tom911

Looks like AS386 PDX-SFO, with a 6:59pm departure, has been diverted to Oakland tonight. SFO currently has average 2hr 11 min arrival delays. The later SFO-SEA, AS303, now shows as departing from OAK.

johnp012001

They arrived at OAK at 8:58. UA1217 scheduled to leave at 6:49 left at 10:45. Scheduled to arrive at 8:43 actually arrived at 12:52. AS1812, 9:05 departure cancelled.

Serious question for folks, which scenario would you prefer?

channa

Serious question, you pick the worst flight of the day for UA and compare to AS? Here's the whole story for PDX-SFO yesterday. UA had zero cancellations and zero diversions. AS had 1 cancellation and 1 diversion.

tom911

This morning's 0910 AS3437 SLC-SFO has been diverted to SJC. That impacts the 1147 AS3426 SFO-MCI which now departs from SJC. Currently no delays at SFO as I post this.

channa

3 days in a row!

I saw SJC-MCI and didn't realize they flew that. I guess that answers it. They don't.

johnp012001

I didn't pick the flight, it was the flight closest, within 10 minutes, of the AS flight that was noted as diverted. Seemed the most relevant to compare. Alaska got passengers trying to leave Portland around 7:00 to Oakland around 9:00. United got pax to SFO well after midnight. Don't know how long the shuttle would take, but I'd bet AS had there pax to SFO long before United did.

DCP2016

Actually the AS vs other airline argument aside, with the climate changing, should SFO think about rebuilding the airport somewhere else where it isn't affected by weather/fog? I know it would cost a lot of money but eventually it might become unusable.

spin88

Actually, this illustrates the issues created by what AS is doing.

(1) the 2 pm flights were fine (1:55 on UA; 2:05 and 2:46 p on AS). Both OT, flow control usually does not impact early afternoon

(2) Alaska does not have a later afternoon flight, but the 4:10p UA got flow control and was delayed until 5 pm, arriving at 6:47 pm. Again typical, first set of flow controls is usually a 30 min or 1 hour delay.

(3) So lets assume I am booked on the 7 pm (typical business flight time) flight:
(a) The 6:49 pm UA flight almost certainly (since flow control was showing around two hours at this time) showed as leaving at 8:50 pm or so. I checked other flow controlled routes on and they were not delayed anywhere near a 4 hour 9 minute delay. This was evidently an issue other than flow control. Absent this other issue, this flight would have arrived into SFO at 10:30 or so. (It ended up arriving at 12:52a).
(b) The 6:59 pm AS flight was diverted to Oakland. It was set to arrive at 8:51p in SFO, it arrived at OAK at 8:58p per flight aware.

(4) the last "clean up" flights
(a) on UA scheduled to leave at 8:37p is delayed for 2 hours and 24 min, and arrived into SFO at 12:55a
(b) on AS scheduled to leave at 9:05p is cancelled.

- So If I am booked on UA's 6:49p flight, if I can make the (due to the delay) 5 pm departure, I get into SFO at 6:47 pm; if I can't absent the other issue, I arrive at 10:30p, and notably, anyone with status on the last UA clean-up flight (also delayed) can jump on the earlier delayed flight, arriving basically OT.

- But if I've booked AS, well I can take the divert to OAK, arriving either later than I would on UA jumping on the earlier (now delayed flight) or about 1 1/2 hours before UA would get me into SFO on my delayed flight. The bus to SFO would take far more than an hour and a half. But if I turned down the OAK flight, well I'm screwed since AS cancelled the last flight.

- And if I was on UA on that last flight, well I can take the earlier delayed flight, get in basically OT. On AS I'm screwed since the earlier flight went to OAK, and I don't have a delayed flight to try to jump on.

The bottom line is that anyone on later delayed flights (who then lack a good option to jump onto) are messed over by what AS is doing; those who want/need to get to SFO are messed over; anyeone who is flying out on that A/C is messed over as they either need to catch a bus to a new airport (good luck with that) or their flight gets cancelled ex-SFO. The only people who "win" are those who know enough about the bay area to get around from OAK/SJC and are willing to eat the extra $$$ that might cost.

And to emphasis that the "costs" of this are not limited, this "diverted" flight was a 737-900. AS was evidently unable to bus folks on a Friday from SFO to OAK and cancelled whatever flight was going to use this plane. This plane was then sent back to SEA the next day, leaving at 5:57a as flight 9717. This was NOT a good use of resources.

sltlyamusd

This is factually incorrect. The return flight was not cancelled, it operated as AS303 OAK-SEA and arrived 35 minutes late. The short delay was presumably caused by AS busing passengers from SFO to OAK to catch the flight. You can criticize it if you want, but 35 minutes delay is still a lot less than the prevailing 2 hr delays caused by flow control.

The reason for extra flight the next morning was due to a charter aircraft that had been at OAK (it had flown CLE-OAK, so I'm guessing something NBA finals related?) being ferried back to SEA.

Also, at 9 PM on a Friday evening, it is not going to take "over an hour and a half" to drive from SFO to OAK (via the San Mateo Bridge) unless there is some kind of serious accident.

spin88

(1) Where are you seeing this? FlightAware shows AS303 - which uses a 739 was schedualed to leave SFO at 9:51p, it left the gate at SFO at 11:01p. Obviously that was NOT the outgoing flight that used the diverted A/C. https://flightaware.com/live/flight/...501Z/KSFO/KSEA

(2) AS did cancel AS397 which departs SFO at 8:53p and was a B739. My guess is that it was cancelled (more people messed over) since they were a 739 short at SFO.... https://flightaware.com/live/flight/...403Z/KSFO/KSEA

(3) I see no flights OAK-SEA that would have used the diverted A/C (no AS flights out on late Friday using a 739) which is why I assumed it was the shuttled plane.

And no it was not the Warriors, I am 99% certain that they flew on a DL charter, using a 757. https://flightaware.com/live/flight/...540Z/KCLE/KOAK This landed at the same time the media reported they got back to OAK. While United advertises itself as the "official airline of the warriors" there is no way that they would actually fly such a crappy airline as United....

chrisl137

FlightAware sometimes has poor exception handling. The text shows the flight leaving SFO, as does the flight plan, but if you look at the actual track, it departed OAK.

spin88

If so (and I blew up the flight path and it does look like a OAK departure) then the "diverted" flight which was supposed to leave SFO at 9:51p left OAK at 11:01p. Anyone who went to SFO would be screwed. If you were connecting or were coming from the Pennsula, there is no way to get from SFO-OAK and clear security in time, let alone if you have bags to check.

But you were doubly hosed on AS since they also cancelled the 8:53pm departure. Those folks then would have to what - bus it over to OAK?

Great example of why this is a CS disaster. Folks wanting/needing to get to SFO from PDX will be PO since they got diverted/cancelled/have no fall back option; people wanting to get from SFO to SEA either have to try to make it to a different airport (surprise, surprise) or get their flight cancelled and find out that the last flight of the day is no longer from SFO, its now via OAK. AS impacted hundreads of people, few of which are going to think "oh, I really wanted to go via OAK, happy days". The contrast between this and delays - which everyone expects/understands, is really striking.

chrisl137

The B&K noise tracking site (webtrak) is a little less convenient to use than FlightAware, but it shows tail numbers and shows the same tail number (N323AS) for the inbound (AS386) and later outbound (AS303) flights into/out of OAK.

ETA: there was enough time between the diversion to OAK and the ultimate departure that anyone with any sort of alerts turned on would have plenty of time to know to go to OAK instead of SFO. I haven't had a diversion on AS, so I couldn't say how much effort they go to to make sure people know the outbound airport has changed.

ucdtim17

ucdtim17