate planes through their networks, Vice President of Network Operations Tracy Lee told Reuters."

United' single biggest domestic operational failing is that its airplanes flow through its system too much, doing stuff like:

IAH-SFO-LAS-DEN-DCA-ORD-SFO-FLL-EWR-ORD-IAD-IAH-MSY-IAH-DEN

which makes it nearly impossible to quickly recover smoothly from IRROPS, instead of following best practices to build a schedule like:

IAH-SFO-IAH-MSY-IAH-MCO-IAH-EWR-IAH-TPA-IAH-SEA-IAH-BOS-IAH

sbm12

Best for what??

When WN added LGA to its route network several years ago (before the FL merger) it specifically isolated the aircraft making those turns from the rest of the fleet. The rest of the fleet was more free-flowing which can be a far more efficient use of aircraft and better optimizes utilization, capacity and other factors. But there are also challenges where a plane having issues (mx, wx or otherwise) is likely to have a more significant downline impact than if everything just goes back to the same hub every flight. There has to be a balance of both. Neither is perfect.

transportbiz

What does Delta do?

JBord

While the labor issues are a problem, I don't know that I believe they have much impact on this. I think it's more of a convenient excuse. Maybe I'm wrong.

+1
Recognition and/or acknowledgement of a problem is one of the biggest problems at UA. Once they get to this stage, there's at least a good chance of incremental improvements.

It's one of the first times I've seen a quote where they admit their overall strategy is to equal DL. It was just in reference to on-time, but I think we all know it's broader than that. Now I wish they would strive to be a little bit better than DL instead.

mduell

OTP, canx, and minimizing the impact of those.

transportbiz

Admittedly, it's just a theory, but hard to explain so many wide body MX issues otherwise. Also, continuing to have these unresolved post merger labor issues will continue to expose UA flights to these labor related actions.

exwannabe

When I read that (in the original source article) I had to do a quick glance at the URL to verify I had not accidentally wandered over to "The Onion".

On a more serious note, DL reports that their investment in more reliable operations actually is a positive on the bottom line. Keeping a wide body on the tarmac for hours is not cheap. Paying hotels for pax is not cheap. Even barracks in Goose Bay are not free. One would think that UA might see the point.

transportbiz

I agree, a horrible article. I was looking for an accompanying press-release, because this looked so much like a mild rewrite of a press release.

The bit about never having a serious breach, I didn't understand either, wasn't it well reported that United's systems had Chinese hackers inside them for nearly 18 months?

Long term versus short term thinking. UA doesn't like to make investments the will certainly impact the bottom line. They prefer expenses that can be allocated to "one time" charges or "special items".

dmodemd

They could start by stopping scheduling of flights arrival times to be after the boarding times of the next flight. They already have impossible turns built into the schedule in the hope they make it up in flight.

I have found that the long critical path work item at IAH is always baggage loading. The cabin is ready at push back time but we usually go 10 minutes over due to baggage loading. A continuous stream of late arriving bags keeps the process going too long.

PV_Premier

it will be easier for them to point and say "look we did it" in the travel lull of January-April when airframes are less heavily utilized with a more lax overall schedule, than if they started today @:-) weather will be more of an issue in that period for sure, but they've cast plenty of blame on the "weather" this summer as well

i guess let's see. for me to bring any appreciable amount of my business back, i'll want to see 4 sustained quarters of >87% OT, and completion factors consistently above 99%. i'm not going to hold my breath or give up on my OAL status just yet.

EmailKid

Yup.

Can't count the number of times I see yet ANOTHER tug arriving with luggage AFTER the door has been closed for over TEN minutes

Baze

Hmmm, rock and hard place. Have plane late but everyones luggage makes it. Or plane on time but luggage complaints go through the roof.

1kBill

Hey, getting all those RFID badges for the cleaners takes time, ya know!

They are going to "fix" this by slowing down the boarding process. That way, both the late bags and connecting pax will be loaded at the same time.