joshwex90

OP, how do you know for sure that there's no issue of weather at destination, or perhaps even en-route, that's really causing the delay?

murphyUA

"Folks, captain speaking. The plane is currently broken."

Tunapalooza

Made it to SFO and gots of chuckles from the various responses. Too tired to respond individually. I hope no feelings are hurt.

No, I won't ask for compensation. Never thought of it. Since such comments are intended to be derogatory, I'll ignore them as the idle rumblings of ignorant apologists.

As for flow controls, I note that three other UA flights either immediately before or after 1299 departed on time. Earlier in the day, a flight had an "air traffic control" delay per UA, but the 1299 delay wasn't coded that way.

Despite the lack of other UA delays and coding as a weather delay rather than ATC, some here will nevertheless defend UA's false representation. After all, they've already called the pilot in command a liar. It doesn't seem the least bit odd to them that each successive mechanical delay that the pilot announced became a successive weather delay per UA. You can't reason with true believers. No set of facts will persuade them to reconsider their counter factual conclusions.

As for whether there may have been unannounced ATC delays masked by the mechanical delays, who cares? First, we were almost ready for push when the delay was announced. We had already been serenaded by Smisek and had the safety video. The fault was identified when the cargo door wouldn't close.

The point of my post is that UA misrepresented the cause of the delay. Which has real world consequences for travelers. WX gets UA off the hook for many things that MX wouldn't.

Good night.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Ya think they might have been going somewhere w/o fog delays and didn't have hold in place orders?

ralfp

Were they going to SFO?

UA647 (after 1299) departed 38 minutes late and UA644 departed more or less on time, but it was 1 hour earlier. The VX flights before and after 1299 were both delayed as much, if not more than, UA1299.

Take a look at JFK-SFO (similar distance) departures for the same time period. In general they were just as delayed as the PHL-SFO departures, regardless of airline.

In the UA world, does ATC vs. weather make a difference (serious question)? IME UA considers both to be valid excuses for delays. I do not see why this would matter.

AFAIK the weather in SFO caused ATC to hold planes at their departure airports. Is this weather or ATC? I don't know. Would it make a difference? IME no. Why does it matter (again, serious question)?

Very few people here would disagree with that. UA lies quite frequently about the causes of delays. I probably see this several times a month. I guess the situation is bad enough that I don't even bother considering complaining anymore.

One question is whether a 60 min mechanical delay is excused by a 90 minute weather delay that would have occurred anyway.

In any case, at least you got a few chuckles for your trouble.

Did you have to watch it twice? That would be something worthy of compensation.

Tunapalooza

Yes. I was sentient enough to make apples-to-apples comparisons.

According to UA, UA647 departed on time, as did UA644 and UA225. In other words, there were no gate holds for these flights.

While ATC delays might be justifiable speculation in the absence of any other information, here we have specific contrary information from an authoritative source: the pilot in command. Besides, no conduct or announcement suggested a gate hold.

Agree with your hypothetical, although it is not germane. I posited the difference between WX and MX, which does impact passengers. My comment could be restated substituting ATC for WX. The point remains that it appears that UA shifted an MX delay to WX/ATC.

If there were a 90 minute WX delay, then we would have been delayed 90 minutes and not 60, right? Again an interesting hypothetical, but not one supported by any established facts. I doubt that the cabin would have been made ready for take off and the Smisek/safety video shown if there were any kind of significant gate hold.
Yes, the HORROR!

Marc

JeffS

According to UA, UA647 departed on time, as did UA644 and UA225. In other words, there were no gate holds for these flights.
You must have an orange mixed up in there somewhere if these are your examples.

chinatraderjmr

They can have 2 reasons & pick the one that suits them. I had an IAH-LGA flight last month that I could see from the night before was gonna be delayed (if they still used the same inbound). The delay went from 30min to 1hour to 90 min & we finally boarded. The reason for the delay at some point changed for "inbound aircraft to "weather". Sure enough the Capt told us the delay was caused by the inbound but even if it had gotten there on time, we would still be sitting there as NY had flow control going into LGA. (we ended up leaving 3 hours late as did all the flights before & after us that day).

LilAbner

Just askin'?

If I show up for my flight and they lie about what is going on, and my plane doesn't leave because they say it's wx when in fact it's a mx, or the captain is constipated, do I get something as a result of this incorrect info?

I mean if during this delay, I have time to do an investigation, and think I know that they are fibbing, can I then contact customer service and demand compensation?

Secondly, is it at all possible that UA likes to keep their planes on the ground where they don't make money, in an attempt to snooker their passengers with made up reasons for flight delays?

Thirdly, where is it written that UA is required to keep the passenger in the loop? It would be nice if they did, but we all now that fabrication is the norm and trying to figure out whether they're making up B.S. is usually not the passengers responsibility and/or pay grade.

Just askin', what does it matter except to get one pissed off further when they finally do board their plane, and fume all the way to their destination?

ralfp

I dunno about the constipation thing, but in the above situation you might be denied something because of the incorrect info. The delay type sure does matter; if it's ATC or WX, the airline basically absolves itself of any responsibility. If it's MX, then the airline will generally have to pay for any hotels for missconnecting pax (for example).

Heck, CO once paid for a hotel in NRT because a late (MX) flight from IAH caused me to miss the last train out of Tokyo station: a train for which I did not even have a reservation (JR East pass).

Maybe I'm a weirdo, but I like it when airlines (or the provider of any service) tell me the truth. I'm much more likely to forgive if there's no attempt to conceal the truth. I don't want to have to figure out if the airline is spewing B.S.

As for the OP's flight, it sure looks like most of the delay was MX, at least at first:

The "event timeline" for 1299 from flightstats.com sure looks like a MX problem (though my only expertise comes from being a victim of these delays). It has a bunch of short increases to the delayed gate departure, most posting after the fact. UA 647's delay posted as one or two changes, as did VX 71 & 77.

The comparisons here have not really been apples-to-apples; I'm at least partly to blame. I've been talking about takeoff times and ground holds, while others have been talking about gate departure times (as quoted on UA's site) and gate holds.

Some info for comparison (mostly from flightstats.com):

VX77 (scheduled to depart about 3 hours after UA1299) took off 117 minutes late (I don't see gate info for this flight).

UA647 (scheduled to depart 85 minutes after UA1299) took off almost 40 minutes late, so it was held on the ground after an on-time gate departure. Is this any better or worse than a 30 minute gate-hold? At least the crew got paid the extra 30 minutes (AFAIK).

UA1299 (OP's flight) had about a 70 minute delay at the gate and takeoff was 84 minutes late.

VX 71 (scheduled 20 minutes before UA1299) departed the gate about 100 minutes late and took off just as late. It took off one minute after UA1299, despite being scheduled to depart 20 minutes earlier.

The UA flight 1 hour earlier was basically on time.

What does this say? I don't really know. Why were both VX flights delayed more than the UA flights, even 1299?

mccullo3

I tend to side with the OP as I don't trust United. My last flight from IAD-SFO (#161) -- also seems like United loves to change flight numbers every few days! which was on 9/22 was scheduled to leave at 9:43am; we are delayed due to low ceiling in San Francisco for "1 hour"

I've been through this before so I just got some work done. We board the plane at 11am and then sit at the runway for an hour for clearance. During this time I noticed that ALL FLIGHTS with a scheduled departure after ours took off for SFO and were early or ontime inflight.

This was from JFK, EWR, ORD, IAH & DEN.

It was even more obscene that the flight that departed at 12:32pm from IAD actually landed before our flight in SFO even though we left at 12:29pm on the runway.

Eventhough this was probably solely ATC you can't explain to me that will make any sense why our flight -- waiting to take off get's delayed while every other flight at every other United hub get's to leave when they have departure times after ours.

I just chalk it up to running a poor airline.

SFOFastAir

Ok here are the facts.

The scheduled departure time for 1299 was1724 however
/PROPOSED FAA ATC WHEELS UP 641P?SFO GDP
then
RECOMMENDED FINAL DEPARTURE RE-QUOTE TO 646P

Flight 1299 pushed off the gate at 18:36 (1h 12m late) and was airborn at 18:45 and landed SFO at 2051 and was on the gate at 2059 (58 min late)

So while there was a machanical problem with the cargo door the root cause of the delay was the ground delay program at SFO, i.e., ATC delay.

The next IAD SFO flight 647 (1844 sked dep) originally had a /PROPOSED FAA ATC WHEELS UP 732P?SFO GDP which was then revised to RECOMMENDED FINAL DEPARTURE RE-QUOTE TO 736P. It pushed at 18:50 and was airbourn at 1926. It landed at SFO at 2157 and on th egate at 2003 (25m late).

997 the 1447 dep took a 57m GDP hit but 644 the 1636 dep got out on time.

WineCountryUA

just to be clear, are you saying if there had not been the MX issue, departure would have been no sooner? because

SFOFastAir

You are correct sir.

ralfp

Not that I did not know that.

I dunno what I was thinking even seeming to defend UA and why I spent so much effort in doing so (my apologies to Tunapalooza; I share your anger). This after-the-fact lying about the cause of delays is happening way too much (I still stick with what I wrote, however).

This supposed UA apologist just got delayed by over an hour because of a mechanical delay (ExpressJet) that is now coded as "(Delayed - Awaiting inbound aircraft)". Thankfully I have the screen shots showing that the delay was mechanical before UA changed history and came up with that truly outrageous whopper.

The inbound aircraft was late by 14 minutes (as per UAL.com); UA seems to think that this is a logical explanation for a 1h4m delay on the next flight. OTOH this is an airline where boarding for an on-time flight starts before the previous aircraft arrives; my flight was supposed to board at 7pm and the previous flight was scheduled to arrive at 7:04pm.

The flight in question was 4536 (EWR-CVG) on Friday, Oct. 13 and the inbound aircraft came from CMH as 4274.

If WX vs. ATC is not germane, why did you bring it up? I was responding to this statement:

Did you mean to write MX instead of ATC?