United Airlines FTL

[meep_42]

Standard.

-d

[El Diablo]

Edge,

"My dad, who traveled pretty consistently for 30+ years for business knows a lot more than she does"

Sorta surprising he didn't know what the deal is with those automated messages then.

Once your mom had handled stuff at the airport, the right move for you guys was to ignore that phone call describing the earlier situation.

[meep_42]

[ QUOTE ]
Avoid Chicago like the plague, especially this summer. My aunt made it to Ireland 2 days late for our family vacation. Her flight was on AA from Charlotte to Chicago to Dublin. When the first leg (Charlotte to Chicago) was late, they told her they couldn't rebook her for 2 freaking days. This used to be unheard of but supposedly is becoming standard this summer.

Most of the major airlines pretty much have standard running delays of a couple hours on all flights going through Chicago right now. But you won't find out until a couple hours before the flight. Also they've figured out how to game the system so the flights don't count against their ontime record. Lovely.

[/ QUOTE ]

ATC (air traffic control) delays (which they often have at O'Hare due to congestion and a crappy runway layout) do not end up counting against the DOT standard for on-time arrivals.

-d

[meep_42]

[ QUOTE ]
Every airline sucks. I had a 9 hour 2 legger turn into a 21 hour absurdity because Continental decides to schedule flights when they have no crew as well. 3/4 of my continental flights were delayed by over 2 hours this summer. 4/4 delta were at least an hour late, and my 2 southwest flights were actually cancelled and I was put on different flights. US Airways has been decent, being on time about 50% of the time.

Oh, I actually had good luck with JetBlue. I know there are horror stories with them, but I've been running good.

[/ QUOTE ]

Most crew problems stem from earlier delayed or canceled flights, not because they never planned on having a crew there. Do you think they were planning on making money by having to slam their customer service and fill up every plane (other carriers and their own) at the last minute?

-d

[Edge34]

[ QUOTE ]
Edge,

"My dad, who traveled pretty consistently for 30+ years for business knows a lot more than she does"

Sorta surprising he didn't know what the deal is with those automated messages then.

Once your mom had handled stuff at the airport, the right move for you guys was to ignore that phone call describing the earlier situation.

[/ QUOTE ]

El D - I have admitted repeatedly that it really isn't a big deal right now, but honestly, it wasn't "freaking out", it was being upset that a company can't even figure out where its own goddamn passengers are. Had we ignored this information, she could have ended up going to the gate at 9 PM in Chicago, finding out she wasn't going to be on the flight, and then having to deal with the same retards at "customer service" as we did earlier, thus leading to resolution at the last minute instead of in advance.

Normally you're spot on in everything, but this time I think you're wrong. Ignoring this would've been asking for trouble.

[El Diablo]

Edge,

Whatever, we disagree on this. But we agree that airlines pretty much suck to all hell.

JetBlue is the only US airline I recommend.

[turnipmonster]

I was on a jetblue flight recently that was delayed because they bent part of the door backing out, we had to wait for engineering to fix it. during that time, the pilot announced anyone who needed to call family or whatever to tell them we were late could use his cell phone. they handled the whole thing really well.

[amead]

United may indeed suck, but their in-flight air traffic control "radio station" is unbelievably cool for flight enthusiasts.

Agree that JetBlue is the best domestic carrier. They really got a bad rap for that stuck on the runway incident. Unfortunate, but the airlines can not screw around with the weather. When talking about putting lives at risk, even an overnight delay (read: debacle) beats the alternatives. This holds true for delays caused by mandated crew rest periods as well. If they can't get a crew together, that's very likely the reason. Tired pilots are no gouda.

[niss]

[ QUOTE ]
I was on a jetblue flight recently that was delayed because they bent part of the door backing out, we had to wait for engineering to fix it. during that time, the pilot announced anyone who needed to call family or whatever to tell them we were late could use his cell phone. they handled the whole thing really well.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's funny to read all of this bashing of the airlines and [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] JetBlue. I love JetBlue too. But I was at the JetBlue terminal at JFK in February when all hell had broken loose with them, and (apparently) normal adults were screaming obscenities at any JetBlue person they could find because of the disasterous situation with cancelled flights and no crews available.

As some said above, it happens with all airlines. Maybe less with JetBlue or more with United, but this is nothing out of the ordinary at all.

[OrigamiSensei]

[ QUOTE ]
Most crew problems stem from earlier delayed or canceled flights, not because they never planned on having a crew there. Do you think they were planning on making money by having to slam their customer service and fill up every plane (other carriers and their own) at the last minute?

[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
This holds true for delays caused by mandated crew rest periods as well. If they can't get a crew together, that's very likely the reason. Tired pilots are no gouda.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, delays cause problems in flight crew availability and crews often time out as a result of delays. No, we don't want bleary-eyed zombies piloting our aircraft. We get that. When flight delays occur because there's lightning in the vicinity and they don't want to endanger the ground crew I nod along and say "no problem, you do what you need to do".

The point both of you are missing is that the airlines have decided to staff and schedule as if they will never, ever have any delays or problems. When those problems inevitably and all too frequently occur the result is a shambles. Is it too much to ask for some contingency planning?