liveon777

What used to be an occasional problem has now become an almost-every-flight issues: pull up to the gate and there is no one there to either bring the jetway to the plane or guide the plane to the gate/parking spot.

I started keeping track of these instances a couple of weeks ago after encountering this issue 5 flights in a row. It's not confined to 1 airport either. It has happened, at least on my flights, at LGA, DCA, CMH, CHS, PHL and PIT probably 90% of the time in the last 2 or so months.
Sometimes it's only a couple of minutes, but several times it has taken around 20 minutes of waiting time. And no, these flights have not arrived exceptionally early to the best of my knowledge.

What gives?

Phoenixian

Arrivals crews rely on FLIFO and the plane calling in to operations. I see poor communication repeatedly with USAir.

4th of July weekend I called the Club in Las Vegas to confirm an on-time departure of my flight to Phoenix and the on-time arrival of the inbound airplane that would operate as the flight to Phoenix. Both were showing on-time and I headed to the airport.

What I did not know (or think to ask) was whether the crew was in position to operate the flight. Turns out the crew had been swapped and stuck in Fresno with debris on the runway (which closed the airport there). Although FLIFO promised an update at 1630 (for a 1720 departure), none was posted until 1510 when my flight was officially posted as delayed.

I found out the skinny by insisting that a res agent call the Fresno station to see what was happening. She called and no one answered the phone at the ticket counter. I suggested she call the gate number at Fresno where she was updated on the status thereby passing it along to me.

(I chuckled when the res agent's supervisor told her to tell me the inbound airplane was already in Las Vegas and I'd better hurry to the gate for an on-time departure. Internally, USAir doesn't seem to know what's really happening a lot of the time.)

Flight ended up leaving 1-1/2 hours late and I nearly missed it because they were dispatching the delayed departure before the posted time.

I'm now of the mindset that it is the way it is. Wait for the jetway, wait for the plane and wait for accurate information.

USAflyer

I have also seen the flight info displays be inaccerate. At 6:30, a 5:30 flight was displaying ontime. Operations also seems to have no clue as to when pilots will timeout, so they end up canceling flights at the last minute.

BoeingBoy

A multitude of problems with a similiar number of causes.....

Some of it at some airports is due to understaffing, supposedly due to attrition being higher than anticipated. This seems to be the big problem at PHL "below the wing" - marshalling in, baggage loading/unloading/pushbacks.

Some of it is setting staffing levels as low as possible for the operation in optimum conditions (lowering cost), leaving no buffer for sub-optimal conditions. This is often the case with agents. One agent scheduled to meet two flights that are scheduled to arrive 10 minutes apart but the first arrives 3 minutes late and the second arrives 6 minutes early, so they arrive about the same time. Add no excess personnel to cover, and the second flight waits for the jetway.

Internal communication systems. When we take off, the time is sent automatically to Sabre. The enroute time is added and an ETA generated in Sabre (touchdown, not gate arrival). That's available to any agent.

The problem is delays before/after takeoff aren't automatically input to Sabre - someone at dispatch (for airborne delays) or the departure city agent (for on gate delays) has to input the data. Those manual inputs don't always get entered (but usually do).

Lastly, scheduling knows (or has available) exactly when the pilots will run out of time - it's a flat 15 hours after we report to duty. The problem is 1- they don't bother to check, or 2- more likely hope things will work out until it's obvious they won't - the crew is still on the ground when they need to be airborne if they're to get to the destination before running out of time.

Jim

BoeingBoy

Sorry 'bout that - got duplicate posts somehow.....

Jim

liveon777

BoeingBoy,
Thanks for that response. Very interesting stuff.
I only ever get to see the net effect of it all: sitting 10 feet from the jetway for a long time, wondering why the gate display shows a 3:32 departure for DCA from CMH and the time is already 4:50pm, or being told that the plane is "in range". . .

What the heck does "in range" mean, anyway?

BoeingBoy

We send an "in range" message about 10 minutes from touchdown, using the same electronic box (called ACARS) that transmits our out/off/on/in times. That automatically goes to Sabre and the agents can see that we are "in range" on their screen. That's exactly what the agent's screen says - In Range. (The same applies when we land - ACARS sends an "on" message and the agent can see that we're on the ground in Sabre.

Without going into a novel, Sabre has a lot of information. Unfortunately much of it often doesn't get to FLIFO or the customers. Of course, much of what doesn't get to FLIFO or you is meaningless - you don't care where the aircraft for your flight is coming from or what tail number it is, for example. You just want to know when it'll arrive and if you'll depart on time.

BTW, there is one thing that isn't in SABRE so not readily available to the agent - crew info. Without calling scheduling, the agent doesn't know whether the crew flying your flight is coming in on that plane or a different one. Whether they're waiting at the airport like you (unless they're in the boarding area) or stuck at some other airport with a delay. Unless someone in scheduling/dispatch manually puts something in Sabre or calls on the phone, the agent can be telling you that your flight will depart on time even though the crew is stuck in Podunk with a broken airplane - they just don't know the crew is still in Podunk.

Jim

liveon777

Or the captain hit a deer on the way to the airport (driving)!
That happened for a flight out of DCA ~2 years ago. Now if SABRE knew that, I'd be really impressed!

Dont call me Shirley

True, the FLIFO times are automatically sent to SABRE (and, I presume, SHARES) for aircraft that are equipped with ACARS. All mainline aircraft and many express aircraft are; but some express planes (Piedmont, Mesa...not sure who else) don't have ACARS.
Times are manually entered by ops after being called in by the crew. Sometimes, this does not work well. There will always be a time lag since, under FAA regs, the flight has to be be least at 10000 feet before the crew can engage in "non-essential" duties usch as calling in times. Crews somtimes forget to call in and ops agents sometimes forget to enter the times. There have been times when the plane lands and the agents think the plane hasn't taken off yet from the origin city. (And sometimes there is nobody in ops to hear the in-range call)

It's a bit sad that the nice lady at the airport infomation both can look at flightaware.com and have a much better idea of where an express plane is and when it will land than the agents in ops or at the counter.

I know that this doesn't really answer the staffing question that started the thread.

ClueByFour

I'd pay good money to know (without asking an agent at the airport) where the inbound is coming from. That way, I can play accordingly (if it's coming from LGA, and the good folks at the FAA are noting 60 minute taxi times, I'm not gonna haul butt to the airport, for instance).

Flightaware is better than FLIFO for the express operations, BTW.

formeraa

Of course, the airlines always reserve the right to switch aircraft at any time to try to maintain their schedules.

liveon777

At least in the past you could look up a flight on the website prior to heading to the airport and it actually listed where the plane was coming from.
Now, not so much. . .

KevAZ

I run Flight Status on my Treo to get up to the minute FLIFO info. It was written by a 14 yr old and it is a slick piece of software. ^

Dont call me Shirley

I think it's been a while since it last happened, but planes have hit deer on the runways in PIT! Last "roadkill" flight problem it PIT was the owl that tangled with the nosewheel cable on a 737. The owl didn't survive, but the plane lost steering and got stuck in the mud.

iwareboy

US recently bumped up the rates for US-West rampers from a starting wage of $7.50 to $9/hr.... Still not enough to get alot of people who want to work in PHX or LAS in the summer...

I used to work at LAS, I was part-time and just had the job for fun. Most people were like me, as soon as a schedule conflict or better job came along, you quit. In my case, the free travel just wasn't worth another summer chunking bags in 110 degree heat.

Everyone lashes out at the career rampers who made $60-80k a year... now that's history, you get what you pay for.... you either get casual part-timers who stay for a year or two and don't work very hard, or you get people who (sad to say) can't get hired anywhere else... think Wal-mart rejects.. and these people often have problems coming to work on time, working with other people, drug use, safety, etc.