Flight delay notifications now far more proactive?
 

May just be a coincidence but for flights yesterday (LAS-ORD-CLE) and today (CLE-ORD only) I've gotten notifications hours (+/- 6-ish hours yesterday, maybe 5ish today in advance departure that the flight would be delayed due to a late inbound aircraft for the CLE-involved segment.

My experience is that previously even if it seemed "obvious" that we'd have a delay UA tended to sit on officially posting the delay until very close to departure. Anyone else seeing this/know if this is an official change or just coincidence? (Of course I don't love the delays but I do appreciate the not pretending everything is OK and being able to judge gate arrival more appropriately)

[For ORD-CLE yesterday looking into the ship assignment history it seems our original aircraft had a series of 5+ hour delayed segments including ORD-SLC-ORD so they swapped us to a ship coming from SXM that had customs and the tow from international arrivals not been needed we would have been reasonably close to on time; I haven't looked into the cause of today's upstream delay(s) yet]

Also, and I think this is covered in a different thread, the app and website both insisted that I had been "rebooked" due to the delay but I was still on the original flights -- and indeed the only flights that would seem to make sense even with the delay without doing something really stupid.

Got it too today on a late inbound.
I'd already figured it out hours earlier myself, but the notification was appreciated.

Yes this is part of a concerted effort where "Every Flight Has A Story" - and we're using a lot of tech to improve and enhance the messaging to passengers to help reduce friction points.

I was recently on a 6AM SFO-ORD flight. The night before, I received a notification telling me that my flight was delayed due to the crew needing more rest. I saw the notification and happily adjusted my alarm to get a bit more sleep in before the flight.

More updates, but not necessarily more helpful. I was on an SFO-IAD flight recently where the flight eventually got delayed 4 hours - in installments, of course. However, I also got go to gate messages, and the app updated to show time till board ends several times. UA didn't seem to know, and the reps at the Club had to resort to calling the age to find out (after I politely declined going to the gate to find out myself) whether the flight was leaving or not (it was not).

I think that is case dependent... In my case both delays rolled, one UA probably should have seen coming at the same time as they posted the initial delay; in the other the delay rolled and cause changed (late inbound to weather) and the bounced a couple times (latest delay was 8:40, ultimate wheels up was about 8:15 with "departure" at 8:00...

I was actually really thrilled by that one because I thought the odds of UA moving up an announced delay -- especially that great were between slim and none.

Ua'll never make 100% of the people happy 100% of the time but this --feels-- far more transparent and less "we'll surprise you with a delay at the last second"-y as many of my delays previously gave felt

Definitely case dependent. I was most likely just caught in the system issues they experienced that day, while automated messages were probably triggered by incomplete info.

This is absolutely a positive move. But might they be getting ‘too’ proactive?

This past Monday morning. EWR-ORD. Woke up at the EWR Marriott, checked my app and got the dreaded orange triangle with the ‘!’ In it. Not sure what time this may have happened overnight or only just before I checked.

”One of your flights has been delayed. Select to confirm your current flight or select below from alternative flights”. Or something like that.

i didn’t want to commit to either, until finding out cause (late arrival/mechanical/etc) and estimated length of delay.

Checked UA flight status page - ‘on time’
Checked FlightAware - ‘on time’
Called UA - ‘don’t see any problem, looks on time’.
i pressed phone agent a couple times, and she said all looked fine.

i headed to the gate for boarding, started on time, departed gate early.

I thought a delayed flight can always go back and leave as early as the originally scheduled time. While this is unlikely at an outstation where you usually need the incoming plane to come in, UA could find another plane at a hub. So while I appreciate proactive announcements, I typically will always put myself in the position to get to the gate at the originally scheduled time. Am I off in my thinking?

Definitely the potential for a double edged sword -- I've also found (at least this month) once any flight triggers the "you're [possibly] screwed" notification that PNR carries that scarlet letter for the remainder of its existence even after the affected flight has long gone, e.g. today I was similarly alarmed checking in for ORD-EWR when the trigger was Sunday's CLE-ORD so I've kind of started to ignore it.

If you really want to know what's up with a flight timing I've found the "Flight Details" view on flightstats.com to be very informative as it captures most, if not all, time/gate/equipment/etc. changes from a couple days before the flight up through the completion of the flight, so you might see that someone delayed the flight by an hour than 15 minutes later there was an equipment change and the flight reverted to on time and that would explain why everything is "on time/no issue' but you got the alert.

That is the official line, however once a flight is delayed an on time departure is unlikely -- but I position myself so that I am at the airport and can make it to the gate with +/-30 minutes notice (e.g. at least enough time between the "we're boarding your flight" notification and departure. Practically this usually means a club near the departure gate if not the departure gate itself.

Yeah, I have never seen a flight move back earlier a lot. Off the top of my head, maybe I have seen a few times a flight delayed by 1+ hour recover 10-20 minutes? Maybe once I saw a flight recover top to 30 minutes at a hub when UA procured a different plane. But I was one burned... by Amtrak. Scarred forever by returning to an empty platform after having a nice, relaxing bite at the station Subway.

I had a flight back in feb IAH - LAX; flight was delayed 2 hours? iirc and we were notified at least 3-4 hours before hand.
Arrive at the airport, they move it BACK to on time, which was now in about 10 minutes.

Only to then have boarding time come and go by about 20 minutes before it got changed BACK to delayed.

Boarded an hour late, only to have to de-plane due to mechanical.
Still got into LAX though around 1am

Not to be too cynical, what was the load? I would be suspicious that it was a full flight or oversold situation and they were trying to get people to move to a less crowded flight.

This is not a thing.

Just received a text and email that ATC may delay my flight at EWR. They know my time is valuable and are working hard to resolve.

I’m at home. My flight (only one on booking reference quoted) landed 3 hours ago and was twenty minutes early but I appreciate their proactive management.