I was watching a UA 737 MAX 8 or 9 at Dulles last week as it was pulling into the gate. I noticed that the APU intake door was open, in what I assume was its ground position. Do these or other planes often taxi with that door open?

Most likely, forecast or reported turbulence at higher altitudes. Could have been headwinds but not likely this time of year. If it was an MEL, it likely would have been restricted to FL250, not FL270.

The door is open when the APU is running. The APU is normally running as we approach the gate to power the electrics and airconditioning when the engines are shut down until the ground power and ground air are hooked up.

If the APU isn't working, we keep the left engine running until ground power is hooked up and do without the air until ground air is connected.

Sorry, but what does MEL mean in this context?

MEL -- the Minimum Equipment List. A list of things required to be working/available in :prder to fly, or to fly above a certain altitude, etc.

In addition to the causes LarryJ mentioned, there could have been a traffic management initiative like an Airspace Flow Program along the route that only applied at FL280 and up, so they took the extra fuel burn to fly lower rather than waiting or flying around it.

Supporting what Larry proposed about this being a charter - have a look at those flight numbers. (Flightaware shows them frequently moving between major sports home cities, but not representing regular routes). And there is no routinely scheduled SMF-CLE flight on UA.

Lurker :)

Yet :D :p

My nephew in high school’s interested in being a pilot. I hear a pilot shortage now helping the job market but what are job prospects in 10 years? With increasing automation would the FAA eventually allow 1 or even 0 pilots to fly planes cutting a lot of pilot jobs?

We’re no where close to having pilotless aircraft for passenger transport. Amongst other things, the infrastructure just isn’t there to support this now or in the near future.

Both my boys have expressed desire to fly and I’m 100% behind their decision once they get older. It’s very expensive for the flight training which is a huge barrier for entry. Realistically, from day 1 flight training to being competitive for a pilot position with United or another legacy carrier would be 9-10 years working at it full time.

The hiring forecast in my opinion will be strong, there’s so many pilots retiring even if they increase the max age to 67 from currently 65. I think we’re losing 1/3 of our pilots at United to retirements in the next 8 years or so. Someone has to fill those seats.

I’ve had an amazing career so far at United, flown the B737, B756, B787, now the B777 with another 20+ years to go. Highly, highly recommend.

Off to Paris later this week!

Good luck to your nephew!

I was listening to Channel 9 🎉🎉🎉 while taxiing at LGA, and I heard an exchange like

controller- "you are CPDLC AA1234, right?"
AA1234- "no, we are not, AA1234"
controller- "you are not CPDLC?"
AA1234- "negative, we are not CPDLC"

Can someone decode what this means? I guess they are referring to "controller-pilot data link communications", but why would there be confusion about whether a flight "is" or "isn't" CPDLC? And how does a flight "be" CPDLC?

I think AA1234 was holding while waiting for some kind of reroute at that time, but I might have mixed up some of the previous communications. Unfortunately I forgot the actual AA flight number, so 1234 is a placeholder.

CPDLC is like text messaging directly from ATC, it reduces the verbal communication required between pilots/ATC.

In this case, maybe the CPDLC Datalink wasn’t working prior to departure or started to fail in flight, who knows.

I imagine the controller was sending messages to AA1234 that were being kicked back as undeliverable. In your scenario most likely the reroute was trying to be sent via CPDLC because those can take quite a bit of time via voice phonetically spelling out each fix.

CPDLC is a cool feature, improves accuracy with clearances, and makes work loads significantly less for all parties.

Not all airplanes are equipped with CPDLC. Some with it can only to DCL (the initial departure clearance) and not accept further clearances. Aircraft without CPDLC receive their pre-departure clearance, at most airports, via PDC through ACARS. It's an earlier version clearance via datalink but it is also limited to a single pre-departure message and can't do updates.

ClubORD's fleet would all have CPDLC and satcom for oceanic crossing. Domestic fleets, some do, some don't.

The controller should have known as the CPDLC status is filed in the flight plan.

Curious- last night SFO-LAS UA504. depart 2303. Flt 504 MCI-SFO was delayed and arrived after we departed.
When there are 2 aircraft with same designation in close vicinity is the call sign amended?

It can happen, but for ATC purposes there will be a letter suffix added to one of the flights to distinguish them -- i.e. "United 504-Tango."

According to FR24, the SFO-LAS was called UAL504J: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/a...18220#3af5fde6