QBK

Thanks, ozflier! It's happened to me twice in the last 11 days, and I can confirm the hassles.

I think this might actually change my attitude about UA. So far I've viewed it as adventure travel -- you never know what might happen, and you get compensated reasonably for putting up with the adventure. But the SYD flights this year are just ridiculous. I don't get there on time, I don't get home on time, I lose confirmed upgrades, and on top of it all flight attendants tell me I'm really lucky to just be on the plane.

I'm starting to think that lucky = "congress repeals Fly America, and I can actually vote with my wallet".

Jorgen

For what it's worth, I fly NZ on this route to avoid the regular UA cancellations.

But last time I tried it, my NZ 744 went MX at the last minute too. You can't win...

Also, within a year or so, all NZ's old nine-abreast 772s will be "upgraded" to the ten-abreast configuration, and the 744s will soon be retired. I'm looking at VA in the future, even though they only fly to LAX. (Has immigration at LAX improved with the new TBIT?)

flyerbjorn

Sitting in the Koruclub and just got notified that UA870 is delayed 40 min due to late arriving aircraft. UA 747 #8478 MEL-SYD is 1h35 late due to aircraft servicing and scheduled to leave in 20 min.

This will be interesting, I'd better get myself another rum&coke.

IainC

Good luck, hope there are no further problems...

Ridiculous is an understatement for what has been happening so far this year on these UA-SYD routes.

One has to begin to wonder about the thoroughness and quality of the routine maintenance of these 744s by UA and of course the overall safety of flying them..

mahasamatman

So when was the last time you heard of a maintenance-related accident involving a 747?

debracey

This is ridiculous. If we look back, over the last 7 days they've had serious issues and cancellations nearly every day. Hopefully someone at the DOT (or the AU equivalent) is putting UA's feet to the fire here.

Shouldn't UA have a "spare" 747 from yesterday's cancellation of 870?

EDIT: Looking at Thursday's (today's) 840/870 UA.com says the delays are due to late arriving aircraft / weather. How's the weather down there?

IADDCA

Can't you do that already? Is it possible to book travel through American Airlines where the LAX-SYD flight on Qantas appears as an American Airlines flight?

jumpingenes

The UA840 posted a delay too for 'airport conditions preventing departure'. Can they get a flight out on time this week?

I really don't wanna be jynxin' myself…
On a related note -- who controls the aircon at the Koruclub?

IainC

I haven't, but given the age, flying history and seriously lousy reliability of UAs 744s, in my humble opinion, it is a valid concern.

May be UA is holding UA840 in case UA870 is cancelled and they can then transfer some of the PAX to the LAX flight?

flyerbjorn

There is a spare 747 at SYD. It's sitting on the tarmac next to the freeway next to the freeway. Plain view from the Koru club.

Problem is that there are connecting passengers MEL-SYD-LAX, so the SYD-LAX is now delayed as well.

Weather in Sydney is fine: 24 C and clear. Not particularly windy according to the Sydney Airport sensor for kitesurfing. (Yes, I'm an addicted kitesurfer) Melbourne is 30 C and sunny.

EDIT: The spare 747 was just towed away. Not to the usual departure gates.

QBK

No offense intended, but this is a dangerous road to go down. There's a name for it that I can't remember right now, something like "tombstone mentality". It's the idea that as long as we haven't seen an incident of XXXX, then we don't need to worry about XXXX.

Thing is, accidents are more or less unacceptable. Maintenance standards are supposed to be held to a level where maintenance-related accidents basically never happen. So I'm not comfy with the argument "It must be okay, 'cause a 747 hasn't fallen out of the sky in a long time." By the time a plane falls out of the sky, we're into We Should Not Have Gone Here Land.

Rather, I would argue that the generally accepted maintenance standard is evinced by the "minor mechanical failure" record of most airlines -- for which the [observable] rate of MX cancellation on typical flights is a proxy. I don't know what that is, but I'm pretty sure that the UA 747 fleet is running a higher rate of mechanical failures than that. Which, in turn, makes me concerned that UA has maybe elected to save money by performing a lower level of maintenance than most other carriers consider appropriate. And that, in turn, implies that maybe the [still very low] probability of a major mechanical failure is higher than is generally considered acceptable.

There could totally be another explanation. But this one does worry me.

True, although I'm not certain how the fares are. Whenever I look at NZ codeshares through United, they're outrageous, but I may not have looked hard enough. The problem with your solution is that I'd have to switch to AA/OW, and although it's occurred to me, I'm not quite ready to do that yet. I have to buy the lowest fare (or close to it), and whereas I can usually manage to consolidate all my travel on UA, I don't think AA has the network out of ABQ to do that.

Col Ronson

Yes but the AA codeshare will always be on a higher fare bucket than what you can get with booking on QF directly.

Same with NZ codeshares on .bomb. UA will only sell the full fare Y/B coach/business tickets on their website. Their website isn't capable of selling premium economy and discount economy accure no miles for MileagePlus so they won't be sold on UA's website.

The way around this of course is to call UA.com and have them book the noncodeshare flights on 016 ticket stock, what people do to get the PQD fufilled on *A flights.

BarefootBandit

Well, ended up landing about 2 hours late on 840 on the 22/1, more annoying, I forgot my freaking motorbike helmet in the overhead bin. Argh...

First time in 35 years I've left anything on an aircraft. Would have preferred to forget my iPad... It's worth about as much as my airfare.

Z...

flyingnosh

UA just wants to make sure we don't have fond memories of the 747 when they swap them out for the 777.

BarefootBandit

So... They are setting the bar low, so it doesn't need much to be an improvement, huh?

You know, technically, that's still and Enhancement™.

Z...