IainC

Flying UA870 today (14/4) left gate on time, taxied to runway and then sat for 20 minutes before Captain announced a "small" maintenance issue. Returned to gate to fix what the Captain called a problem with the heat valve in the rear cargo compartment. Fortunately, no live animals being transported today and Captain confident of a quick fix since the valve can be switched off or closed without issue - well we hope so. Stinking hot in here at the moment, FAs disappeared from Y cabin, at least they could have passed out water! We are now exactly 60 min post-scheduled departure time. Not sure how long we have before the crew time out...hmmm

Okay closing doors again now, switching off the computer and hopefully they will get this puppy airborne! We'll see.

IainC

Well this is really cool, here I am reporting live from UA870 with 10:00 hrs left in the flight! We finally departed 1.5 hours late, but fortunately we did depart and are on our way and due into SFO 11:54 am, about 60 min late. This 744 has WI-FI so I thought I would give it a go and for $3.99 it's pretty darn good! A little slow but hey, who can complain. Now this is a change that I do like UA.

Mwenenzi

From http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/uni...-1226625848428
More here, with a photo:- http://www.australianfrequentflyer.c...rne-49615.html

Would have been an interesting phone call back to head office !

Edit: Link to Age Newspaper (with photo)
http://www.theage.com.au/travel/trav...422-2i9oy.html

Jorgen

I don't see the photo on the australianfrequentflyer thread. (Incidentally, is that site annoying, or what? They track you with cookies and only let you view a finite number of threads before they make you sign up. Of course you can get around it using an incognito window on Chrome, but that also disables my ....... forcing me to see the ridiculous number of ads they also chuck up. Ugh. And the design! I mean, flyertalk looks like it belongs in 1999, but that site looks more like 1995!)

Anyway, I wonder how long it takes to fix a 744 with a hole in the wing.

FriendlySkies

Found it:

docbert

Looks like it was ship 8419, which is N119UA.

MPsince1984

Glad to hear that nobody was hurt! ^

On the other hand a jet bridge for a major gate at Melbourne and a UA 744 out of business for an unknown amount of time is a big deal. Especially on a route that already has a history of significant delays and mechanical issues.

FriendlySkies

Wonder how long this will take to fix?

UrbaneGent

I wonder if they are able to cut a square out and put a patch on it...then again the fuel tanks are there too...a good wash is needed as well.

LordTentacle

Still trying to figgure out how it has a high number of cancelations/delays
System wide united is at ~80% ontime
there are 4 flights per day involving 4 different AC on a daily basis
so per year you have 1460 flight segments
I really dont think more then 300 segments per year are delayed/canceled to bring it below the fleet average

From my own personal experience over the last 5 years its been (out of some ~60 segments on SYD->LAX/SFO or reverse) 1 cancel and 2 delays of more then 30minutes

The one cancel (oct 2012) was notified to me 15 hours in advance and United booked me into AirNZ without question when I asked
I dont even want to count it as AirNZ>>>>UA for flight comfort/food/booze

When I have flown SFO->FRA/LHR segments about 12 times in the last 3 years... not once has one of them been on time

matthandy

Does anybody know if they used an automatic guidance system for the gate in question, or manual?

halls120

Oh, it will probably buff out.

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

there's a whole in the wing, dear Liza, dear Liza,
there's a hole in the wing, dear Liza, a hole!

alex_b

Stick some gaffer tape over it and it'll be fine; if you use the silver stuff it will even blend in.

DL2SXM

whats so difficult to understand? its horrendous. Its stuff like that which makes UA an airline to NOT consider. no excuse for this to happen. UA should be held fully accountable.