emcampbe

Captain is a no show is actually pretty vague. Might (or, fair enough, also might not be) due to weather.

Also, thread title is pretty inflammatory and IME, should be changed. Even if this particular flight was miscategorized, and it is far from certain that this is the case, "systematically" assumes this is SOP and happens regularly - certainly the OP offers no proof of this whatsoever.

Way not enough info to even know if a DOT complaint is warranted. If you have more, than fine. But doesn't sound like it. A no show because the captain decided to sleep in?Because his inbound got canceled due to weather? These things matter. Information that the captain didn't show is way too vague. And of the latter scenario, that would also be legitimately weather.

Now what if the captain couldn't get out of the driveway because of snow? What if he got into an accident on the road while trying to get to work when he hit a piece of black ice? Is it still unacceptable? Would the OP like to be docked a day of pay or a vacation day because they couldn't get to work after > a foot of snow? Just curious.

Honestly, there's huge storms out there. I understand people are frustrated, but guess what - there is a lot of weather out there, crews/equipment out of position with conditions that are not making it easy to get back to a regular schedule.

The staff at the airport are likely trying to help, and have likely also been working long hours and trying to deal with everyorne, but getting bombarded by customers is not going to help anyone. IME, I've seen some of the worst acts of customer aggression (I.e., yelling) when weather is involved. I'd much rather have to pay for a hotel, even for a few days, if it means I will get home safely.

Best thing to do during weather like this is to rebook as early as possible and wait it out. The flight was canceled. Move to get rebooked and home (or wherever) as soon as possible and move on.

If you're really upset about it, book DL or AA or someone else next time. The hope you aren't flying during a storm of this magnitude next time, which will likely result in some form of a similar rinse and repeat with said other carrier.

UAkls

I'm not sure anyone suggested a "nefarious" plan. If the answer you provide is correct, then UA can provide it when asked. But when a passenger on UA going ORD-LHR is told all three flights are cancelled due to weather conditions while everyone's else's flights on the same route are operating, do you not think it is a good idea that someone at UA explain why?

star_world

I thought they did explain - it's due to severe weather. Why is your starting assumption that each airline should be affected equally?

Akulashark

My takeaway from this is file a DOT complaint the next time I see a weather delay on a mechanical delay. I have seen this time and time again.

UAkls

I am not. But perhaps UA (as opposed to you) can explain why it is affected more severely when it comes to TATL routes. You say UA depends more on connecting traffic than AA. This may be so, but I have no idea if it is. Where does that come from?

star_world

That's all in the DOT data here: http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/ri...ion/index.html - don't have the time to go through it again now.

I'm not sure what you're asking for though. UA has a large section on their website that explains that the midwest of the US is experiencing severe weather, that many flights, etc. have been cancelled and providing instructions on how to rebook. What's your point? That they're lying? Are you saying that they should have to publicly detail every operational decision they make, including the inputs to that decision, how they are weighted, what alternatives they have, what the costs of each option are, etc?

zerolife

Got to disagree with you.

In the former case, UA should have some reserve pilots at ORD on standby. ORD is one of their largest hub, I'm sure there are plenty of pilots based out of there.

In the latter case, if the passengers are able to make it to the airport, why can't the pilots?

ontherun

Listening to conversations that two GA's were having at ORD yesterday. Add to the recent FAA crew change rules. Seems the bigger issue is the Mgmt's dropping of pilot info from Unimatic so that the GA's are in the dark about the whereabouts of cockpit cres leading them to board planes and then de-boarding because the flight crews aren't showing up.

The phrase i overheard? Don't board 'em until you see the white of the pilots eyes.

UAkls

Yes, I want every little detail on every flight.

Seriously, this case seems like a special one. We have the same weather conditions affecting all airlines at ORD. All other airlines get off 100% of their TATL flights. UA gets off 0%. Let me put it this way -- if I pay thousands of dollars for a C ticket to fly ORD-LHR on 1/5 and I am told that it is not possible to due to weather while I see every other flight to LHR going that day, you are darned right that I want a little more than than "bad weather."

gailwynand

Weather's been fine in DC the past couple days so "local road conditions" are not really a viable excuse here.

buckeyefanflyer

Saturday was in MCO, a MCO-CLE flight was suppose to be a A320 but when the aircraft arrived from DEN it was a A319 and the gate agent announced they were short 23 seats and was waiting for a supervisor to advise. She did not ask for volunteers. The flight was only going to delayed 10 minuntes. Then out of the blue the departure got pushed out 2 hours because all of a sudden they were short a flight attendent.

So the agent sorted the passenger list and just held back seats for those making connections at CLE and it turns out everyone will miss their flights so she looked at rerouting. They were giving hotels and meal vouchers but because the flight was now so late this sort of solved the 23 short seat problem so now they do not have to pay volunteers and denied boarding. I was woundering could they have made up be short a flight attendent. I do not think they would do that but it crossed my mind.
With so many flight cancellations and delays do to weather I am sure it happens a plane goes into a mechanical delay so you think they would try and make it look like it was weather related but there are ways of tracing that so we hope they are honest.

uber1K_Flyer

I seriously beg to differ - there are differences. They have a "late arriving flight crew" which labels delay on United and compensation may be provided; when its weather related, they can wholly get out of it.

I was on UA698 SFO-ORD yesterday and they had a co-pilot call in sick (20 minutes prior to departure - which personally sounds a little fishy). They posted delays sequentially which were labelled "Late Arriving Flight Crew" only to cancel 3 hours later. We wsre told they never had a crew identified. United seems to be the king of misleading its travelers (I would have rather them say, "we are looking for a crew and will update you when we have one" instead of giving times which suggests a crew has been identified and will be arriving).

Flyer Unfriendly all around. Agree the lying about weather should be reported to DoT - irrespective of whether the weather contributed to the late crew, its a late crew that is causing the delay, not the weather - they shouldn't get a pass on that one!

spin88

I think you are wrong about ORD, AA has a roughly similar portion of its traffic as "connecting" traffic. But I do think you are correct about UAL's decission here, and its nice to see someone come clean on it.

UAL had two choices:

(1) It could try to get folks to their destinations. Doing so would involve paying large amounts of OT pay and other expenses and at the end of the day having some planes or people be out of place. Passengers may be late, but they get to their destination, and we have all been in "weather events" and when an airline goes the extra mile, we are grateful, it ads to our loyalty. This is what DAL and AA chose to do.

(2) it can cancel flights, and tell passengers to go stuff it. It then offers them flights in a week, tells them they can't get a refund and UAL will not pay any of their expenses. This saves UAL money AND has the benefit of pushing up PRASM as flights are then 100% packed for a few days and UAL has flown fewer ASMs system wide. However, it angers a lot of people and you get what you see on UAL's facebook page - which is thousands of upset people. Hopefully, many of these folks file DOT complaints about things like refusing to refund tickets or trying to charge a change fee.

]Regardless, as you admit, with the current management, doing the right thing, or trying to get people to their destination on time, or at all, is about the 18th priority.

Baze

So many assumptions with no facts in evidence in this thread.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/todayi...storm/4337773/

Each airline will get impacted differently because not every airline has the exact same routes, planes, staffing at each airport. UA doesn't have an unlimited supply of reserve pilots at each airport.

spin88

And I might add that taking the "savvy" approach of just cancelling large numbers of flights to goose the profits as UAL did per Star_World's telling admission, results in wonderful stories like this one:

http://www.bloomberg.com/video/unite...tml?cmpid=yhoo

And re DOT, yes, if a flight is mischaracterized, it needs to be reported to DOT. Doing so will cause them to look at the issue. DOT's address is here:

http://www.dot.gov/airconsumer/file-consumer-complaint

Book mark it, use often! Enough complaints and UAL will start to be more forthcoming.