I recall this on a delayed SNA-SFO several years ago. Crew announced while boarding to try to speed things up.

Also heard this a few weeks ago on an AS flight while holding on a taxiway. Captain gave wheels up time (which happens probably around 50% of flights I’ve been on into SFO during runway/taxiway work) while also mentioning possibility that it could be up to 5 minutes earlier.

Could be either. ATC, turbulence, winds, etc.

My ORD-EWR last night had an almost identical "smiley face" path over Ohio/WV and the captain announced at top of descent that we had been detoured "quite a bit" to get around "some weather"

Looking at that flight path I’d bet the Williamsport Arrival, which is the primary arrival from the west into EWR got shut down. The aircraft was then re-routed on the Philbo Arrival and entered from the NY airspace from the south instead.

This was a westbound flight out of Newark...however lincoln's flight, presumably 2039, did come in on the PHLBO4, as you note.

Curious what would shut down Williamsport? It's been calm as a cucumber here in the EWR area for the last week -- just hot.

Note they descended to FL260 (pretty low for crusing) over WV, which is consistent with the turbulence/ATC guesses above.

https://www.flightaware.com/live/fli...847Z/KEWR/KPHX

Just to note the descent was from 28K to 26K. Aircraft cruised at 28K pretty much the entire way to WV before the 2K descent and then the turn.

It sure has been hot, it’s no joke!

Thunderstorms that are located on the arrival corridors are usually the cause for an entire arrival to shut down. On FQM arrival, going 10-15 miles either way to deviate around the storms plugs your right into the LGA/TEB/JFK arrivals and there just isn’t enough airspace for everyone.

Typing on the treadmill, missed that fairly important detail, Ha!

Thanks for the pointing that out.

Recently flew on a CRJ ORD-MKE https://www.flightaware.com/live/fli...425Z/KORD/KMKE
I saw a small storm getting close to MKE. After boarding the pilot announced "we're going to give it a try". I thought it was interesting wording.
I was listening to ATC, They had us hold for like 10 seconds just before we lined up on the runway because they wanted to check if we were still ok to goto MKE but let us go.
Just before landing, we performed a go around. The pilot said they lost sight of the runway
Then we went back to ORD. Went back to a gate and waited an hour before leaving. Arrived a little over 2hrs late.

For comparison sake the AA flight left an hour after us and landed ontime https://www.flightaware.com/live/fli...515Z/KORD/KMKE

I'm curious what kind of factors go into deciding something like this.

1. I was a little surprised we left ontime because the storm looked pretty narrow, it seemed like delaying us 30-60min would have been enough to avoid it. Did UA decide to take a chance to avoid a delay? Even just before takeoff, ATC thought it was ok though.
2. When we did the go around, I wasn't surprised but I was surprised when we headed back to ORD. I thought we'd just wait in the air for 30-60min then land. We'd probably have to fly half way back to ORD and back to get around the storm as it passed. Was the airspace too busy for us to stick around? By the time we landed at ORD, it looked like the storm had almost passed. I know a CRJ can hold enough fuel to circle around. Does the extra fuel cost more than coming back and landing and going out again? Is there a landing weight issue taking so much extra fuel for such a short flight?
3. I was surprised we then waited an hour instead of just fueling up and leaving. I did hear that they found some sort of maintenance item on the walkaround but no one made any announcement so maybe we would have left earlier. Maybe just alot of paperwork to be done or getting in line to go out again?

Doesn't LENDY stay high for quite a bit longer? MIP for sure has a similar descent profile.

Non-pilot answer so please bear that in mind...

In terms of "taking a chance", it's worth pointing out no pilot will ever take a chance on safety. They likely evaluated the weather and believed that conditions would improve by the time they got there. Thunderstorms can be difficult to predict. Also, it's semantics but I'm sure someone will point out this was technically Skywest, so it would have been their pilots and dispatchers evaluating and making those decisions.

On the divert to ORD vs. holding issue: my understanding is it boils down to fuel remaining, but as part of that calculation, they also need to be able to reach their alternate airport (in this case ORD), execute a missed approach, and still land with fuel remaining over a certain amount. It's speculation on my part as I wasn't there, but one possible chain of events is after the go around, they did not have enough fuel remaining to either hold or make another attempt, then divert to ORD, and land with the minimum required fuel. It's also not an estimate or gut check, there are very specific calculations involved prior to every flight.

On the hour delay on the ground in ORD: difficult to say without being there, but if you overheard something about a maintenance issue it's certainly conceivable something came up that took about an hour to address.

Every situation is unique. The decisions are made based on information that usually is not known to the passengers.

A storm, such as you describe, will prevent landings for a relatively short period of time. Extra holding fuel can be limited based on a number of factors including the payload (passengers, bags, and cargo) that will be carried and how far away (fuel burn) the available alternates are. A short flight will be limited by max landing weight. If you are heavy, and bring too much extra fuel, you will be too heavy to land when you arrive.

When you get there and can't land, you calculate a fuel level that allows you to leave the hold, proceed to the destination, fly an approach, missed approach, and divert to your alternate and land with a sufficient reserve. If you enter a hold and find out that there are already a number of airplanes holding who are in front of you in the line to land, you might find that you won't be able to hold long enough to wait your turn. In that case, you divert early.

I understand no sane pilot will "take a chance", that is why I thought his wording was "interesting" for an announcement to passengers. Yes I assume they went back because of insufficient fuel, however I thought that it was common for pilots to put on more fuel if they knew there was a chance of needing to hold. It seems like they decided to go back pretty quickly after the missed landing. The "hour" timing was determined prior to the maintenance item. Ofcourse maybe they were ready to go early because I heard about the maintenance item about 30min after we got off, something like "we found a maintenance item on our walkaround so we can't leave yet"

Yes, I know the information isnt usually known to passengers unless disclosed, that is why I ask the question. Landing weight was my first thought (very short flight(15min) + hold time maybe 2-4X flight time, I dont know the limits of the CRJ, flight was full). Delaying would have gotten us there earlier, but I guess they thought we'd make it. If we were 10min earlier, we probably would have been ok. MKE doesn't get that much traffic, I wouldn't think there would have been many planes holding but it's a good point.