Originally Posted by
cfischer
UA85 TLV-EWR 772 diverting to IAD and cancelling ... really UA? At the same time AC, LY (! same route !), EC, WW and others are arriving at EWR and UA must divert? wow.
AC diverted to ORD. LY took a second attempt to land before it was successful. And they don't have staff at any possible diversion airport. EC is cancelling tomorrow's flight, so they're kicking the can down the road. The decision to divert is sometime as simple as a pilots saying "no" to landing at the scheduled airport. Or possibly there isn't enough reserve fuel for a long hold. The decision to divert to IAD and its still-operating hub was likely a wise one.
Originally Posted by
cfischer
UA is not landing ANY plane at EWR right now. There is no slot problem, they just shut down. Great to put planes in the air and then decide 'sorry, we are not in operation today'. Clearly EWR is open and other carriers are landing. UA needs to decide if they want to operate a flight or not. If they do they should make it happen unless there are circumstances beyond their control and it is not looking like it, frankly.
They shut down for a very good reason once the storm became worse than expected. They shut down very proactively. Seems like it will be the wisest move and UA's operations appear ready to quickly resume at relatively full strength once the storm passes. In the meantime passengers that were diverted made it to a functioning hub, minimizing the number of affected passengers. From what I see, once again UA has shown the wisest operational decisions today in the face of storms.