ermintrude

Also not good that there was no car or GS agent to meet you at SFO......were the gates close?

ermintrude

One of my nephews (GS) recently missed his flight from LAX due to the gate closing ~ 10 mins early.

The big surprise here is the fact that they didn't wait for a GS.

Apparently UA has posted signs around LAX stating UAs great on-time departure performance. I don't think that most people understand that D0 isn't customer friendly. It's not a parameter designed to benefit the consumer - it's simply a metric that UA can control. The consumer want's on time arrival - A14 or if you are really picky A0 (I could care less about A0).

Coskigirl

Do you mean closing it 10 minutes before departure or 10 minutes before the stated "boarding ends" time?

transportprof

A0 is all about the connections in a world where Kirby is tightening the flight banks at UA's hub airports. If i have a 42 minute connection at SFO, then the difference between A0 and A14 is material. A0 is necessary to run big banks of connecting flights through major hubs.

I think that some pax will appreciate the tighter connections because they get where they're going faster, and also the tighter timekeeping because it improves the reliability of those connections.

TCD

I don't see how you can control for A0 if you're not controlling for D0. Even if you pad the schedule unexpected delays happen on the tarmac at both ends of the flight. I'm pretty certain that there is a direct correlation between departure times and arrival times.

So on balance I like the focus on what they can control, getting flights pushed back on time, so that we're more likely to land on time, or even early.

ermintrude

DL doesn't follow the D0 model and has better A0/A14 performance than UA.

Catbert10

IMO, tightening the banks is the real unfriendly customer move. I prefer 1.5 hours between connections - 30m for my flight to be late, 30m to get between gates and perhaps grab a bite to eat, and 30m to board. Cut those connections down to 40 - 45 minutes and I can barely get to my connecting gate before the flight is boarding. Move A0 to A14 and at best I'm gate checking my rollaboard and at worst I'm trying to get on the next flight 3 hours later. It's bad enough having to stress connections due to delays. Why do they have to make every normal connection stressful? And forget about eating in the airport. Sure, I possibly cut 30 - 45m off my travel time but now I eat dinner either at 4pm or 11pm. Gee, thanks

transportprof

I also prefer a more leisurely connection, and rarely book a connection on the first departure after my flight's arrival. But tightening the banks is about sweating the assets and squeezing more productivity out of each gate, aircraft, etc.

jhayes_1780

+1 need to know that before we blame D0

Not really a surprise, too many other factors we don't know: Was the plane already full of GS? Was it an earlier departure of a wingtip flight? Or a destination like LAX-SFO that has pretty heavy frequency?

DENviaLAX

Simply put, to make money. Having tighter connections and ground times allows planes to spend more time in the air, which is where airlines make their money. Kirby mentioned some specific numbers answering a question about this recently, and it's quite staggering how much difference reducing MCT and such has on revenue. If they were to stretch things out to make longer connections, it'd require ticket prices to increase dramatically. And since most people buy purely on price alone, there is your answer as to why airlines don't do it.

mike2003242

I prefer my flights leaving late, especially when I have connections.....

transportprof

And when I have connections, I prefer that the flight I'm on arrives early....

emcampbe

Define 10 minutes early? If you are basing it on departure time minus 10 minutes, the pax was late already - domestic flights require you be ready for boarding at T-15, and international, T-30. No, the gates don't always close at that time, but that's the time they can, per the COC. I've seen it happen...many times. It doesn't always, but does sometimes. And well before Kirby ever showed up at UA, too, so this isn't necessarily a result of that. PMUA, it was t-10, and even then, you had employees doing it then (as they got bonuses for meeting OTP guidelines).

If the gate closed at T-25 minutes prior to a domestic flight, then yes, that is unacceptable.

Me as well. Well, to be clear, if I'm traveling on my own, there are times I don't mind short connections. Even just me and my wife, sometimes we don't mind. But depends on the situation. And even though I know my frequent connection points, like ORD, well enough that I could probably transit with my eyes closed, many of us have other factors. Knowing the airport well doesn't help me when I'm traveling with my 2 and a half year old daughter who wants to walk the entire way to our connection, and anyone with a kid knows they can't walk as fast as an adult. So I need to build in extra time for that. And bathroom breaks, etc., etc.

I thought UAs stats for the past few months now include UAX flights, while DLs are only mainline. I'd guess that accounts for a large chunk of any difference. That'll change next year though, IIRC, when regional carrier flights need to be included in OTP performance.

That entirely depends. True about planes spending more time in the air have the potential to make more money. But if you book everyone transiting ORD at the minimum 35 minute connect time, for example, you'd also have a lot more folks missing connections, many of them for reasons within UAs control, and incurring more costs, especially for those missing the last flight of the night. And that can affect other things too - those that make those short connections no longer have time to sit and eat somewhere, or pick up a bag of Garrett's, or a latte at Starbucks, or even a newspaper from Hudson's, meaning their would likely be fewer vendors serving the passengers. Not to mention likely fewer passengers getting a club membership, because why bother if all you have time to do is run from one gate to the next. Which affects ORDs revenue, which would likely have to pass more of their costs into fees they charge carriers, which...well, you know, those will go to the pax in the form of the ticket prices too.

WineCountryUA

UA reverted to mainline only reporting at the beginning of 2017.

but you can see comparable metric from flightstats - mainline or full network for various airlines by months.

boat9781