JerryFF

Another colleague on a 6 am flight to IAH this morning - 1 1/2 hrs late - missed connection to PDX.

It's not just the "usual summer issues". Nearly every UA flight, not just some, had major delays. Only 1 out of 7 was on time - ORD to DCA yesterday morning was ok. We have folks on DL, AA, AS, and WN. The only serious issue on any of those carriers in the past two weeks was when the power went out at MDW and everything was cancelled that night. Otherwise, just a few minor delays.

rob_flies_ua

Interesting you say that it's not, and that AA isn't having serious issues, as there's http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/ameri...012-after.html that expresses a different set of experiences.

KurtVH

Have you seen the wx around Houston for the past several days? It has to be playing hell with the entire system.

chavala

Just flew AA MIA-DFW -- 1 hour delay awaiting crew.

pemabuk

Mrs. Pemabuk is sitting in LAX, awaiting crew for the 12:48 dep to HNL. Going on 2hrs. The next two deps to HNL are showing as delayed, though awaiting a/c not crew.

sierranevada

My son flew SNA to SFO on 7/19 and was delayed 4 hours due to "waiting for crew". Do they offer customer appreciation for that?

SFOTurtle

What time of the day was the flight? Odd that a crew would cause delay on this flight unless it's late in the afternoon. Was there another flight coming SNA that was late?

sierranevada

It was a 1:40 pm flight and the plane arrived at the gate at 1 pm

SFOTurtle

Not much you can do about that.

sierranevada

The plane just sat there for 4 hours - oh well!

garkster

Well yesterday, the wx was just fine, the plane came in on time, and we were boarding for a 3:33 PM CDT departure to SFO. From seat 2F I heard the F/A's saying that the flight deck was empty. Sho'nuff a couple of minutes later, I and someone in 3E got texted with the new departure time of 5:15, so we told the F/A's who, in a friendly manner, laughed at/with us. Eventually a G/A came on and told us that "Operations" had decided that we should deplane. The good news was that we had already been served our cocktails of choice, so i had the rare opportunity to take one off the plane.

5:15 turned into 5:45, and when the pilot came on the horn to welcome us, he told us it was due to a "crew rest issue" and "a mechanical" -- he did, to his credit, say it was completely unacceptable and comp'ed TV for E+/-. Taxi out was unusually quick (10 minutes, maybe a record) and we were given a more direct routing so came in "only" 1:49 late.

I won't even ask why they would board us without bodies to fly the aircraft -- the incompetence of UA has reached such a level that it doesn't matter anymore.


I can't wait until the point where the pilots decide they've had enough -- I was chatting with a sCO pilot who was dead-heading on the way down last Monday (before the vote) -- even he knew about the Summer of 2000, and didn't sound very optimistic about the prospects for the negotiations.

mauiUAflyer

Colleague flying IAD-SFO-HNL today. First flight (A319) canceled last night. Rebooked onto new flight, which is now showing delayed due to waiting for crew, 1 h 17 m. Will make for an interesting connection in SFO if it goes out that way.

Mike Jacoubowsky

I shouldn't have, but I did. Went to check on the stats recently for UA#943, which I return on tomorrow. Yuck... cancelled 3 times in the past 10 days? Went to UnitedCargo.com and found, for the last two, cancelled due to "operations" (didn't go back far enough for the 3rd). Kinda want to get home. Too many Britts here for the final stage of the Tour de France.

Driving by DCA

A couple of thoughts here.

First, weather on day 1 does have effects on day 2 and maybe day 3. EWR and, to some extent IAD, have been getting a lot of weather recently. That creates a situation where you have crew out of position, rest minimums getting all screwed up, etc. while it all sorts through the system. So even if there's no weather out in either of the airports involved in a particular flight or on a particular day doesn't mean you're not suffering from the lingering effects of WX.

Second, the tense labor situation can impact this stuff without there being any formal or informal labor action. Pilots, if I mis-represent anything please let me know and I'll edit this.

As has been said, things get more challenging in the summer--more flights, more WX, higher loads meaning less re-booking flexibility, etc.

My understanding is that, since the airlines can't just hire part-time pilots for the summer, they rely on some pilots voluntarily working additional flights (at some airlines I believe this can be mandated, but my understanding is that at UA it has to be voluntary).

Now I don't know, but I'd be shocked if UA operations doesn't form an expectation of how many of these extra pilot/hours they have to work with each summer based on historical data and use this in their planning.

If pilots start accepting this voluntary extra work at a much lower rate than they have historically, then a bad summer situation can get even worse fast.

A brief perusal of the internet including this forum and the various pilot forums might lead one to the conclusions that:

1. Many pilots aren't happy with UA right now and might be less willing than in other years to volunteer to do anything that helps the company and
2. There is considerable peer pressure for pilots that otherwise be willing to volunteer to not do so.

Now, without passing any judgments either way, you can imagine how the situation described above could make a bad summer even worse without the pilots violating their contract or any injunctions.