flavorflav

The Journal picked UA4352 because it is, according to the DOT, the most chronically late flight in America over the last two years. A graphic accompanying the story shows a list of flights sorted by number of months (out of the last 24) on the "chronically late" list. UA4352 CVG-EWR topped the list at 12 of 24 months. There were 11 flights on the list. All were UA flights, and all were to or from EWR.

The Journal story was great work. I encourage FTers to pick up the hard copy if they have the opportunity. The author, Scott McCartney, is the newspaper's travel editor.

From a brand point of view, United got off easy in this story. The word "United" does not appear in a headline, subhed, or other prominent position. You have to read the story itself to find the word "United." This makes the story a one tablet Tums day for the United marketing people instead of a half bottle Tums day if the headline had been "United 4352: The worst flight in America."

FlyWorld

I think Scott is generally quite favorable towards UA, or at least, restrained. I see no unfair bias against UA in this or any other article he has written. In fact, I'd argue he's generally too cozy with the airline.

PcolaPaul

Guess it doesn't like mobile

BThumme

http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/ri...hts/index.html

DOT link for the lazy.

It just has to be frusturating for everyone invovled.

AK-business-traveler

Yes - surely there must be some minimum performance standards included in the contract. If not, UA's contracting folks ought to be canned!

aacharya

Hmm, what happened with UA and CO in the last two years? Maybe a merger? And reassignment of all flight numbers, as we see in the other thread? No more 1776 (PHL) 1 (HNL), etc.

But let's keep using this conspiracy theory approach - which anyone with Excel could get around in three seconds.

PV_Premier

apologists will always be apologists, just as haters will always be haters. it will never end around here.

as for me i just avoid EWR unless it is for O/D flying, or truly no other option exists (which given no direct flights from EWR to my home airports it is usually that i could not connect there even if i wanted to).

there are a number of flights like this to and from EWR that they mix up flight #s on to pad the stats, at least that is my conspiracy theory. one of them (i don't remember the #) is GSO-EWR on some days and something like ORD-PIA on others. dilutes out the EWR delays by a measurable amount, giving the flight number a mediocre rather than completely awful performance figure.

aacharya

And folks who have no concept of forensic discussion (or a cogent argument) will belittle any argument with "apologists" and "Kool-aid". I thought better of FT than to resort to Congress-like zingers (like Clinton's aide being an al-qaeda operative). But I guess it's easier to throw out "apologist" than to address facts. Keep them coming, though. They only prove my points.

But now I know, thanks to you and your deeply researched theory, that only EWR flights get flight number changes solely to pad/dilute the stats.

exerda

An additional problem is boarding time. I think UA could handle the tight turns better if they didn't require 35-45 minutes to board a narrowbody. And it's not like they can just shave minutes off and use PMUA boarding times--not with the hosed boarding process they have in place at the moment, which seems to require the full 45 minutes a good portion of the time.

FlyWorld

It was stated earlier that COdbaUA has changed the flight number every few months on this particular flight so they can reset the statistics that show it is almost always late.

Are you suggesting that this behavior is, in fact, not designed to avoid the bad statistics by fraudulently changing the flight number every few months? And, instead, are you suggesting that the constant flight number changes reported on this flight are a natural consequence of the takeover (a.k.a. "merger")?

If the latter, can you please explain to us what takeover/merger related factors might legitimately cause the company to change the flight number on this flight so frequently?

aacharya

The same factors that have many FTers up in arms over other flight number changes (1776, 1, etc) that I already documented. Not to point you out personally, but you commented in at least one. Interestingly, you never noted that it was done for padding stats. Oversight, perhaps? Others did, but not as strongly - it was more of an aside.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...highlight=1492
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...er-1776-a.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...highlight=1492
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/conti...highlight=1492


Accusing UA of fraud to pad numbers reported to FAA is a serious serious allegation. I will not, absent actual evidence, support such a theory. Especially, as already noted, three seconds on Excel or any other metadata analysis will still tease it out, as WSJ already did.

We're going OT - I'd rather focus on the article and the other salient points made in this thread. I won't respond again on this particular topic.

UA-NYC

It's ridiculous that they can't code PS flights for 30 minutes - on each of my past flights over the weekend, we were done boarding in 20 minutes and just sat there, door open, for 25-30 more.

astroflyer

Well, first of all, there's no way getting around the fack that this is bad! If you have a connection, what in the world do you do here? Overnight in Newark a lot I guess.

What's not clear to me is how to apportion the blame for the problem. It's clearly split among
1) United proper: They handle the tight scheduling that they never seem to meet on this route.
2) The Express carrier: They actually manage the plane and flights and are responsible boarding and flying efficiently. I do wonder if they might just be the sacrificial lamb here, as I'm not sure what they can do differently.
3) Newark Airport itself: Correct me if I'm wrong, but in visual flight conditions, Newark's runways are too close together and only one plane can land at a time.
4) ATC: Would adding more controllers make it any better? I think they're pretty good at keeping things spaced at minimum spacing.

AAExPlat

Good example. I am going to SFO last minute this Saturday. Have to be in SFO by a certain time to meet some folks. Had the option of buying AA or UA one-way ticket (not cheap). UA had a non-stop and AA a connection for me. Even though I need the PQMs on UA far more than AA (where I will easily do 150k this year), I chose AA because I thought that IF IRROPS were to happen, that they would be more likely to get me to SFO by the time I need to be there. And if AA couldn't get me there, I was confident they would endorse me over to UA. I would not count on the same happening the opposite direction.

The fact that my upgrades on AA cleared while I was holding the reservation was the icing on the cake.

On the return, I booked a one way award back on UA. So AA got the revenue and UA got my 12,500 miles. That is what lack of reliability can do on a one-off instance.

canard

If the ontime stats are organized by flight number, then how do they calculate UA (and UAX) ontime stats? Since the merger, many of these flight numbers change daily -- why do they change so often?