Delayed flights on ual.com
 

I went to ual.com this morning to look up the status of UA1552 ORD-DAY. The flight shows up on the schedule as:
UA 1552 dep ORD 8:08 AM arr DAY 10:10 AM

The flight was running late because of high winds in the Midwest. Under flight status, it shows up as:
Status: Arrived
Actual departure time 8:29 AM (2 min Late)
Flight Arrived at Gate 10:15 am (5 min Late)

Now my grade school Math is somewhat rusty, but didn't the flight depart 21 minutes late, not 2?

I have noticed this apparant inconsistancy on just about every flight.

My guess is that they measure the lateness of a departure from the time it was scheduled to take off, allowing for taxi time, as opposed to the flight time, or push back time. Does anyone else know if my theory is correct?

As of last week, my husband and I swear we will not fly United if we do not have to. We sat on the airplane for 2 hours in the runway and then were told to get off. They insisted the flight was not cancelled. We were to arrive Chicago at 2pm. The airline stewardess told me the flight had been cancelled but it never was announced to anyone else. 200 people stould in line to be rerouted while I went to the front desk and to ask. The front desk had no knowledge of the cancellation. The flight was cancelled but United is great at not posting delays and cancellations. They did a special on dateline. Dateline knew but the ticket agents were never informed. This is the 3rd time this has happened to us. 3 out of 3 flights. Because it is never posted, it takes 5 times as long just to convince the agent your flight is delayed or cancelled. On a good note, Northwest called me at my home and destination to inform me a flight was cancelled and they already rerouted me.

My experience - as a Premier Exec - is that they will lie about a flight staus to prevent passengers from bolting to other carriers.

So when a flight is long delayed and possibly cancelled, report it in small increments so that people believe that they have a chance of the flight leaving soon.

I never had a particular opinion about airline mergers but given the horrendous level of service that is the norm, I am against anything that further reduces competition.

How many of us would fly United if there was a similar sized airline with merely "Good" service?

My favorite "United Lying" experience:

Last year, during the SFH, I was scheduled out at 2pm to fly SFO-LAX (notoriously delayed due to weather). I setup flight paging, and called the 800 number about 80 mins before my flight to check on its status. Both paging and auto-status-guy ("Hold on while I look up that itinerary..")
said the flight was ontime.

Get to SFO 20 minutes later, look up at the board, and my flight is delayed by 2 hours.

Walk up to the PE desk, and ask why the flight is delayed. The guy behind the counter looks me straight in the eye and says: "weather".

I look outside (it's 70 degrees and sunny)
LA weather (I checked) was 78 degrees and sunny.
AA flights were running on time (saw this on my walk to the counter)

So I ask him: "Weather where"

He says: "here in SFO"

I said: "Hold on a minute"..and proceeded to call PE desk on the 800 number right in front of him.

The woman on the phone gently informs me that there is a mechanical. I put her on speakerphone so he can hear her. I thank her and hang up. Now, confronting him with it, he says with a straight face:

"Well, that's what they told us."

OK, now this defense didn't work at Nuremberg, and it's certainly not going to work for me here. I just laugh maniacally. Perhaps that was wrong, but geez - look outside, dude!

...and he said it with a straight face the whole time.

Although it may very well be that UA supes and mucky-mucks are the principal liers in this (and the other 3 scenarios in which this has happened), I don't like being lied to, and have made a new resolution to get everyone's name, times/dates and write letters insanely until they stop this practice.

In this regard, UA is almost as bad as MCI. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif Can someone please please please tell them that lying is only going to piss us off even more? Perhaps we should have raised that in last night's chat (which I regretfully missed).

The moral of the story: call and talk to the people (more than one) at the airport until you collect all the stories, then write a letter.

<G>

UA is not lying about the times....everyone chill out! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

The system measures four times, which is transmitted to Apollo and I guess the website accesses from Apollo....
-Pushback from the gate (which from the DAY flight is 2 minutes late)
-Actual liftoff from the runway (which is reflected in the 8:29AM departure time)
-Actual touchdown on the runway
-Actual arrival time at the gate.

So, if you were continually pulling up the information on flight 1552 LIVE as it was happening, you would notice two departure times reflected.....at 0810 you would see one departure time (2 min Late which is correct) and then at 0829 the actual TAKEOFF time would be indicated. Now from the information posted I couldn't tell you the actual landing time, but for the sake of discussion let's say it is 1010 - if you are pulling this up at 1010 you will see that time posted. Then, when the flight finally gets to the gate at 1015, that arrival time will change (5 minute late which is correct.

So, in any event when you look at these after a flight, remember that the time late/early after the departure time reflects variance from scheduled PUSHBACK from the gate.

The time listed on departure time will reflect TAKEOFF time, thus the inconsistency between the time late/early and the time posted as departure.



[This message has been edited by basenji (edited 04-13-2001).]

I also think the data is fed to the screens at the airport and to automated voice system and perhaps the web only every 15 minutes....at least that is what I was told by several UA reservation agents when I 've asked in the past.

I find it troubling that there are so many statements about UA personnel LYING. My experience is that the staff at UA and other carriers and in other occupations rely on the information presented to them through the sources most accessible, i.e. Apollo. and if they don't have a reason, they infer one from past experience, such as LAX SFO being late due to weather. It may not make us happy, but I don't think I'd call it lying. Having said that, I wasn't there to see the look on the face of the individual.