DL was Late!
 

Being late never bothers me, I always leave room for that. This trip was no difference either. I looked up DL.com and saw my flight was running late. The previous flight ISP-ATL left late so, the ATL-ISP was going to be too. I walked thru security and waited for a 35 min turn. The first leg was 55 mins late. I didn't really care because my connection in ATL was not for another 2.5 hours. My ATL-LAX flight was at the gate for as long as I was and still needed to be cleaned and catered. We were 40 mins late.
The return was an hour and 15 minutes late for no reason! The 777 was at LAX for 3 hours instead of 4 because the previous flight was late. They started boarding with only 5 mins to go for the flight time. What was even better was my final leg . . . ASA screens said my A/C was at the gate. At our boarding time, she announced that out flight from wherever was delayed and we were going to be a few minutes late. We were only 25 mins late because there was about a 15 min turn on the CRJ.
After my final leg was late I started thinking, how does this not start to piss you off? The weather was fine and we were traveling on a wednesday!
SR

The weather where you were was fine, but the midwest was a mess. Ripple effects of bad weather can carry throughout the entire system. Stuff happens!

In this thread, you implied you were happy with DL. Is this the same trip we're discussing here? The outbound was fine and the return ran late? Late happens...on every airline. Could this trip report be consolidated into a single thread?

And you made all your connections??? Sounds like a better than average trip. ;)

-=tg=-

I agree. Some folks get up in the morning, look at the sunny weather out their window and decide everything’s going to be fine travel-wise.
Doesn’t work that way.
You need to factor in where your flight was before it arrived at your airport, where the connecting flight crew (if applicable) might be arriving from, what ATC delays are in effect even if your aircraft has managed to avoid any bad weather, etc, etc.
Adverse weather, especially in a hub city, often throws the whole system out of whack for hours and days at a time.

I found the OP's original post quite hard to follow IMO. Just to much late here delayed there... it was quite scatter-brained if you ask me :o

25 minutes late on a transcon? :rolleyes: That's ontime to me.

RamAir does have a bit of a point. From the dot.gov web site, if you're flying into or out of ATL on an average afternoon or evening you have less than a 3/4 chance of being on time. Compared to EWR at less than a 50% chance of being on time, that seems pretty good. 25 Minutes late - that sometimes doesn't seem so bad.

Most of us just set our expectations low and plan around the delays. We book a longer connection, fly the night before, keep the numbers of good hotels in our phone lists, etc. When RamAir asks how we keep from getting pissed off - that's how: low expectations.

No company in a competitive environment can survive making money by only meeting it's promises 75% of the time on average.

I am a pilot and I read the METARS - the weather was fine.
My connecting aircraft from ISP-ATL came from ATL as it's first flight that day.
My connections were all in excess of 2 hours - of course I made them all!
What kind of struck me was the fact that none of the flights were within 15 mins of their scheduled time.
The thing that was even worse, DL boarding starts too close to the departure time when they are running "on time". They need to snappen things up! Their service is good but, we still need to get there sometime that day.
SR

I think they have been very consistant at starting 30 minutes before departure.

I have to disagree. In the last few months I have noted while at the gate how very few times I can remember the boarding starting 30 minutes prior to scheduled departure.

I can understand if the inbound passengers are still deplaning how boarding the outbound 30 minutes prior is not going to happen. But when it is the first flight of the day and they can't start boarding on time then what chance do they have the rest of the day?

Just last Sunday from FLL > ATL the first flight left at 6:00 am. The terminal in FLL wasn't even opened until 4:45 so I know that plane was sitting at the gate from the previous nights last leg. At 5:00 the plane was sitting at the gate with NO jetway at the door. Finally at 5:45 someone started to drive the jetway up to the door. This guarenteed that we would not be finished boarding by 6:00 am. My thought was clear: If you can't start boarding the first flight on time what kind of day will it be when weather, ripple effects, and delayed connetions start factoring in.

From my experiences in the last few months no one seems to have a fire under their seat. They (the gate agents mainly) simply seem to drag on everything.

I can't think of one time in recent memory that they have closed the door more than 3 minutes late because all of the people weren't on the plane. Of course, there are times when the door gets closed and the pilots can't get clearance for push back anyway. Of course, YMMV.

YMMV? I would guess that YRMV would mean "your results may vary" but what does YMMV mean?

Maybe my travel times are worse than yours. When I board I pull out my DVD player and entertain myself. When the boarding door closes of course I have to turn my player off. This to me is the time that boarding ends. I always look at my watch and notice that we are at LEAST 15 to 20 minutes late from out scheduled departure. I can't help but think that if they had just started boarding 30 minutes before like they claim that they do then the passengers would be in their seats that much sooner and the door could be closed that much sooner.

Do they close the door when the pilot gets clearance or when all the passengers have finished boarding?

This is FlyerTalk. Your Mileage May Vary.

You are always late? I am early more than I am late.

I think it is about when they get the final paperwork. Certainly they don't wait for clearance for pushback.

YMMV=Your Mileage May Vary which is pretty much the same thing as YRMV.
My experience has been that DL starts boarding precisely at the 30 minute mark on 95% of my flights. And we usually push back on time on 95% of my flights.
But then again I’m not constantly flying thru a hub city that can adversely affect timing.
Of course, YMMV/YRMV. ;)

PS: I see indufan and I were posting at pretty much the same time.