cfischer

UA1078 BOS-EWR 319 4 hrs late due to aircraft maintenance
UA207 BOS-SFO 752 2 hrs late due to aircraft maintenance

UA242 SFO-BOS 752 cancelled due to aircraft maintenance

therefore tomorrow's

UA207 BOS-SFO 752 cancelled due to aircraft maintenance

findark

This was a bit of a weird one... for UA5932 SFO-MSP today appears to have some kind of mx issue. I'm mostly perplexed by the data I was getting from FLIFO and curious how this is possible.

At 11:45am:

At 12:05pm:

Now:

lincolnjkc

I'm curious about the source of the FLIFO data. If it was directly from SHARES I'd find it very odd and I don't have a good explanation without knowing what's going on under SHARES' hood as far as data distribution and synchronization (things that the IT/engineering side of my brain would love to know more about but chances are I never will )

If it's from a GDS gateway, one possible explanation is that you were seeing cached results from different proxies/optimizers/content delivery networks where the node you hit at the middle time had older/stale data than the nodes hit for the other queries (or alternatively that the same node returned the 2nd and 3rd results but had been updated/refreshed in the time between the queries)

findark

Pulling from EF, but I'm not sure a distributed systems explanation really accounts for how it was ever blocked out at 11:11a. Notably, for each of the datapoints, the Flight Status on ua.com showed the same info.

lincolnjkc

The "ever blocked out at 11:11" could be explained by a return to gate that wasn't coded as such, but if UA was showing the same data my hypothesis about stale data is shot.

I'm not sure to what extent UA permits this (and who has the abilities to do it) but it could have been a manual update (why?) that then got replaced when the ACARS "OUT" message actually got sent.

findark

Right.. my wondering is something along the lines of whether it's even possible for anyone to edit this manually in their normal duties (I'm sure a hacker could do anything). Normally a push and return to gate would be logged with all of those entries (OUT/ RR/ OUT/ with a new letter). It makes me a bit suspicious about the obsessive focus on D0 these days, especially if they locked the door and someone overrode the OUT message without ACARS input (if that's even possible).

cfischer

UA557 IAH-EWR 772 cancelled due to aircraft maintenance

PsiFighter37

Seeing today’s 7:45 AM LAX-EWR flight delayed until 11:30 AM as they are ‘awaiting aircraft’.

ContinentalFan

My favorite ship is N396UA; I stalk it. Yesterday, I discovered that it would be operating between LAX and EWR this week. I was excited. Today, as often happens, it was no longer operating flight 2041. I went looking for the ship and, right now, it’s performing UA2778 on its way from SFO to LAX—empty. The strange thing is, according to Flightaware, it’s supposed to be at SFO on Tuesday morning to fly the first flight to Boston. I can’t find this lorning’s flight back up to SFO, so that the aircraft will be positioned to leave for BOS. I’m curious why it’s flying to LAX now, if the ship has to basically turn around after 2 am to fly back to SFO? Has anyone any ideas as to what’s going on?

I went digging some more. Flight 2778 was scheduled to depart on Monday, but was delayed. It turns out there’s a flight 2779 on Tuesday, operated by N596UA, from LAX to SFO leaving at 10 pm. There are a few seats blocked off—the same seats as UA2778 on Monday—but the aircraft is empty. Flightaware seems to be messed up. Maybe it’s going to LAX for maintenance?

DENviaLAX

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N596UA

Looks like the SFO-BOS-SFO turn for 3/13 is cancelled and it's doing LAX-EWR-LAX instead. Still shows it operating SFO-BOS-SFO on 3/14, but nothing showing on flight aware about how it's going to get back up to SFO to do that.

ContinentalFan

Thanks I just noticed too that it’s performing UA1171 on Tuesday from LAX to EWR, then returning to LAX in the afternoon. It’s still returning from SFO from LAX at 10 pm on Tuesday as UA2779–empty. Maybe they are repositioning aircraft caused by the weather on the west coast.

ekchidiya

UA 977 EWR - ORD this morning.

• Scheduled dep 8.00 AM from EWR
• 7.55ish - Captain comes on to say "some problem with 'AC Pack'.. we need only one to fly to ORD.. removal will take same time as repair..maintenance wants to repair.. etc." (I am just quoting whatever I could catch, may not be totally accurate). Folks allowed to walk off if they want. Also helpfully announces that the next flight (8.45 AM) is also delayed by an hour, possibly more, for unknown reasons. Lots of people pick their stuff and head back into the terminal. Some with connections go out to try getting re-routed.
• 8.45 - No sign of folks who have left coming back. Folks on the plane beginning to wonder. Crew has no idea of status.
• 8.50ish - Captain comes on to say another maintenance issue needs another 20 odd minutes. Does not describe the issue.
• 9.05 - Gate Agent comes on to say it will take another hour so everybody needs to deplane. Does not explain if that means pax will board back on same plane or different one.
• 9.15 - Gate agent in the terminal says they expect boarding to resume by 10.00 AM since it will take 45 mins to get it sorted. Some pax bail at this point to the 8.45 AM UA 426 which is now rescheduled to 10.00 AM or the 10.07 AM UA 470. I decide to bail on the original flight and take my chances with one of the other two flights. I had a CPU on the original flight and lucked out in getting another CPU on UA 426 - Flight Deck ATC Radio being available on the new flight was added bonus!
• 9.20 - Original flight suddenly announces boarding, right about when I am getting my new BP on UA 426. *arghhh*
• 9.50 - Original flight starts paging for some missing passengers. Maybe I did the smart thing after all
• 9.55 - UA 426 starts boarding. So now we have 3 United flights to ORD bunched up together
• 10.01 - UA 470 leaves its gate 4 mins early (the only on-time flight)
• 10.15 - UA 977 leaves gate (late by 2+ hours by now)
• 10.40ish - UA 426 leaves gate (slightly less than 2 hours late)
• All 3 planes go through deicing and join the long runway queue at 20+ positions. I can hear it all on the Radio
• Eventually the on-time flight makes it to ORD first, closely followed within 10 mins by UA 426 (surprise!) and UA 977 follows a leisurely 15 mins later - completely reversing the originally scheduled order.

TLDR: UA977 was delayed 2+ hours, followed by UA426 also getting delayed and resulting in 3 UA planes to ORD flying together and landing in reverse order of their schedule.

onthesam

UA 5984 ORD-SLC presently delayed due to cockpit door locked but nobody in cockpit. pilots locked out of the cockpit. MX attempting to solve

*Cue seinfeld music* "ladies and gentlemen, ohhh boy this is bit embarrassing"

LarryJ

There is a way to get into a locked cockpit within about 30 seconds. If that isn't working then it is a maintenance issue with the door that would have to be fixed before flight regardless of who is, or is not, in the cockpit.

onthesam

Thanks @LarryJ - definitely the MX issue. OO MX (props to them) spent a little over 35 minutes working the issue including poking around inside the cockpit with a large pole from a panel under the cockpit and (apparently) trying to work the cockpit door from inside the plane and eventually got it open.