Proposal to address the Air Traffic issue
 

Rather then all the flight cancellations why not extend hours especially at larger airports utilize 11PM-4AM
sliw air traffic windows. Yes it Woukd mean paying more employees but certainly an option.

The argument against is that flight crew cycles (pilots, flight attendants) are dictated by hours-of-service and required rest periods. It's the largest constraint. The "cycles" in aircraft flights are mostly dictated by that and other contract stipulations.

Many people don't like flights at those hours,
Noise issues in surrounding communities
Concession services inside airports are not airline or airport employees.
Increased staffing for enterprises supporting airports (rental cars, transportation systems, ....)
Redoing schedules would take months, and this shutdown is unlikely to last that long
Many international flights have inflexible time slots for arrive / departure from the international airport
A lot of aircraft maintenance is done during the overnight hours

All in all, this is not a workable solution

IME, when there is a crisis of any kind, people tend to do nothing other than status quo behavior, and never actually change or adapt to the different situation.

If we aren't paying the employees we currently have (and are thankfully, for the most part, still showing up for now) what makes someone think that we'd pay more employees to work (or that those employees would show up for) generally undesirable shifts.

ATC is already short staffed -- even if they were being properly paid right now you'd potentially have to move some of that finite resource from the current shifts to beef up overnight staffing -- at best only shifting the problem and at worst magnifying the problem as there would be fewer staff available to handle traffic during higher-demand periods.

You'd also in some cases be competing with freight/cargo traffic that generally moves on the backside of the clock to take advantage of those lulls.
And noise sensitive neighborhoods.

The TSA and FAA are already not being paid for their existing shifts and those existing shifts are not being covered. Asking them to adjust their hours to the overnight while still not paying them would be tough.

Plus all the airlines have their flight schedules built months in advance. How would UA (or anyone) reschedule their flights to 2am for the crews and agents and ramp who bid the other schedules?

And how long should the schedules be adjusted? Should the move flights to 2am through the end of the month? Through the end of December? January? What if the government reopens on Wednesday?

UA caters to affluent clientele. Affluent people tend to be -- regardless of political leanings -- NIMBYs. The likes of EWR, SFO, LAX, and ORD (in addition to a host of destination airports) would not be able to entertain greatly expanded late night flights for more than a few days before lawsuits and court injunctions scuttle the idea.

As this is not primarily an United Airlines issue, time to move to a more general topic forum.

WineCountryUA
UA coModerator

That makes no sense. The issue is a shortage of workers. Where are workers going to come from? Besides the obvious, there are many other practical reasons as noted above.

US airline flight cancellations fall as air traffic absences shrink

Shocking...:rolleyes: Far from a surge of 'absentee' controllers suddenly showing up to work, could it be instead that this was all nothing more than a stunt to drive those of a certain political party to agree to pass the CR?