Originally Posted by
Oregonflyer
To me this was very odd decision-making. Regardless of the capabilities in Tucson, they have to be better in SFO. The flight could have been in the air, the PAX comfortable, connections made, and a maintenance crew ready to roll when the plane landed (early, presumably) in SFO, giving UAL more time to fix the problem on the ground without impacting schedules. Given that the flight left without the repair being made, deferring it to SFO seems like a clear winner.
As someone said above. TUS is a major maintenance base for Skywest. If they can repair something, TUS is place to do it. SFO would have been harder as it's only a line maintenance hub, meaning they'll only do simple repairs. So that's the reason they tried to repair it in TUS.