Over-eager cancellations July 10, 2013?

 
Old Jul 10, 2013, 3:43 pm
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Over-eager cancellations July 10, 2013?

AA has canceled its entire ORD-PHL and ORD-LGA schedule from early afternoon through the end of the day due to weather that is largely between the east coast and Chicago, not even impacting the airports. The competitors on those routes: UA, DL, and US haven't canceled anything. Sure there are bad storms and I'm sure some competitor flights will also not make it. But seems like AA was overly eager to just scrub everything?
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Old Jul 10, 2013, 3:48 pm
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Originally Posted by sts603
AA has canceled its entire ORD-PHL and ORD-LGA schedule from early afternoon through the end of the day due to weather that is largely between the east coast and Chicago, not even impacting the airports. The competitors on those routes: UA, DL, and US haven't canceled anything. Sure there are bad storms and I'm sure some competitor flights will also not make it. But seems like AA was overly eager to just scrub everything?
Probably. AA often jumps the gun. The tropical storm is suppose to hit Southeast Florida starting Friday but there is no panic.
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Old Jul 10, 2013, 4:40 pm
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All the DFW to LGA flights are cancelled as well. Guess I will spend the night in Dallas, or at least at the airport.
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Old Jul 10, 2013, 5:12 pm
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the radar shows a long n/s storm east of ord.....no idea how high, but would be a long way around....flights from dfw would be affected most likely....
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Old Jul 10, 2013, 6:12 pm
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Originally Posted by clacko
the radar shows a long n/s storm east of ord.....no idea how high, but would be a long way around....flights from dfw would be affected most likely....
No doubt that there is bad weather blocking flight routes. But US managed to get two flights out on time ORD-PHL. UA had a 5 hour delay, a 90 minute delay, and other flights still on the board. AA canceled the entire afternoon. Same to DCA, LGA, and I'm sure others. Literally every flight canceled on AA and almost everything on UA/US/DL is operating to the NE corridor (albeit with delays).
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Old Jul 10, 2013, 7:36 pm
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Lady JDiver flew DFW-BDL today - flight was nearly ninety minutes delayed and the weather is very rainy.
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Old Jul 10, 2013, 7:47 pm
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DL cancelled half of the IND-LGA flights today. It rained for 30 min here, the storm tracked way north.
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Old Jul 10, 2013, 8:03 pm
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I'm in NYC/Long Island and short of a 30 minute cloudburst this afternoon off the LI Sound, we have had nothing. No heavy winds, no rain, no lightning. JFK is open and planes are landing. The approaches in to the air fields are different, but not so much that weather should affect one but not the other. Weather this week has generally been north (I.e. BDL and Stewart).
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Old Jul 10, 2013, 9:53 pm
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All the Northeast airports had stiff ground delay programs and there were FCA's up for traffic headed for the northeast.

It doesn't matter really if the Northeast airports get hit or not. A line of weather anywhere in the eastern half of the country constrains available routes out of and into the Northeast. The slows everything down to a standstill.

Some airlines cancel regional flights or delay less important flights longer to substitute EDCTs so they can get more important flights out on time or close to on time.

Not much AA or any airline can do about it. Airlines get criticized either way. In the Delta forum, they criticized Delta for not proactively cancelling enough. Now, AA does some of that and they get criticized. How can an airline win?

In the summer, thunderstorms are not easily predicted by meteorologists because they are not caused by frontal boundaries. They are air mass storms fueled by the heat and humidity during the day. It is difficult to predict where they will form, when, and how intense.

The real issue is airlines are throwing too much volume into the Northeast. The Northeast has incredibly inadequate aviation infrastructure. For the volume thrown into it, it needs several airports with a layout like DFW. Having so much airports in close proximity with both limited number of runways and runways that intersect and are close together limits the number of operations on good weather days and cripples it when the slightest bit of bad weather comes.

If you want nonstop flights without making connections from the Northeast, this is the price to pay. No amount of ATC modernization is going to solve the problem of limited real estate to work with.

Some say issue slots to control the volume. If you do that, airfares will shoot through the roof because of the limited frequencies and the value of the limited nonstop flights then offered by the airline.

I do think the real solution is a return to mid sized city hubs. Airlines may not like the idea. However, as someone that has business in New York would you rather make a connection in CLE/MEM/PIT or have your flights consistently delayed and cancelled anytime a cloud forms 150 miles away from NYC/PHL or the wind starts gusting a little bit?
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Old Jul 11, 2013, 5:24 am
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Originally Posted by AMLFlyer
All the Northeast airports had stiff ground delay programs and there were FCA's up for traffic headed for the northeast.

It doesn't matter really if the Northeast airports get hit or not. A line of weather anywhere in the eastern half of the country constrains available routes out of and into the Northeast. The slows everything down to a standstill.

Some airlines cancel regional flights or delay less important flights longer to substitute EDCTs so they can get more important flights out on time or close to on time.

Not much AA or any airline can do about it. Airlines get criticized either way. In the Delta forum, they criticized Delta for not proactively cancelling enough. Now, AA does some of that and they get criticized. How can an airline win?

In the summer, thunderstorms are not easily predicted by meteorologists because they are not caused by frontal boundaries. They are air mass storms fueled by the heat and humidity during the day. It is difficult to predict where they will form, when, and how intense.

The real issue is airlines are throwing too much volume into the Northeast. The Northeast has incredibly inadequate aviation infrastructure. For the volume thrown into it, it needs several airports with a layout like DFW. Having so much airports in close proximity with both limited number of runways and runways that intersect and are close together limits the number of operations on good weather days and cripples it when the slightest bit of bad weather comes.

If you want nonstop flights without making connections from the Northeast, this is the price to pay. No amount of ATC modernization is going to solve the problem of limited real estate to work with.

Some say issue slots to control the volume. If you do that, airfares will shoot through the roof because of the limited frequencies and the value of the limited nonstop flights then offered by the airline.

I do think the real solution is a return to mid sized city hubs. Airlines may not like the idea. However, as someone that has business in New York would you rather make a connection in CLE/MEM/PIT or have your flights consistently delayed and cancelled anytime a cloud forms 150 miles away from NYC/PHL or the wind starts gusting a little bit?
Well aware of all of this. But between being over eager wi canceling and not being proactive enough, I think the latter will win every time. Ended up buying a $1220 F one way ticket on UA for ORD to PHL. All UA and US flights operated. Every AA flight after 12 yesterday was canceled

And I do agree with tighter slot controls and mandatory average plane size at over 100 seats. Larger aircraft and lower frequency on routes like ORD to LGA are in order.
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Old Jul 11, 2013, 6:39 am
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Originally Posted by AMLFlyer
All the Northeast airports had stiff ground delay programs and there were FCA's up for traffic headed for the northeast.

It doesn't matter really if the Northeast airports get hit or not. A line of weather anywhere in the eastern half of the country constrains available routes out of and into the Northeast. The slows everything down to a standstill.

Some airlines cancel regional flights or delay less important flights longer to substitute EDCTs so they can get more important flights out on time or close to on time.

Not much AA or any airline can do about it. Airlines get criticized either way. In the Delta forum, they criticized Delta for not proactively cancelling enough. Now, AA does some of that and they get criticized. How can an airline win?

In the summer, thunderstorms are not easily predicted by meteorologists because they are not caused by frontal boundaries. They are air mass storms fueled by the heat and humidity during the day. It is difficult to predict where they will form, when, and how intense.

The real issue is airlines are throwing too much volume into the Northeast. The Northeast has incredibly inadequate aviation infrastructure. For the volume thrown into it, it needs several airports with a layout like DFW. Having so much airports in close proximity with both limited number of runways and runways that intersect and are close together limits the number of operations on good weather days and cripples it when the slightest bit of bad weather comes.

If you want nonstop flights without making connections from the Northeast, this is the price to pay. No amount of ATC modernization is going to solve the problem of limited real estate to work with.

Some say issue slots to control the volume. If you do that, airfares will shoot through the roof because of the limited frequencies and the value of the limited nonstop flights then offered by the airline.

I do think the real solution is a return to mid sized city hubs. Airlines may not like the idea. However, as someone that has business in New York would you rather make a connection in CLE/MEM/PIT or have your flights consistently delayed and cancelled anytime a cloud forms 150 miles away from NYC/PHL or the wind starts gusting a little bit?
I don't think the original poster was debating your facts above. I believe the point of the first post was that AA was canceling more flights than its competition on similar routes/circumstances.
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Old Jul 11, 2013, 6:42 am
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Originally Posted by sts603
AA has canceled its entire ORD-PHL and ORD-LGA schedule from early afternoon through the end of the day due to weather that is largely between the east coast and Chicago, not even impacting the airports. The competitors on those routes: UA, DL, and US haven't canceled anything. Sure there are bad storms and I'm sure some competitor flights will also not make it. But seems like AA was overly eager to just scrub everything?
I'm sure that AA has very significant models (and programs) that describe the impacts and do so to lessen the impact on travelers (and more specifically its bottom line).

I'd doubt there is just some monkey banging away at a keyboard arbitrarily canceling flights, as some might think.
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Old Jul 11, 2013, 7:42 am
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Originally Posted by CellPhoneDramas
I don't think the original poster was debating your facts above. I believe the point of the first post was that AA was canceling more flights than its competition on similar routes/circumstances.
Exactly. Here's what happened to post-noon flights yesterday on the following routes:

ORD-PHL
AA: 4/4 (100%) canceled
US: 0/3 (0%) canceled (2 operated very close to schedule)
UA: 0/4 (0% canceled

ORD-DCA
AA: 2/6 (33%) canceled (one of the four that operated was canceled and only later reinstated leaving people making alternate arrangements)
UA: 1/8 (13%) canceled

ORD-LGA
AA: 10/12 (83%) canceled
UA: 3/9 (33%) canceled
DL: 1/8 (13%) canceled
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Old Jul 11, 2013, 7:44 am
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UA started cancelling east coast flights for this afternoon at 11pm last night. Some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you.
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Old Jul 11, 2013, 7:47 am
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I wondered what the heck was going on last night, had a 3 hour wait to speak to an AAgent to get my CX PNR for an award flight. Figured there was weather issues somewhere. (Wasn't curious enough to go online and look though)
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