worldtrav

UA67 SNN-EWR July 9 canceled
UA53 ZRH-IAD 4 hours late
UA31 MUC-EWR 5 hours late

segiddins

UA169 VCE-EWR delayed a hair over two hours on 2017-07-06

goodeats21

Lengthy thread here: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unit...united-21.html

TA

What are the rules/flexibility here? Is a crew not allowed to be over their duty time by even 1 minute contractually? And is it scheduled time or actual time? What happens if they time out mid-flight? They have to land immediately?

It seems wasteful to me to divert the flight to SFO when ORD is 900 miles further, which results in another crew having to fly the plane 4 additional hours orthogonally out of the way...

worldtrav

UA889 PEK-SFO 22 hours late.

Hammer0425

There's minimal flexibility but it's not so much contractual as it is legality based. If you look up FAR 117 rest rules and specifically look into the limitations for augmented crews, you can see the limits.

Generally once you take off you're good to finish however based on the duty start time, the anticipated taxi in/out, and the burn (flight time) for the flight, if it's determined you're going to time out if you take off, it turns into a no go (or in the case of this flight, landing at a closer destination and recrewing).

The delays are what get you. Say the report time for the flight is 7am. The flight is delayed however until 11am. That four hour delay counts against the FDP (flight duty period) limit for the crew even though they're not flying at that point. So even a small delay but on a long flight, you'll run into duty limitations quickly.

JOSECONLSCREW28

67 goes to ORD.

TominLazybrook

Non weather delay on GDL-IAH flight UA 332. 2.5 hours and counting. Originally scheduled to be on a plane from PHL via IAH. Switched us to a busted plane from DEN via IAH.

seacarl

I see this often enough that it is clearly how UA codes it, but it truly is misleading to customers since the airframe rotation is in UA's control and they've obviously substituted a different aircraft in than was intended when the schedule was built

fgirard

UA855, which flies LIM-IAH was cancelled after a 3 hour MX delay.

TominLazybrook

Looks like GDL-IAH might make it today. First they gave away tail#4028 to someone else (or it went mechanical). Then they assigned us tail #4172 , which immediately went mechanical for 2 hours or so. Now we supposedly have Tail 4710, which went mechanical immediately after it was assigned to our flight for 90 minutes. Call it 4 hours. Are UA'S planes really this busted? This happened to me twice on my last 2 international flights too.

transportprof

How hot is it in GDL? Some planes don't do so well in very high heat.

Hipplewm

My last 2 mechanical issues have been:
Software update on the early warning system - 45 min delay
Little latch that holds the cart in the slot - 3.5 hr delay

So, maint doesn't always mean the plane can't fly, just means complying with FAA and government guidance, so it is unfit to fly.

Genkoopie

I feel bad for everyone on UA105 IAH-GRU from yesterday 7/9
Had a buddy on the flight --
Flight departs 945pm....terrible storms all around airport delay departure for few hours but flight attendants time out, requote for 1100am next morning 7/10.
That time comes and several people are missing and there's some confusion about whose bags can go/not go (presume bags were loaded and passengers dont show up). Finally leave gate at something like 1230/100pm.
Apparent mechanical issue develops after pushback anf they try to fix on tarmac to no avail so they head back to gate 55mins later when aircraft loses its APU. So they take everyone off and requote for 430pm.
buddy said screw it and headed to ORD to catch their GRU flight tonight.
apparently now they've had to swap the aircraft and are currently posting an 810pm out. 23hrs total delay....what do you think they'll comp people??

TomMM

Exactly, a couple of years ago I was on the early morning GDL-IAH flight and during the walk around, the crew discovered that one of the NAV lights were inop. We had to wait until official sunrise before we could takeoff. I think we were delayed about 40 minutes.