mherdeg

This past Sunday a perfect storm of ATC delays and lightning at the airport led to a small cluster of ex-EWR flights experiencing remarkably long delays.

As a passenger on a 9pm EWR-SFO I was especially interested to follow the fate of four separate EWR-SFO flights which failed to depart that night:

(1) 6pm EWR-SFO -- returned to gate after ATC delays, posted "2:45am" at 2am, posted "10:30am" at 2:10am
(2) 8pm EWR-SFO -- returned to gate for fuel after ATC rerouting, posted "1:30am" at 1am, posted "9am" at 1:30am
(3) 9pm EWR-SFO -- returned to gate for pilot crew rest timeout at 12am, posted rolling 30min delays up to "5am" departure, cancelled at 4:20am
(4) 9:59pm EWR-SFO -- returned to gate after ATC rerouting, posted "2am" at 1am, "2:45am" at 2am, cancelled at 2:20am

It genuinely seemed like United operations was trying to send out a westbound redeye on my 9pm EWR-SFO -- after the pilots timed out, they did send two reserve pilots who intended to operate our flight. They arrived circa 3am, but of course United hadn't also found additional FAs, so the flight attendants' crew rest provisions were violated circa 3:30am. New FAs arrived circa 4am, and then United cancelled the flight.

What made this particular set of rolling delays remarkable was the repeated insistence by the skeleton-crew night-shift gate agent -- who generally hung out in the jetbridge, away from the podium, except to make status announcements, and who refused to rebook pax, saying that only the main CS desk could do rebookings -- that this flight was doomed and there was no way it was going to operate, and his implication that United Ops was making a big mistake in slow motion by failing to cancel the flight. It was fascinating to see such obvious and transparent dismay mixed with helplessness.

Some quotes from that GA:

(The FAs depart the plane, leaving the jetbridge door open; it begins to sound a fairly noisy alarm, waking pax who are at the gate; no one really responds for about ten minutes.)

(A new alarm begins to chirp, but it's not the jetbridge door being left open. It's ... birds nesting in this part of EWR Terminal C, they're waking up and greeting the day enthusiastically.)

(At 4:20am they actually posted the cancellation into the GDS, triggering irrops-tool rebookings and so on.)

I wouldn't have stayed with this flight during the whole delay but (a) I had some meetings on Monday and this was the best way to make them (ended up flying standby on a 6am albeit in Y instead of J); (b) I was really looking forward to taking a real live westbound redeye and bummed it didn't go. Also, (c), it was just kind of fascinating to see how helpless the GA felt in the face of being asked to "work" a flight which I am sure his experience told him Ops would ultimately cancel. An interesting picture of company culture.

BThumme

Shouldn't the irrops-tool rebooking have been activated after a 1 or 2 hour delay? Not that it matters, you don't have many options that late at night.

I can also empathize with the GA. He can only go off of the information he has. Where I fear there is issues is when you get (understandably) upset passengers who think the Gate Agent is the one dragging the pax along and/or take their frustration out on the GA.

seenitall

I've been through similar "death by small drips" experiences. While I doubt that UA really intends to screw its Pax, I would find it incredibly interesting if someone in UA ops could explain why each decision not to cancel the flight was made -- and what series of events (e.g. crew/gate/slot, etc.availability) they were expecting to occur at each delay extension such that the flight operating at its now revised time could be a reality rather than a come-on. Of course, we never will get this side of the story, but one can hope.

LIH

I share that sentiment. My most recent experience with this was the day after a snow storm this past winter at LGA where we waited for ~5 hours to finally get a pieced-together crew to operate a flight. For better or worse, I think airline operations are just incredibly complicated things due to the confluence of work rules, equipment position/gate availability, and ultimately the true wild cards like weather. I don't think the logic of "we should just cancel this thing so these people can get some sleep and just come back tomorrow" is the way any airline ops looks at a given situation. The matrix of decisions is probably too contingent to allow linear thinking like that.

atword

My experience with UA in recent years is that they have handled irrops better than AA. I don't have a reference point for DL since I rarely end up on them. From transparency in the app (your flight is delayed due to a problem with hinges on the restroom) to more detailed announcements at the gate, I think UA does pretty well. As bad as this situation was (and it could have been handled better by The Wizard of OZ Chicago), it sounds like those on the ground with you tried.

dkc715

I feel your pain from my own weather delays, although this past Sunday I was spared. I was on the 1:30 pm PT SFO to EWR flight, and was monitoring the line of storms moving east toward NYC. We just got in, landing at around 10 pm ET and had quite a lightning show off the left side as we headed north before circling back for final approach. I have no doubt our great crew did everything they could to expedite the trip and avoid diverting. I think we just made it, as the SFO to EWR flights at 2:30 PM PT and 4:30 PM PT both diverted to IAD and AFAIK never completed the trip. Better to be lucky than smart sometimes.

dmurphynj

Thank you - it's nice to hear a kind word about the EWR folks.... they really aren't the Devil-Incarnate, like so many accuse them of.

Sorry your flight didn't go - weather really throws a kink into the system, especially once crews start timing out. They probably should've thrown in the towel earlier, but then you'd have a bunch of people upset "why didn't they even try?!?" ...

Sometimes you're the windshield, and sometimes you're the bug...

Kmxu

The problem is the UA operations center, which may be unstaffed during bad weather or in the late evening. My EWR-ORF two weeks ago was allowed to leave the gate before a flight plan was finalized (during bad weather). We spent two and a half hours in the middle of nowhere called EWR airport before captain turned around and parked the aircraft. He was timed out and fluctuated with operations center (he called the "company"). And we waited for another two hours in the deserted Terminal A before we got a different aircarft and crews. I got home at 4:00 am, instead of before midnight. UA had no intention to cancel my flight during this ordeal.
Another example was a two-hour delay at HKG (for HKG-GUM flight) last year; UA operations center never sent an inspection report to HKG authority. They ordered a snap inspection before the plane was allowed to leave HKG.

physioprof

No doubt this is true. I think the major frustration for pax in these situations derives from the fact that the airline's decision matrix gives zero weight to the value pax give to being somewhere other than in the airport. For example, given my travel patterns, almost all the time I'd rather just cut my losses and fly on a confirmed flight the next day than sit in an airport for hours waiting on a delayed flight that might never depart. So for me, a three-hour delay can be as bad as a canceled flight; for an airline, the former is much less bad than the latter.

jsloan

I get a proactive option to move my flights at least 60% of the time that I have a UA delay. If the app shows the red exclamation mark, you can move your flights.

physioprof

I understand that. I'm just saying that in deciding whether to cancel flights or keep rolling the delays, airlines give zero weight to the cost to the pax of sitting in the airport vs being somewhere else. For pax, it has great value if the airline cancels a flight at T=0 instead of rolling delays for six hours and then canceling the flight anyway. The airline's decision matrix for rolling delays & deciding when to cancel gives no weight to this value.

jsloan

Sure, but it might have great value for the pax if they have rolling delays for hours and then operate the flight, as opposed to cancelling at T=0. By giving me the option, UA's doing as well as I can expect it to do in the situation.

physioprof

Oh, I don't think airlines *should* be weighing these factors in their decision matrix, and I do think they're doing exactly right by ignoring them, precisely because--as you point out--different pax have different value functions. I'm just saying that a big part of pax dissatisfaction with how rolling delays are handled is that airlines don't give any weight to their individual preferences for "cut losses" vs "depart come hell or high water". I put this all on most pax not seeing the big picture, not on the airlines doing something wrong.

HoustonConsultant

I agree with your comment for the most part, but almost all of us have experienced the "rolling 30 minute delay", when there is no intention or real method for departing in 30 minutes, and United is simply buying time to get more information or to reconfigure crews, but there is no way we are departing in 30 minutes.

In those situations, giving the "it'll be at least an hour" gives passengers a chance to leave the gate area, go to the lounge, etc., without being held captive at the gate by a mythical 30 minute delay.

Obviously, in those situations where it is a real 30-minute delay (the incoming aircraft is about to touch down), then sure, call it a 30-minute delay, but those seem to be more rare than the "we don't know so we are going to pretend it is a 30 minute delay" situations.

mduell

The last few months I've noticed United seems to be much more willing to operate/attempt to operate substantially delayed flights. Just casual observations.

A stated goal of no cancels was one of the strategies Delta started a few years ago to improve their operations. Maybe United will get there.