SOMA1K

Have been commuting from SFO to IND since mid 2010, and have seen the quality of the United Express equipment continuously deteriorate. First the nice 170's became more old 700's but still had 2 class cabins. Now booking for May and there are virtually no 2 class RJ's on the schedule regardless of connecting city. What's up? Changed (read cheaper) contracts to new providers? Fortunately this will end for me by July, but if I were an international Indy based traveler (and it seems there are lots of them to me) or 1K/GS flying from IND, I would be even more unhappy than I am now. A 145 to ORD isn't too bad, but to IAD or IAH--no thanks. Time to think about switching to AirTran, but then they will probably turn in to Southworst before long. Domestic flying basically sucks these days, especially to 'off market' cities.

jhayes_1780

sadly a far cry of the days UA's IND operations:

• Had the maintenance base
• RCC
• Frequent mainline service

UA-NYC

Anything under 500 miles now, you're now getting crappy CR2s and ERJs. Look at LGA/JFK/EWR-IAD and vv...two major markets, and you're getting the worst of the worst with CO/UA aircraft.

finite7777

Thanks for the heads up, I am flying home cdg-iad-ind and sure enough just had my flight changed to a smaller plane and now all the effing E+ seats are sold out.
Waiting on hold to see what can be done.

1hr and 2 phone calls later I have my E+ seat back again.
Thanks again, I wouldn't have checked if not for your post

mcgahat

As an IND based travelery I have noticed the express jet flights popping in more and more and not sure why as well. I had always thought the reason the Skywest flights came into town was because they were the ones actually handling the ground operations at IND after it became an express station but I could be wrong...not sure exactly who the ground staff actually work for. It may well be that UA started trimming back the E170 stuff when Republic decided to dive into the F9 pool?

I think IND-IAH is longer than I want to travel on an E145 as well but IND-IAD or ORD doesnt really botter me to much.

As far as international travels switching because of a 1 hour E145 flight....not likely. It is the 15 hour flight that matters most in that equation. At least to me.

Overall, I am very happy since the switch to UX at IND. The ground staff have treated me much better than the staff we had before here and have handled things much better than I ever expected them to such as irregular ops, ticketing etc.

It is a matter of fact that markets less than 500 miles from hubs are going to see a lot of RJ's. The days of a 757 between IND-ORD are gone.

Often1

UA is stuck with older & smaller RJ's which are expensive to operate and can't handle the longer hauls. So, expect to see them on the shorter hauls where there is no competition from another carrier with better aircraft.

nwff

As someone who's been flying in and out of IND a lot since 2006 this thread is interesting to me.

For the OP, I haven't noticed a significant degradation in the (admittedly already lackluster) RJ service to and from IND. Last summer there were CR2's on some flights to DEN (took F9 instead) and through much of the year CR2's on some of the ORD flights. Looking quickly in May (mid-week) those are gone. Otherwise the pattern of 145's early in the day from ORD to IND, and 145's mid-day IND to ORD and 170's or 700's the rest of the time seems intact. The mid-day IND-IAD flight has gone from a 145 to 170, which is an improvement (of course the early flight is now a 147). For the IND-IAH route it's gone from 2/2 (737/RJ) to 1/3, which isn't great, but Continental was flying 145's on that route pre-merger.

To me the main issue of the RJ's connecting to international flights comes flying to IAD. Since the mid afternoon flight often seems to run late, this adds to the element of stress in connecting to international flight in IAD. (Of course, also coming back to the "A" gates at IAD after a long international flight is always unpleasant.) The stress flying through ORD is less as one can book a slightly longer connection, which isn't a realistic option flying IND to IAD.

I found the loss of the UA staff at IND a great disappointment. There were always very helpful to me, particularly during IRROPS. For at least a year after UX took over, it seemed that UX groundstaff had great difficulty operating the jetbridges, to the point where there would often be a 10+ minute delay after arriving at the gate (particularly for the late flights). The UX staff are generally pleasant, but I've been burned several times with them trying to handle involved issues, to the point where I'll deal with those issues in the ORD, DEN or (even) IAD RCC rather than in IND. Perhaps, this is what UA wants anyways. On the otherhand, I found the Continental ground staff at IND to be great, and I hope they stay post integration.

Does anyone know which IND gates will be used post integration?

satman40

Come on over to Combs Gate they will treat you nice, and IND is not all that bad, I have seem a lot worse,.

You guy need a private jet to pick you up at Mt Comfort, The new Indy Exec...

gawhite411

Agree 100%. CO/UA have just decided it's better for me to fly the US shuttle and pop 50 beans for the upgrade to F for this route. There is just no civlized way to get between WAS and NYC anymore on either CO or UA. And the flights are given the absolute lowest priority so the moment there is an ATC hold, these flights get massively delayed. Particularly galling in that pushing 752 equipment to Dulles International flights and pushing people who want widebodies to connect in NYC is not going to work unless those short hops become reliable. Having to build a 4 hour connection in EWR is just inefficient.

777boy

I remember flying on an International 767-300 from IND-ORD back in 2000. It was my first op-up (it was Monday after Brickyard 400 weekend, and race had been delayed due to rain; mother was 1P). I'm pretty sure we flew an Intl 767-300 ORD-IND on the inbound as well.

I'm not even sure these were just due to the race weekend, either, as I think having the maintenance base at IND led to a lot of mainline planes flying in. Certainly the aircraft types have gotten smaller since then!

However, I must say, I flew IND-ORD back in January on an E170 and was UDU'd to first. Had 2DF all to myself. That also was quite nice, so I can't really complain about having E170s instead of mainline. ERJ-145s or especially CRJ-200s would be a different story.