glcarter

But, United for the love of God, please stop lying on UA.com on departure times.

I am on 4687 from IAH to PIT today. It has been evident for the past five hours that 4687 was going to be pretty heavily delayed by weather in Pensacola (my equipment is doing a IAH/PNS turn before my flight.

UA stubbornly refused to change the PNS/IAH departure to reflect the equipment sitting on the ground here until well past scheduled departure from PNS while the plane still sat at IAH.

Now, 4687 still shows a 6:00pm departure while the PNS flight gets in at 6:08pm.

Incompetitence, deception, bad systems, etc. None are an excuse.

And, my other complaint since I am doing PIT a lot these days: what a downright mean and ugly group of people manning that station. It has really been bad the past few trips, but culminated last trip in the lady behind the Elite Check-in barking at me as I was next to check-in: "Are you Elite?" I mean barking. I replied "Yes, I am Global Services." She barked louder: "I don't know what the hell that is. I asked you, are you Elite? This is the Elite line." Wow.

TWA Fan 1

I'm afraid that this is another core feature of PMCO. The only flight issues that were ever communicated were outright cancellations that were known well in advance.

Otherwise, the system would always show flights as on time, even though they were already delayed or even cancelled.

The last time this happened to me was in February, my children were flying as unaccompanied minors YQB-EWR. The flight was scheduled to leave about 11:45 AM, and never showed as delayed on any instrument (airport monitors, co.com, pda site, etc.) It eventually took off at 3 PM.

I'm not sure if this is SHARES related, but this was always business as usual on CO.

flg8rmatt

In UA's defense, since you are at IAH, isn't it possible (however unlikely) that they might sub in a different plane allowing you to leave on time, or close to on time?

hobo13

Wow, and to think I would get mad at the PMAU-style of the ever-drifting flight delay. ETD: 5PM. At 459PM, it would push that back to 510pm. At 511PM, it would push it back to 520PM. Every 10 minutes, you'd delay for another 10 minutes, thus preventing you from just retiring to the RCC or getting a bite to eat!

But, as with most things in this merger, the downsides of PMUA really don't look so bad anymore!

kmfdm91

Absolutely...

I remember getting text message updates about increasing flight delays before they posted on the big boards at ORD. I didn't like those so much and had to keep an eye on the flight times, but those were MUCH better than being told a flight will operate or is on time, when the plane itself is at the gate at the departure city (this happened to me when going through EWR, the plane was still up at PWM, but my flight said it was 'on time' and almost at departure time).

Now (and with my experience PMCO) we get no updates, because they still 'predict' the plane will go out when obviously it won't.

More lies, deception - all changes they think we'll like

-jeremy

kwildnj

I have to say, it has not been my experience with CO that they do not announce delays in advance. But that could just be my own experience.

For the benefit of the OP, your flight now shows:

4681/22MAR
F IAH/ETD 620P L00.51 AWAITING FLT
F PIT/ETA 947P L00.31

SKED IAH ORIG 529P GTD B84B SHIP 7285
PIT 916P TERM GTA D77

Sulley

Sorry guys, but the operations side (with updates of delays) is all run by PMUA systems (aka Unitmatic). For once, you can't blame CO.

However, the treatment you got in PIT was terrible...

star_world

That's odd - I regularly would get TripAlert messages from CO early in the morning about a flight later in the day that was already expected to be delayed because of a maintenance /weather delay earlier in the schedule. I would see these on a fairly regular basis.

Shortly before the PSS merger I started noticing that the planned arrival / departure times would be "frozen" at the on-time values, this lasted a few weeks. But it appears to be providing updates now.

Definitely not "business as usual" on CO in the past, at least on mainline. CO Express was always a different story. It's completely dependent on how often / if the messages are passed back to the system.

PSU Mudder

I haven't checked out the combined operation in PIT in a while, but I think the PMCO crew was contracted out. PIT stayed below the number of mainline flights a day required in the contract to have in-house staffing.

If I'm wrong, somebody please correct me.

hobo13

Wow, does anybody know how this decision was made? I was under the impression that everything about CO was better, cheaper, faster!

And FWIW, my personal experience with a delay in EWR last week was EXACTLY the way it was handled under PMUA..... every 10 minutes, the gate would update and say it was delayed by 10 minutes! Happened about 3 times.

TWA Fan 1

In all fairness, as coincidence would have it, my travels on CO were restricted, since 2005, to overseas flights and on Co Express...with the vast majority (80%) being on CoEx, and, as you write, the notification system here was essentially non-existent, for whatever reason, I'm not sure.

glcarter

As noted in my original post, UA.com showed a 6:00pm departure long after it showed the equipment getting here at 6:08pm. Then it went to a 6:20pm departure. Then as you note, about ten minutes later, it went to 6:28pm with that same 6:08pm equipment arrival not moving. Now, it is 6:53pm.

So, here I sit in the United Club sipping on a drink. At least I am getting the Presidential Plus Chase card discount on the premium booze. Oh, wait...

glcarter

I'm guessing I already know the answer...

The incoming equipment is now clear of the weather and UA should be able to predict pretty concise info on my flight. UA.com shows a 6:53pm departure and a 9:47pm arrival. FlightAware shows it as 7:14pm/10:35pm. I'm guessing FlightAware is correct and pretty damn prima facie evidence of UA's lack of truthiness.

exerda

The display of the delays and status on .bomb, however, is all PMCO... even if the underlying system is PMUA. And I have in the last week grown increasingly disillusioned that what shows on United.com in any way accurately reflects what's under the hood.

nova08

Honestly, all airlines are pretty miserable at updating departure times.

At least PMCO and now UA have the "where is this aircraft coming from" feature that allows you to identify the status of that flight and you can make your own inferences.

Also note that the Flight Status page on UA has been erratic at best since 3/3. I've had at least 3 flts since then that the flight status page was dead wrong or displayed confusing information