Is ACA Getting Sneaky???
 

Checking the current flight schedule from my home, MBS (Saginaw) to ORD, I see the following (Randomly chose May 29, 3 of 5 flights for the day):

UA 7467 Dep 6:00a, Arr 6:05a (1 hour 5 mins)
UA 7269 Dep 9:15a, Arr 9:15a (1 hour even)
UA 7255 Dep 7:40p, Arr 7:45p (1 hour 5 mins)

The other 2 MBS-ORD are about the same, as are the eastbound ORD-MBS flights, somewhere between 1:00 and 1:07.

The schedule loaded for summer shows the following (Aug 29, 3 of 5 daily flights, MBS-ORD):

UA 7269 Dep 10:40a Arr 11:10a (1 hour 20 mins)
UA 7525 Dep 1:31p Arr 1:47p (1 hour 16 mins)
UA 7255 Dep 6:19p Arr 6:55p (1 hour 36 mins)

The actual airtime on this 222 mile route runs between 32-38 minutes (keep in mind all of the above reflect a 1 hour time difference between MBS and ORD). When this was a mainline UA route less than a year ago, it was never scheduled more than 1:02 minutes for as long as I can remember. I verified by phone reservations that these are still non-stop flights.

I see this as one thing by ACA and United...These flights run so notoriously late that they are attempting to become heroes when they arrive as early as an hour ahead of time during smooth operations--I have seen a gate-to-gate flight of 40 mins before. Is this just a complete farce by ACA/UX or is it just me? I know that they are less than confident in the performance of ACA, but disallow me to make tighter connections (sometimes a blessing, I know) by scheduling flights up to 50% longer than they realistically should be? Can't they just schedule more ground time between flights and not have me wasting even more of my time?

This just seems very odd, and not right somehow.

I noticed roughly the same "schedule stretch" for CLE-ORD. This was for both Express and mainline service.

Hmm...

It's called "padding" :-)

Wouldn't it be best for all involved if they just scheduled more down-time for aircraft instead? It's about the same thing to allow a little 'padding' in the anticipated turn-around time as it is to actually have 'padding' on the flight. I figured the schedule was 'padded' as it is--when ACA is on-time (rarely), the flights tend to arrive either destination 10-15 minutes ahead of schedule anyway. Why inconvenience the passengers even further?

With all of the flights being added by United, United Express, American, and American Eagle in response to slot controls being lifted at ORD this summer, airlines are simply anticipating more congestion at the airport.

but at least, now you have better chances of being ONTIME at ORD *KOFF* :P :P :P

I hear NW is worst at padding flights, now it seems ACA is the culprit!

-n

MBS Prem Exec, I know the root of the schedule difference:

Air traffic delays at MBS. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

You have to admit, MBS was about the busiest little airport in Michigan a while back. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Yeah, Viajero, was busier than Detroit, Atlanta or Miami. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/tongue.gif But not much activity there as of late.

I guess I'm the only one that thinks this 'padding' is ridiculous? But I noticed it's only the MBS flights, LAN for example, is still the same at about an hour. Guess it's extra-disturbing to me because now I'm expected to sit on those *$&%@! CRJs for up to 1:36. (My condolences to the JAX customers).

ORD doesn't have a bank structure like they do at IAD, which means you can wait a long time for connecting flights or that the connecting flights don't time very well like they do at IAD. Because gate space is insufficient, aircraft are scheduled to come in, turn, and leave all day long, resulting in several small pushes of 5 to 10 aircraft. You see a nasty padding on that last flight because of congestion. Once I had the opportunity to speak to a ramp controller that coordinates the departing and arriving flights on the F and G concourses. ACA has one of their larger pushes at 7pm consisting of 7 departures. Air Wisky and Eagle on the G concourse all have pushes at 7pm, making that the busiest part of the day on the ramp. In order to compensate for the fact the plane may push out or arrive on time but then have trouble getting to the gate (or "in") on time, they've got to have some way of compensating for that strong possibility of a delay. Where you complain that you can't book a tight connection (you really shouldn't at ORD anyway) others would then complain that if the company knew the ramp got congested a lot, why are they allowing tight connections people have a strong chance of missing?

All the airlines use padding. I actually don't mind as it makes it easier for me for scheduling. I would rather schedule my meeting/connecting flight based on a padded schedule than a tight one where there is a better chance that I miss the meeting/connection.

As earlier posters say, this applies to all airlines, and it's been going on for many years on many routes. I did some analysis on this a year or two back. From 1981 to 1999 the average scheduled time ORD-LGA (all airlines)increased by 8%, from ATL-LGA the increase was 12%, and from ORD-ATL the increase was 16% (source: DoT data). All the increases were fairly steady over time, except for ATL-LGA, which fell from 1991 to 1993.

As for why, there are several likely reasons. My view is increasing congestion in the air and on the ground combined with sneaky manipulation of "on-time arrival" statistics.

That said, the ACA example looks particularly egregious.

quote:
_________________________________________
MBSPremExec:
The schedule loaded for summer shows the following (Aug 29, 3 of 5 daily flights, MBS-ORD):

UA 7269 Dep 10:40a Arr 11:10a (1 hour 20 mins)
UA 7525 Dep 1:31p Arr 1:47p (1 hour 16 mins)
UA 7255 Dep 6:19p Arr 6:55p (1 hour 36 mins)

The actual airtime on this 222 mile route runs between 32-38 minutes (keep in mind all of the above reflect a 1 hour time difference between MBS and ORD). When this was a mainline UA route less than a year ago, it was never scheduled more than 1:02 minutes for as long as I can remember. I verified by phone reservations that these are still non-stop flights.
__________________________________________


That is why a prefer these days to drive to Detroit's Metropolitan Airport. Time wasted in gate F 11 or time wasted on the road is time wasted. The fares are dirty cheap from Detroit to anywhere. At least I get to go on F and not on them CRJs

I thought airlines had to pay pilots according to schedule - so padding increases their costs. Another reason might be that planes used to go faster - transatlantic times were shorter in the 80's for example. Slowing down saves a lot of fuel.

Someone ought to put ACA out of its misery. Lousy customer service, always late!, deliberaste misinformation, ancient BAe Jetsream prop planes - and UA just keeps throwing them more and more biz on a borrowed fleet of RJ's. They don't have to care. UA gives them the biz; UX passengers get lousy service. I have written to UA and told them that I have had enough and that I will NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES fly on their UX carrier ACA any longer. Naturally, I received a nice apology letter - and a $100 discount cert on my next flight. That won't change a thing.

I had not heard about this....can someone add some more detail....also are any other airports also losing slot control?

Quote:
_________________________________________
SF Road Warrior:
Someone ought to put ACA out of its misery. Lousy customer service, always late!, deliberate misinformation,
_________________________________________

AMEN.
Well, I tried, but even our local Congressman dies his political death before he got UX/ACA out of business here. Well, at least he said he tried... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif
I happened to be at MBS this AM. 3 new UX faces being trained by 2 old faces. Altogether 3 UA old timers trying to keep that station floating.

The CRJ had a "DO NOT OCCUPY SEAT" on row 1.
A four hundred pound gentleman smooshed me to the EXIT window... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum50/HTML/010828.html
Luckily for my granddaughters the EXIT window didn't succumb to the pressure and didn't open while airborne.
As for my wife, she is taking this gutwrenching experience two weeks from now to JAX. When she gets to hate a company its eternal hell. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/mad.gif For both.

[This message has been edited by Intrepid (edited 06-01-2002).]

The way pilots are paid varies from airline to airline. Basically we are paid for the scheduled time or actual time if it's greater than schedule(unexpected holding, deice, etc). Some airlines don't pay you if you sit in the deice pad for two hours, which is a real drag since we are only paid by the flight hour, not the duty hour. Here's a real life example of that: a 3 day trip with 11.5 hours of duty and 36h and 5 minutes away from base, but only 4hours and 12 minuts of flight time. I get paid only for the 4h12 minutes of flight time, plus 1 dollar an hour for time away from base($36 and some change). I would agree that padding increases costs, but not so much because of pilot or other employee costs, but because of inefficiency. Having to pad the flight times to create a reliable schedule means that the aircraft have a lower average utiliztion rate-a key figure in keeping costs down. However, I don't see how you can get around it until the airport and ATC infrastructure catches up with even the current reduced travel demand in this country. Oh, and btw for the poster who said ACA's Jetstream's are ancient, ACA only uses the Jetstream 41 at this time and I believe that model entered service around 1995 or so which only make them 7 years old. I think most of UA's 737-300/500's are older than that.