kb9522

LarryJ

You, and others, are using 20/20 hindsight. If the agent knows that it will only take a two minute delay to accommodate a late-connecting passenger they'd take the two minute delay almost every time. In the OP's case, he made it to the gate, in a different concourse, less than ten minutes after his inbound flight blocked in. That's impressive! It's not typical and certainly couldn't be expected by the agent working the departing flight.

I have mentioned the new IT program to help with the hold/go decision making process. I saw it in action last night.

I was flying the last flight of the night between two hub cities. About ten minutes before our scheduled departure the agent came to the cockpit and explained that a late-inbound UX flight had six connecting passengers and that they'd like to hold the flight for them. We departed 24 minutes late with those six passengers, and their luggage, on board. Factors which went into the decision were favorable winds, the ability to increase cruise speed, and that the airplane and crew was terminating for the night so there would be no ripple effects to other flights. We bumped up the cruise speed, took advantage of the favorable winds, and arrived four minutes late.

Just before we closed up to depart, we heard for the F/As in the back of the airplane of a passenger who was getting agitated over the delay but nothing more came of it. I guess you can't please everybody.

ermintrude

TA

What we need for this thread to productive is those employees who actually can see the comprehensive impact of a delay or choice to delay / hold a flight on the passengers, crew, aircraft, ground systems, etc. I would trust the airline to have that view, and in the cases where a few minutes delay could help some misconnects while not impacting the entire plane, hold it if possible.

In the absence of someone like that adding to this thread, it's all people just yelling their anecdotal opinion on whether a certain flight should've been held, without any knowledge of whether it was the system-wide correct thing to do. And in the absence of specific knowledge about any given flight, I would defer to the airline's call in dispatching the flight on time even if I myself were delayed.

Now, if you find that all your connections and flight choices seem to be leading to frustrating <5min misconnects, maybe you should then choose a different route / airline to serve your needs. I would rather rely on an airline to fly its schedule and be able to decide for myself whether those published times suit me, than every time hope / roll the dice that a pilot or operations controller decides to hold the flight.

SFOrunner

Agree. My MSP-SFO flight on 2/1/18 was delayed by 3.5 hours due to ATC in SFO (only using one runway I believe). We arrived in SFO about 3.0 hours late, and the FA made an announcement that they were holding an SFO-AKL flight for 15 minutes to allow a handful of pax to make the connection. No clue if the pax had status, but they all appeared to be kettles.

mduell

I had SFO-HKG held an hour and change for 70 kettles connecting from latin america.

Often1

It's common to hold the TPAC flights. It's a 24-hour delay if they misconnect and those flights are often sold out, so it could be even longer or require a lousy reroute. On the flip side, it may be possible to make up time enroute by any number of means.

While it seems horrible to wait at the gate, the real question is not how long a delay the aircraft took on departure, but how late it was into its destination.

FullFare

How do you "rely on an airline to fly its schedule" when there are so many variables that can be responsible for any one flight being late---and such events ripple into other flights being late? Why get hard ... to a passenger who is within minutes of getting to his/her flight when the passenger just as likely booked a reasonable connection, and such connection didn't happen because of some unpredictable and unanticipatable delay? When the option is cutting the passenger a 2 - 5 minute break, I think it is platitudinous to advocate for the airline to keep its "CoC" rules of rigidity. Come on. Classicaly, nearly all airlines' schedules deteriorate toward the end of the day---some more than others---and UA is as famous for it as any carrier. I find the lack of empathy for this passenger the pits.

This is the carrier (UA) that famously dragged the doctor off the plane some months ago, with a vow of the CEO, Munoz, to have a kinder, gentler airline. I gave up on UA after 2.5m lifetime miles a few years ago. I only take UA when they have the dominant non-stop option on a route I need to take (and hold my breath during the experience).

I am impressed with the poster's willingness to sacrifice himself for the airline's schedule when he could have been accommodated on a flight that he needed to make, especially if it were not due to his own negligence or poor planning. I have a hard time believing it, though. Truly. More love for the airline than it has ever merited, IMHO. Having the door slammed in your face, especially with a few minutes before scheduled departure, after rushing to make an unexpected difficult connection----just plain sucks.

No, I am not just another poster "yelling an anecdotal opinion". This passenger was treated poorly in this situation, and it could well have been handled differently, rather than carp on how several minutes here would have been a disastrous decision by a pilot or a GA for the airline's schedule. If the passenger could have walked with his feet and found another carrier, I would imagine he would have. Walking away from any of the big 3 carriers these days is not a great option, however, given that the system has morphed into a classic oligopoly. As has been said often, the carriers are really all the same, just different paint on the planes. A non-uplifting discussion, IMHO.

BF263533

The airline only looks at statistics and the bottom line. There were times the door was shut, I could watch my bags being loaded, and the plane sitting there another 15 - 20 minutes before push back.

Kevin AA

Good example of sadistic customer service.

mduell

I think your own argument undermines your point. What is the downstream impact of that 2-5 minute wait, delaying pushback by some number of minutes, etc etc. Your putatively "customer friendly" delays have ripple effects downstream, some of which are customer unfriendly to every customer on that airplane.

FullFare

The "putative" designation of "customer friendly delays" is your terminology, not mine. I'm speaking in the realm of common sense, which I suspect continues to elude you and others who appear to want to defend the airline to the death. And for what, I don't know.

For instance, what about the last flight of the day? What does the airline do? Stick it to the passenger, maybe get him a hotel, and pat itself on the back for conducting operations by the book? You, and all the posters defending dubious decisions by an airline, supposedly for the greater good fo all the passengers also on the plane, do not convince me.

I have put myself in the op's shoes from the start--something the airline would have done better to do. His cause and premise were, IMO, credible.

DC9MLMDW

I think the point is why any airlines holds a flight one day will not mean they will hold the same flight the next day as there are too many variables. I would think that if the person working the flight see that there is a late connection they would call operations and ask can we hold. Some of the variables should also include

Is the misconnect going to a close city where they could drive like LAX SAN or ORD MKE etc...

What is the flight schedule to that city or region. Is it a connection to some place where no other city is close by say someone connecting to a SLC flight in DEN. Or are they connecting to a LAX flight in SFO where if they misconnect in SFO the passenger might have options to SNA BUR PSP ONT etc..

While holding for 1 passenger for only a couple of minutes makes sense to that passenger for the other 150 passengers on the plane they might not agree. They might want to get home to see family after a long business trip, maybe they have a tight business dinner to make, maybe they have a early meeting the next day and every minute takes away from their time. A airline employee has to balance that when making a decision on how that effects everyone on the plane not just one or two passengers.

Maybe they are short staffed for that day in that station and that agent is needed to go work another flight at another gate. While 5 minutes in not that long it could impact an entirely different flight from leaving on time at a different gate.

Is there weather approaching, does operations see say a line of thunderstorms coming and thereby the ramp will close due to lightning if the plane does not get pushed on time. Holding for 5 minutes for a passengers and then the ramp closes for 30 minutes for lightning now causes more problems.

Does operations look at flight plans and see that say between ORD and DEN is a line of storms and the plane will take a northerly route to avoid the weather thereby adding flight time and now the flight is already going to arrive 15 minutes late and now they will add another 5 or 10 either making the return flight late or misconnecting customers in Denver. Is the Jetstream bad and a BOS to SFO flight will be late fighting a unusually strong headwind. Station operations people have a ton of information available to them.

In the case of airport with curfews like a SNA holding for 5 or 10 minutes could put the flight in danger of missing a curfew and having to divert to say LAX.

Was there misconnects from earlier in the day that will now get out because of irrops. Say during a weather event there are 10 or 15 misconnects from earlier flights now standing by, not holding this flight the airline will still fill the plane with paying passengers that misconnected from earlier flight due to no fault of their own. The plane still goes out full with fare paying customers.

It does not matter if we like it or not a supervisor and manager jobs are based on performance and stats. When they get their end of year review they will be held accountable for what their respective area did in performance. Using a round number say a supervisor has 1000 flights in his area for the year a 5% or 10% delay performance might mean the difference between a raise or no raise or even keeping his job. So a Supervisor, manager, or operations person has to balance the needs of the operation, station performance, and what works for the customer when making a decision.

Speaking of station performance metrics, how did that station perform for the day. Has everything been leaving on time and they can afford 1 delay or has numerous flights been leaving late and here is an opportunity to get a on time departure.

Unfortunately we as passengers will never know in the majority of cases why they hold or not. However we need to accept that airlines hire supervisors, managers, and operations people to look at those issues and make a informed decision even if we do not agree with it. They have the complete story and sometimes they do make the wrong decision in hindsight.

Aussienarelle

Except look at post #64 for the day this happened...

DC9MLMDW

Unfortunately you cannot say with 100 percent certainty that the same gate agent / ramp / mechanic / operations person / supervisor worked all the SAN flights. Yes it looks like they all left early which might be related or it might not be. Lets say the flight before had all confirmed passengers checked in and on board then why wait why not leave early. That earlier flight has no bearing on your flight.

That is why I also said they always do not make the right decisions in hindsight. Nobody is perfect and based on your status they probably could have held the flight several more minutes to see if you showed up.

It also could be as easy as a lazy agent who was about to get off his / her shift or was going on break / lunch and wanted to wrap things up (Not saying this is right or the correct thing to do). We all know that every airline has great agents and not so great agents. Some go that extra mile and some look for an easy way out. That is why I also said there are so many variables on a day to day basis we as passengers will never know the complete story on why a plane was held or not.

That is why you can probably go to any airline forum Delta, AA, Southwest and hear very similar stories in similar situations because with 1000 of flights a day at various stations across the country with 1000 of different employees some decisions are good and some not so good. It sucks to be on the wrong end and I have slept in airports and had to drive to other cities being on the wrong end and I have also been on the winning end in all of my travels. We can just hope that there is actual checks and balances and that a supervisor or manager reviews the flights in his or her area and would question an agent or operations person and say hey there was a 1K or GS making a connection why did you close when you did. We all know that does not happen on every flight or in every station but that is what a supervisor or manager is supposed to do "manage or supervise the operation"