Crazyhotelguy

Hi all,

I booked my partner on a r/t FC US award ticket from MCO - SNA this weekend. HIs outbound on Thursday evening was fine and uneventful, however, his return today (Sunday, August 22) did not go so well. His return consited of SNA - PHX - CLT - MCO. I was not fond of the double connector, but I left ample time for these connections, and I was happy to get a FC seat for him for 45,000 miles.

Upon his arrival in CLT, the CLT-MCO flight had been delayed from 10:45 to around midnight. Not a big deal, but a minor inconvenience.

The issue then went from minor inconvenience to major delay. Within an hour or so, the delay extended and a new 2 AM departure time was posted. To make a long story short, as of 2:30 AM while I am writing this, the flight now has a 3:50 AM departure time posted.

The reason given was WX at LGA, where the flight was to come from. I do not know the details, but it sounded like LGA had a rough time today. This flight had issues landing there and then had a number of other issues beyond. I again do not have specifics.

While I travel frequently, I have had my share of delays... Not a problem... My issue here is that at what point does US need to find a plan B. In my expereinces with this on other airlines, a pane has been swapped and reserve crew has been brought in. Though I guess it is possible, I do find it very sad that such resources could not be found in CLT of all places.

While I am not there, it sounds like the GA and at least one FA on the spot has been very helpful and have tried to make the most of a bad situation. I do not have a gripe with them, but it seems that someone is asleep at the controls over at US tonight.

BoeingBoy

It depends on the circumstances. In this case it sounds like dispatch/scheduling was dealing with a moving target due to the weather at LGA. Since a reserve crew has to only be within a 90 minute drive of the airport, I assume that dispatch/scheduling kept thinking that the flight would arrive from LGA before a reserve crew could be contacted, get to the airport and be ready to fly a plane to MCO.

While apparently not an issue in this case, there's also the separation of East/West crews and fleet. If a flight scheduled to be operated by West crews/airplane is hung up somewhere with weather and late getting to CLT, there are no spare West crews/planes there to fill in and even if there were they couldn't operate an East flight. Of course, the reverse is true in PHX.

Of course, there are cost considerations. I understand that the East side of the operation is short of at least pilots, which is normal at some point after pilots are furloughed - they put off recalling people from furlough until the operation is affected by the shortage pretty much daily. Less people equals less cost. Plus calling out a reserve crew means paying 2 crews for one flight. And going back to the point of paragraph #1, a reserve crew that is called out but not used still gets paid.

Jim

mrredskin

my CLT-CHA flight had "mechanical" issues this past wednesday at CLT and they changed our gate and got us a new plane 30 minutes after our original was supposed to depart. Gates were changed, GA informed us, and we took off. CRJs are more readily available, of course. Point being: s*** happens, and they do what they can under the circumstances.

coachrowsey

Express different from mainline.....Jim explained the issues very well.

itsme110

Someone once wisely said.........

Don't take everything so seriously... Life is way too short...

Delays are a fact of life, and I¨m sure it is difficult for the airlines to keep spare airplanes sitting around with crews at the ready, just in case. I was watching the yankees and the red sox last night, and the weather was really awful on the east coast. I´m sure it wasn´t just that one flight

GalleyWench

There were lots of massive delays up and down the east coast last night because of thunderstorms, not only LGA was affected. I know several of the transatlantic inbounds into PHL ended up diverting so that made the outbounds delayed severely as well.
I know it's frustrating when you think it's just your flight that's delayed, but when you have flights coming in from several different airports on the eastern seaboard they're all going to be late...some worse than others. One other problem is that they don't have an abundance of extra airplanes just hanging around to make up flights.
My husband was supposed to fly out of CLT this morning, but got a phone call in the middle of the night telling him to sleep in because they were substituting a different airplane type on his trip. His airplane apparently never made it into CLT last night so that's one more trip they were scrambling to cover.
Hope your partner did make it in, from the sounds of it things could have been even worse than just running late.

USFlyer26

I was on flight 880 from PHL-BOS. It was supposed to leave at 10:45pm, delayed until 11:55pm, then until 1:10am, cancelled, reinstated, wheels were up at around 1:50am. Delightful evening. Everyone was in surprisingly good spirits. I'm guessing just too exhausted to be upset, but it could have been worse. Thankfully I have the luxury of being able to work from home, because there was no way my sorry a** could have made it to the office.

Crazyhotelguy

While, I appreciate you calling me wise, I think you missed the tone of my original post. I am not upset that delays happen and I certainly realize that this is the way air travel goes. A quick look at my statuses will tell you that I don't fly once or twice a year.

I have experienced major delays on pretty much every airline that I have ever flown. Some tend to handle them better than others.

The fact that I was not there certainly puts me as a disadvantage as I do not know the FULL details, and therefore had hoped to have the other wise posters on this board to fill in some of the details.

I tend to travel more on Delta these days and ATL has its share of the delays.. Surprisingly, or not, I generally have had better on time service with US than DL. However, I can say that when IRROPS do occur, I think DL is a little quicker and more comprehensive in their resolution.

Having that said, my primary concern with the way that things were handled is that it appeard from all of the information that I was given, that the manager, GA, and one of the FA's who had arrived at the airport on an earlier flight were not getting support or answers from others in the organization. It is my understanding, and I am admit that I am acting with limited information, but that the FA who had come in on an earlier flight and the other crew who eventually arrived from LGA were the key reasons the flight wa NOT cancelled, as they were given the option.

I am very appreciative of the crew whom apparently "volunteered" to continue the fligth to MCO despite being given the option due to potential time out circumstances.

The issue that I would have would not be with the FA's, Crew, etc. I feel that US is not as prepared for such situations. In ATL for example, I have found it not to be uncommon for DL to swap an aircraft and even pull a reserve crew for delayed flights. I would hope that US would have the same capabilities in their hubs.

I am not upset, but more questioning US's ability to handle IRROPS. My partner made it home at 5:30 AM, and I realize that the flight could have cancelled and put him in a much worse situation.

Thank you for your response. He did make it in fine... Just slightly unrested for work, but oh well...

Crazyhotelguy

That is pretty much summed up the mood of CLT from what I gather...