Originally Posted by
bhmlurker
I stumbled upon this site:
http://www.bts.gov/programs/airline_...me_statistics/
So as all curious UA flier would, I put up 2007
Mesa @ ORD: 6.45% flight canceled, vs 4.45% overall. 31.22% flight late, vs 29.18% overall.
As for
UA, 3.21% canceled and 30.11% late. Mesa appears to be 2x the cancellation rate of UA, although just a bit higher than average.
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Mesa @ IAD, 2007: 4.45% canceled, vs 3.21% overall. 27.92% late, vs 22.49% overall.
As for
UA, 2.22% canceled and 21.10% late. I can see Mesa appearing significantly worse. All in all, this may be a case of perception. A caveat is that this is stats for the whole year, so during good times no flights are canceled for either UA or Mesa, thus data from normal operations significantly dilute the "bad data" from irrops. During irrops, it may very well be 5 Mesa canceled for every UA.
BHM,
i have dealt with mesa part I(mid 90s fiasco in den) and now part II. the thing i love about mesa and other express carriers regardless of the airline they serve is with mesa they purposely will disable accars when it comes to the -out-time of a flight. you would be surprised how many flights arrive late and somehow make 4-5 minute turn. thus making it appear to be out of the gate ontime when in fact we are still boarding pax and bags...amazing then they will dutifully report the actual off time once they are in the air. with skywest they will haul ... to get the pax boarding door closed thus showing an out time when in fact it could/has taken as much as 5-15 minutes more before they actually push. with ual the out time is when the wheels start turning, which i think should be a bench mark. the express carriers will do anything it takes to get a on time even though it is not on time. next time you are on a uax flight, time it from when the door is closed to the actual push of the aircraft. then go and check online to see what the stated out time is, big difference!