Alex Jevdic

I think after cancelling a ton of ORD-DFW flights one day American pulled a 767 that came in from LHR (it was supposed to RON at ORD) to shuttle all those people down to DFW later on in the day. They do have 777's that come in from China and Japan that could be used as well, ferry them back to ORD in time for the next day departure back to Japan or China.

mike1968

Which I'm 99% certain is what pmUA used to do as well to keep the system moving as I've sat in plenty of UA planes at ORD between Dec and March with a tanker type fuel truck out the window that's plugged into the wing followed by a good thorough and prompt de-icing in truly atrocious winter weather conditions at ORD.

this week has been inconvenient, but far from atrocious.

I can see the issue now if the mainline tanker trucks where scrapped for 100% reliance on the ground system to cut costs.

But as you point out AA has their tanker trucks (i.e., added expense) still around for these types of contingencies.

O well best of luck to all those stranded at ORD overnight. Hopefully there are hotels available vs the cots they put out.

goalie

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mike1968

yep and pm UA used to do this too with all the widebodies in their system (previously domestic and international) running through ORD.

unfortunately with the scheduling for international that they can't even run, let alone keep a functioning widebody fleet in working order (see international cancel thread), there's no slack in the overburdened COua schedule to take an O/N 747, 767 or 777 and redirect it to ferry people to Denver or a major east coast city to get them on their way which only compounds the IRROP recovery problem that has always been the achillees heel of CO and now COua vs AA which still has these types of contingency/recovery plans.

mduell

No ORD-DFW cancellations today, but yes they did use N385AM, headed to Hawaii next.

Volga981

I was on one of the aircraft yesterday (01/08) in the evening. We waited for 1 hour till the previous plane gets deiced and only then our plane could get to the gate. We boarded, and we were told that the captain is getting from another stranded flight. When the captain arrived, he said that we are waiting for fuel trucks. Then we started waiting for deicing. Then it was announced that the line for take off is quite long and we need to wait in it, too... A night of waiting. We arrived 4 hours later than we were supposed to.

Today in the evening a friend was waiting for gate access or tow truck (he was not sure) for 30 minutes. Not 2 hours, but still.

Hite

ORD was a mess then. I came in on 1/8 where we sat for almost 2 hours waiting for a gate, then waiting for a plane to be de-iced so we could get to the gate. Normally about 2 hours on the plane turned into a 6 hour ride of joy with a delay on the runway in CLT as well.

CALMSP

will be interesting to see if any heads roll with this round. This has happened before and a shakeup occurred, even with Alex Marren being pushed out the door. Wonder what this will do to the ORD ops team and anyone in network planning.

fastair

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local...288118171.html The story is about Eagle/Envoy, but goes to point.

Oops, sorry didn't realize it was just an update to the story linked last night in post 8...same link.

Tchiowa

If planes aren't taking off because of weather they lose that control. They end up with more planes on the ground than gates available.

CALMSP

then you start doing mass cancellations and take those planes off the gate and bring those live flights in or you use T5.

Tchiowa

And when ask for pushback and ground control says "no"?

When there is a severe weather event bad things happen. Quit blaming the airline.

ROCAT

When you push back at ORD you are talking to ramp control which is staffed by United employees not ground control. Every ground stop ground delay message that has come out has stated airline induced and coded as airline responsibility.

fastair

I worked in T5 yesterday. There weren't free gates there either. See AA, UA, LH, NH, and another couple carriers that use AA gates for dptrs taxi their planes over to the domestic terminals after deplaning and cleaning. Without gates in T1 and T3, planes sit at T5 waiting for their main terminal gates to open up.


Rarely, but it does happen, a T5 gate is used for a return to the blocks or a domestic diversion, but gate space in T5 is just as scarce if not more so than most mainline domestic gates.

bldr1k

Not a good week for UA and ORD. I was delayed 7 hours on Wed with FOUR broken airplanes.