Ilwith

wow. 4%?

It seems that I was very lucky then that my connection from FRA to DEN was only a little late - I had no idea it was that bad.

Although I had talked to somebody at the gate who had been at the airport for the entire day, trying to get to DEN too...

- Il

Jumpgate

Not a single kiosk was functioning this morning in the shuttle terminal at LGA.

6 months after res migration was "completed" ... Very sad.

martin33

time for a hub performance update... while the recent two weeks did beat the previous two weeks, they are still below the month before that, which was in turn worse than the month before that... From struggling to break above 10 recently, PHL has reverted to struggling with the 25% level. A notable "bright" spot was the set of trough days around Labor Day, Sunday 9/2 through Tuesday 9/4: empty skies on that Sunday brought PHL rocketing up to 55%.

Monday 8/27: on-time mainline departures 25% PHL, 44% CLT
Tuesday: 25% PHL, 51% CLT
Wednesday: 32% PHL, 45% CLT
Thursday: 27% PHL, 26% CLT
Friday: 23% PHL, 27% CLT
Saturday: 32% PHL, 34% CLT
Sunday 9/02: 55% PHL, 64% CLT

Monday 9/03: on-time mainline departures 46% PHL, 52% CLT
Tuesday: 43% PHL, 39% CLT
Wednesday: 23% PHL, 51% CLT
Thursday: 24% PHL, 51% CLT
Friday: 22% PHL, 46% CLT
Saturday: 35% PHL, 57% CLT
Sunday 9/09: 34% PHL, 50% CLT

BoeingBoy

And good weather - I happened to notice that the FAA didn't have an ATC ground stop/delay program at any time anywhere in the country all day that Sunday. Monday was relatively back to normal with ATC stops/delays in the NYC area (JFK, LGA, EWR), BOS, IAD, Chicago (ORD, MDW), and Dallas (DFW).

Jim

me4yankees

Thank you again for delivering the bad news!

me4yankees

So on a pristine day of air travel, PHL mainline can only manage 55%! Gee, I wonder what the problem could be...

martin33

Excellent point! and that brings to mind the following experiment... perfect weather, light light traffic, put those together and it's a good time to check all of the legacy hubs and other points of interest, perhaps cut through some of the clutter about "circumstances" and "bad luck". So, here we go (all numbers are mainline departures on-time in percent for Sunday September 2, 2007, for all cities having at least 50 mainline departures for that carrier)...

AA: DFW 87, ORD 90, MIA 73, LAX 84, JFK 84, LGA 98, STL 96

UA: ORD 90, DEN 87, SFO 93, LAX 97, IAD 86

DL: ATL 88, SLC 96, JFK 82, CVG 96

NW: DTW 94, MSP 96, MEM 95

CO: IAH 92, EWR 94

WN: LAS 89, MDW 94, PHX 95, BWI 94, OAK 94, MCO 97, LAX 97, HOU 98, SAN 99, DAL 91

AS: SEA 82, ANC 84

B6: JFK 97

F9: DEN 92

and, drumroll.....

US West: PHX 92, LAS 97

US East: CLT 64, PHL 55

So, EVERY problematic hub operation in the nation, from EWR to ORD to all three JFK'ers, had a delightful set of numbers that day, except for the two you-know-wheres....

take out the third-worst op (MIA, where AA's terminal construction has reduced taxi-out space considerably, even on the holiday weekend), and we get the distinct impression that US East lags its competitors by between 20 and 40 percentage points.

martin33

hub performance update... after two less awful weeks, the hubs had a dreadful week and a half followed by some days of improvement. PHL had three consecutive days in the 40's last week (and 4 days out of 7), which has not happened for a while.

Monday 9/10: on-time mainline departures 17% PHL, 42% CLT
Tuesday: 23% PHL, 46% CLT
Wednesday: 28% PHL, 55% CLT
Thursday: 22% PHL, 35% CLT
Friday: 10% PHL, 18% CLT
Saturday: 26% PHL, 37% CLT
Sunday 9/16: 24% PHL, 33% CLT

Monday 9/17: on-time mainline departures 19% PHL, 35% CLT
Tuesday: 29% PHL, 48% CLT
Wednesday: 48% PHL, 55% CLT
Thursday: 49% PHL, 48% CLT
Friday: 42% PHL, 47% CLT
Saturday: 29% PHL, 54% CLT
Sunday 9/23: 44% PHL, 59% CLT

me4yankees

I think it is amazing how the US East hubs cannot get to "industry standard" anymore, despite better weather and summer coming to an end.

I actually look forward to these dismal reports, because they contradict what the Sandcastle says in their spin to the media.

We all feel good about US, right? 10-59% is good, right?

BoeingBoy

martin33's updates, when added to the "spin" (mainline is running 82.1% O/T arrivals for the month thru Sunday), just shows how much pad is in the schedules - especially for flights in/out of PHL.

If Tempe were smart (I know, no comments....) they'd intentionally do what the departure delays are forcing - de-peak PHL and CLT. The hubs would function a lot better, they could remove a lot of the pad from the schedules, get better airplane/crew utilization, save a ton of money, and lower CASM.

But what do I know.........

Jim

coachrowsey

Jim:
You make way to much sense.

SS255

I was at YYZ last week, and asked the check-in agent why there were no kiosks. He pointed to a bank of common-use kiosks in the center of the hall, with a notation that US is not yet "up and running" on them. I asked if they were "up and running" on them prior to the Shares cutover, and he responded "yes."

Totally unacceptable that 6+ months after the cutover US has not figured out how to get back online with the common-use kiosks.

EddieG

Remind me again how SHARES is cheaper & better then SABRE?

martin33

not a res-system issue, but relevant to travelers nonetheless-- Brancatelli this week points out that the 9/21 East system cancellation rate was considerably above normal (43 flights out of 900 or so) due to an East pilot sick-out where 110 of them stayed home. The effect on the two main hubs was minimal (7 cancellations ex-CLT and 3 ex-PHL). While LGA was the biggest problem (10 cancellations of 47 scheduled), overall the top 10 departure cities accounted for only 32 of the 47. That means 11 of the remaining 250 or so flights from non-top10 cities were axed, so travelers outside those cities now have one more thing to worry about.

martin33

the last update mentioned some days of improvement (albeit mild & relative). these continued through Thursday last week, and then the roller coaster took another downturn into the dreadful range:

Monday 9/24: on-time mainline departures 46% PHL, 58% CLT
Tuesday: 41% PHL, 54% CLT
Wednesday: 44% PHL, 63% CLT
Thursday: 48% PHL, 61% CLT
Friday: 36% PHL, 47% CLT
Saturday: 32% PHL, 43% CLT
Sunday 9/30: 33% PHL, 49% CLT