transportbiz

Sounds like one of the many operations delays with Chicago central not clearing final weights and balances report, or something. But, yes report the erroneous finger pointing done by UA for the cause of delay.

kenn0223

My understanding is the large number of delay reason codes used internally by United get distilled down to a handful for public dissemination. A while back one of the internal folks at UA noted that some of the mapping from the internal codes to the public codes was a bit off. This could be an example.

Baze

Well, my delayed flight yesterday they were quite honest about the reason. From the start it was listed as mechanical. Flight 853 SFO-Japan on the 8th. Scheduled 12:50 and we actually left at 2:30. Lot of people missed their connectin at Narita. Fortunately that was my stop.

Bitterroot

New set of public delay codes now showing on the Flight Status pages. Much more specific than before.............

CaroPalms

I did a search in the forum as I usually don't fly United so I apologize if this question has been asked.

My wife had a direct flight this morning from BOS-CLE that was cancelled due to the snow storm yesterday. The earlier flight landed in Cleveland early, and the later direct flights were all listed as on time.

They re-routed my wife's flight from BOS-EWR and then from EWR-CLE. While I appreciated them re-routing her and getting her to her final destination, I was wondering if it could it really be the weather?

Earlier flights and later flights are still taking off, and they're still allowing her to depart from BOS and land in CLE. I'm just curious if it is a mechanical issue or perhaps they needed the plane somewhere else, or another reason, but it's just easier to blame the weather.

Since I don't fly too often compared to FT standards (and when I do, it's usually direct flights so nothing complicated), I was wondering if using the weather reason avoided something on United's end.

mherdeg

Looks like the relevant flight is UA4975 BOS-CLE 2/6, due to depart from gate A9 with E145LR aircraft #289, but "cancelled".

It doesn't seem unreasonable that the cancellation could be weather-related. During periods of bad weather, airlines may sometimes be required to operate fewer flights than usual, and regional jets tend to get cancelled before mainline flights.

Looks like there were some other cancellations out of BOS today — cancellations I see on flightstats on Thursday morning include BOS-CVG, BOS-PIT, BOS-RIC, BOS-ORD (mainline! UA1659), BOS-CMH, BOS-JFK…

noah

It could very possibly be the weather -- but United has been known to stretch using weather as the reason for a cancelled flight.

Just because the flights before and after it were fine does not indicate that weather was not the problem. For example, the aircraft for your flight could have been impacted from weather earlier in the day, resulting in cancelations down the line.

If you provide flight number and info, we could look into it more..

CaroPalms

mherdeg got the correct flight number: UA4975

Didn't figure on the aircraft getting impacted by weather on an earlier flight, so I guess that would make sense. But wouldn't that also be a mechanical/aircraft issue as opposed to something like "heavy snow so we can't take off or land"?

USHPNWDLUA

Her aircraft wasn't impacted by the earlier flight and the weather conditions thru which it flew per se. Her flight was likely cancelled because it was regional jet and CLE FAA would have requested limited traffic so to not have planes back up in the sky (more time needed between take-offs and landings). For her to get rerouted met her needs and the requirements of the FAA. It would in no way be reasonable to call it and MX issue because of this.

Family in the area report that the snowfall was very heavy throughout most of Ohio. Over one foot in some places.

JohnnyGlobal

Pushed back, pilot says an indicator light came on requiring maintenance. Mechanics are on-board and outside the plane...yet, just got my flight status alert--letting me know that the flight delay is actually 'due to weather'. Clearly, no weather...just got another update from Captain...mechanics almost done and hopes to push back soon.

Honest mistake or 'creative accounting' by United to try and protect on-time statistics? Anyway, no harm, no foul at this point...but struck me as odd.

goalie

With the hijacking of Ethiopian702 yesterday, two UA flights to GVA were diverted:

UA 974 IAD-GVA, diverted to ZRH
UA 148 EWR-GVA, diverted to MXP.

And UA states the reasons for the diversions as follows:
UA974: "air traffic control"
UA148: "weather"

milepig

There may be a better thread for this, but I think UA is just making up reasons at this point.

Just now my incoming plane was late arriving because:

Delayed due to aircraft refueling difficulties

Yesterday my incoming flight was:

Delayed due to catering error.

Both message that in the past would have been the vague "Operations".

Starman

Another way to look at this is, if in the unlikely event these two claims might be true (and if you're going to make up something this specific out of thin air, why not "first officer kidnapped by aliens"), then COdbaUA might actually be moving to a more accurate, and thus useful, set of revelations.

giblet

I'm booked on UA6311, LAX-PSP that was meant to leave at 10:05pm. It's currently delayed until 12:10am. UA customer service told me that the flight delay is due to air traffic control on an earlier flight today. Is there any way to check if that's actually true or if was due to a mechanical problem? (They suggested I just rent a car and drive, at my own expense.)

Doc Savage

SOP with UA. Nothing is ever their fault.

I'd probably get my money refunded and drive if I were you.