Delayed flights
 

Can anyone tell me why the flights out of MKE to ORD have been delayed 8 of the last 11 days. And it isn't just the last 11 days. This has been going on for a couple of months. I have changed my flight because I had only 2 1/2 hours layover to now almost 6 hours and I am concerned still. A couple delays have been 4+ hours.

Wasn’t this asked elsewhere? But it’s a 60 mile flight. They’re about as low on the priority list you can get so will be the first to be delayed or canceled. Why not just uber, rent a car, or even Amtrak? Would be much more efficient than that layover.

Weather
Traffic volume, compounded by construction at ORD
ATC staffing restrictions

There must be a really good motivation to book flights out of MKE with 6 hours connecting time versus booking the same flights out of ORD and finding a different means to get to ORD. If you help us understand what the factors are, you will likely get lots of good advice here.

Just in case --- If you do decide to use your current plans but find your own way to ORD, don't forget that skipping your MKE-ORD flight will automatically cancel the rest of your ticket. If you do elect to fly out of ORD instead of MKE, you'll need to change your ticket, too.

With our flights it is considerable cheaper to fly out of MKE.

this would be a common reason - price often considerably cheaper from an airport near a hub vs. from a hub.

with its Chicago hub and ability to charge a ‘nonstop premium’, UA has good pricing power there. From MKE, you have multiple airlines that can connect you, and no reason, all else being equal, to fly UA vs. AA vs. DL. So price is used as a hook.

I had a few trips to MKE last year from SFO. Last few trips I started taking the CoachUsa bus from ORD to MKE and vice versa. Was pretty much on time. Inexpensive, and almost always beat the flight if you include layover tome.... Plus I had more flexibility booking sfo ord without
being tied to connection timing

No one really answered OP -- the real reason is that a landing slot is a landing slot-- and the flights from MKE just don't carry enough passengers to matter that much -- so they are the first to get cancelled when things get constrained -- it's just the reality of air travel today.....

I seem to recall reports here UA has chartered (not the scheduled service thats going away at ABE & FNL) busses or given vouchers for busses a few times when MKE-ORD-MKE was canceleld.

Well, a 737 for MKE carries as many people as a 737 from SAN. What you say is true for the RJs, of course.

Close-in airports, like MKE, are subject to an ATC procedure called "Call for Release". When each flight calls to push (or taxi), MKE tower requests a release time for the flight. This happens no matter how good, or bad, the weather might be. At that time, ATC looks at the inbound flow into ORD and assigns a time when there will be space to insert that MKE flight into the flow into ORD on the FYTTE arrival.

More distant airports don't have call-for-release. They can be impacted by a ground delay program which is similar in that they also will receive a wheels up, or release, time but the ground delay programs are only implemented when needed.

I live in BNA and commute to ORD. BNA is also a call-for-release airport for ORD but, since we are farther away, the impact is usually less as there are more options to flight those flights into the flow on the VEECK arrival.

How often does MKE get a 737 from ORD?

While it is probably a low priority flight, isn't there a lot of people connecting? So cancelling it will affect multiple flights

United uses analysis tools to evaluate the impact of cancelling flights when flow restricted. I saw a demo of it at a FT DO at Chicago HQ many years ago, so imagine it is much more effective now.

They can quickly compare the results of cancelling 2 different flights, using a variety of metrics. Number of misconnects, overall average delayed arrival to destination times (looking at the rebooking options), etc.
They can even break it out by M+ status.

However, I don't know how coordinated it is with any of the UAX operators, if at all.

MKE-ORD is primarily a CRJ-200 market at this point, with quite a bit of frequency.

The VEECK arrival? :D Now that's a legacy. https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/veeck-bill

With the exception of the flights that SkyWest operates at risk, I suspect that UA has complete control over which flights go out and which don't for the Express carriers as well -- otherwise, you wouldn't see the Express cancellation rates that you do. If Republic is making the decisions, they're not going to cancel their flight just so that UA can land one more larger plane. :D

What does "operates at risk" mean?