Originally Posted by
KansasMike
Did you bother to read my posting?
If they had issued waivers in any of those situations, their passengers (along with airport and res. people) could have gone a long way to proactively mitigate the problems.
For example, I mentioned on my blog that, if you were traveling on a full-fare ticket, go the day before.
In all four of the major July thunderstorm situations in the Northeast, the thunderstorms were in the afternoon. By putting every pax that was available to take an earlier flight (either day before or the morning of) into any open seats that is fewer pax inconveniences and more open seats (flexibility) when the thunderstorms actually move in.
You may think the "rolling eyes" icon is cute but you are far behind the times: Industries all over the U.S. are successfully using these more accurate forecasts to save money and operate more safely. Airlines are way behind in this regard.
Bolding mine - This post is not meant to defend UA on its on time record, but what open seats do you suggest they go into? Or am I an anomoly where flights I am on these days are pretty much packed 100% or with only a handful, at most, of open seats. Practically all year, sometimes a couple of weeks in advance they are pretty much full. And I don't even do much hub to hub flying.
Not to mention, getting people on earlier flights around the storms ain't going to do much to improve UA's on time or cancel rating, nor that of any airline. Doesn't matter if 50% of the people on a flight XXX are able to change to an alternate the day before; if that flight is scheduled to leave at time YY:YY, and that's the time the thunderstorm ends up hitting, the flight is going to be delayed or canceled. These numbers won't change whether 1% of the seats on that flight are booked, or 100%.