cfischer

that's exactly right! And a huge part of the problem with high load factors as recovery becomes difficult. If you add that to the reluctance of UA to reroute OAL, it is not easy right now.
I got stuck in IAD last week and cursed myself for not SDCing to the EWR flight. Next day at work my colleagues told me they got stuck at EWR ... The brief look at the departure board had IAD-BRU 1 hr late & IAD-ACC 3 hours late due to maintenance. EWR-DUB was also 3 hours late due to maintenance.
Of course you can argue all is well ... I have no problem with that. I have gotten stuck a few times this year already, YMMV.

vip66

Here you go:

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/...253Z/KIAD/KDCA

jsloan

There are three relevant metrics available -- completion percentage, on-time percentage, and average delay. You can peek into them here: https://www.transtats.bts.gov/carriers.asp?20=E
. There's some lag in the statistics -- they're only updated through January at the moment.

Here's a breakdown of delay causes for January 2023: https://www.transtats.bts.gov/OT_Del...2ynB=qn6n&20=E . Approximately 7% of UA's flights were delayed for "air carrier delay," and another 7% for late inbound aircraft. However, the cancelation rate was 0.73%. Meanwhile, on a year-over-year basis, this represents an improvement in the air carrier delay category and a massive improvement in cancelations: https://www.transtats.bts.gov/OT_Del...2ynB=qn6n&20=E . (Note that none of these include Express).

So, again, I don't see any massive signs of deterioration here. And, of course, UA has the up-to-date stats they'd need to be aware of any ongoing maintenance issues in a way that we'll never replicate via crowd-sourcing.

DELee

And buzzing the tree tops - didn't get above 3K for the 12 minute flight!

David

p.s. Taxi time of 30 minutes @ IAD!

CALMSP

This will only continue/increase with the pilots becoming more grumpy about not being highest/best paid. Just look back to 2011/2012 as a memory.

vip66

Here my saga of maintenance issue affecting UA flights continues:

For this week, it is UA1663 DSM-ORD on 4/29. First delayed due to inbound delay, now maintenance issue on top of it. “our maintenance team needs to replace the windshield wipers on your plane.” Small issues alone but together propagate to affect my connecting flight.

It’s either me having really bad luck in the past 1mo+ or, more likely, it’s the UA starting to fall behind on preventative maintenance. Or maybe just a message from above ORD hub is something I should avoid by all means. 😂

PsiFighter37

I think some of it is dumb or bad luck. Took a recent business trip that had 4 mainline UA legs and one mainline AA leg, which was hub-hub (PHX-DFW). All UA flights arrived early, some by more than an hour. The AA flight was delayed by 30 minutes despite perfect weather and no announcement of any mechanical issuers or otherwise.

evol

you have terrible luck for delays, mechanical and otherwise. Itʻs a non-issue tho beyond your personal experience. by the same metric I say "OMG United is the most on-time airline in 2023" since the last 10 flights I took were all on time or early" (true story)

the narrative that "UA is falling behind on preventative maintenance" is wholly unfair; but perhaps you should avoid flying UA, or perhaps your unlucky streak will follow you to another airline.

vip66

Yes, my evidence is anecdotal and only applies to me, i.e., the flights I have flown. As you said, perhaps a (longish) unlucky streak.

However, even the purser on yesterday's DSM-ORD flight suggested he has been seeing more maintenance issues. I mean, there were also non-functioning DirecTV screens (they gave comp to the folks in First) and the lavatory sink (again, front cabin) was full of sanitary wipes as the tap was broken. This does not matter a lot on a 50min flight, but it raises signals about possible maintenance issues.

limey1K

Planes seem to be having their fair share of issues recently but I've been experiencing a lot of delays in DEN due to ground staffing issues. We waited an hour and 20 min for a tug driver to pull our plane from the hanger and bring it to the gate. This plane had arrived the night before and parked in the hanger. I made my LAX-MEL connection by 10 minutes and as BG5 was boarding. Same issue this week to push back from the gate for departure but the delay was only 20 minutes. I frequently see the same issue with jet bridge drivers being unavailable upon pulling up to the gate after landing.

clubord

<knock on wood>

I personally haven’t noticed any sharp increase of MX write ups (EWR 787.)

Anecdotally, more the planes fly - more MX items present themselves. Subsequently, the more time the planes are in the air, the less downtime the MX personnel has to fix the “cosmetic” items.

These cabin items tend to just be differed until a time where MX schedules everything just gets fixed all at once.

LarryJ

Same here on the 737.

Yesterday I flew two legs in a 25 year-old 737-800, one of the oldest. The MRD (Maintenance Release Document) was only two pages which, as you know, is as short as they get. (The MRD gets longer as more items deferred)

WineCountryUA

Instead of anecdotal data one can access more comprehensive data fairly easily.

UA does publishing in https://jetstream.united.com/ realtime stats on on-time arrival --- generally in the mid-70-ish to almost 80%, Note this is noisy data and a single weather event can cause significant swings. But if you wish you can track that and see if it is getting worse. UA use to publish month numbers but stopped that 3-4 years ago.

BTS provides monthly report on on-time arrival for carriers but it is delayed about two months, April 2023 reports on Feb 2023
Feb 2023 for systemwide was 78% and for mainline was 79%

April 2022 report for Feb 2022 shows UA systemwide and main line at 76% and 80%

Does not appear to be a significant year over year change for February.

Another source, FlightAware provides daily numbers on delays and cancellation

lincolnjkc

In the realm of anecdotal... I have 42 segments completed since January 1 and no MX delays greater than about 15 minutes ("waiting on the paperwork") -- I have seen more maintenance folks onboard the aircraft and seen/heard of more seats being placarded "Do Not Occupy" than I can remember from past years (1A on a E175 -- no visible problem with the seat but there was enough tape on the sign that it wasn't going anywhere) and some "overhead" issue in row 36 of a 739 that required the DEF pax to be relocated (I was in the front so I couldn't see the issue just overheard the various conversations)

I was a bit amused on arrival at CLE last week to see a MX guy roll up to the #1 engine in a cart with an armful of what looked like cans of oil before the jetbrige had even been positioned... Time for a 15 minute oil change?

In any event it's a lot easier to fix problems on the ground than at 30,000+ feet. And after a "We've lost all hydraulic pressure, but we'll be landing normally in about 20 minutes....the stopping might be a bit bumpy, though" flight about 10 years ago I'd much rather take a delay than a risk (If I remember the SDR correctly that aircraft had a bit of a trend of hydraulic system issues and left the UAX fleet not long after)

LarryJ

That paperwork is the MRD. It comes off the ACARS printer and contains the information that we need to verify that the airplane's logbook shows an airworthy airplane. When maintenence is completed, the mechanic uses his iPad to complete the electronic entry to the aircraft logbook and then send a new MRD to the aircraft.

One reason is that, now that its spring, we writing up that the windshields need to be cleaned a lot more often. Lots of bugs out there, apparently.

Not an oil change, but an oil service. That's accomplished frequently and usually results in oil being added. It only takes a few minutes.