Multi-hour Airline Delays

RyanB

RyanB

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Ryan
The majority of the times that I’ve flown commercial, 9 times out of 10 things go quite smoothly, knock on wood. Yesterday was an exception.

Took AA from Los Angeles to Charlotte and then a connection from Charlotte to Chattanooga. The fun began with nearly an hour delay at LAX after we had boarded due to what was said to be ‘taxiway congestion’. So we’re on the aircraft for close to an hour before they push us back for taxi. We ended up getting into CLT about 35 minutes behind schedule and many pax were pressed tightly to make their connections. Fortunately for us, the airline was gracious enough to delay our flight for an initial 25 minutes. Cool, not biggie, it’ll give us a little extra time to deplane and grab a bite to eat.

Ended up being SOL as the restaurants closed at 10p. Okay, scratch that idea, lets just walk to the gate, we’ll be leaving shortly anyway. We get to the gate and get the classic airline run around. What was originally a scheduled 10:35p departure ended up being a 1:24a takeoff. The inbound aircraft was delayed in JAX for 8+ hours. FlightAware said this inbound flight was over 8hrs late, which I assumed to be a mechanical issue as the Wx wasn’t a concern.

The original departure time for this inbound flight from CLT to JAX was 1:10p yesterday afternoon. It didn’t depart for JAX until after 9p, had to make its turn and then come back to CLT. 11p our aircraft arrives from JAX, but that crew timed out so we waited for another crew for our flight. By this time it was nearly 11:30 and the board changed to a 12:45a departure. Inbound crew was over 6hrs late and I was afraid they were going to time out as well and we’d be stuck in CLT. I walked through the E concourse and found a pair of PSA pilots who were also waiting for an inbound. I chatted them up and told them what was going on with my flight and they said they were as much in the dark with things as the passengers as they didn’t know what was going on either. I found that quite strange. Long story short, the crew arrived and we finally departed CLT for CHA at 1:24a.

My question is, what’s the purpose for airlines to push back flight times hour after hour after hour and then depart 8-9 hours late instead of just canceling? Any of those passengers would’ve obviously missed their connections hours ago. I realize the flight still has to be completed, but if a mechanical issue arises and causes half a day delay, why not just cancel it so it doesn’t affect the rest of the day’s schedule? At a hub like CLT, I’m surprised they don’t have additional aircraft on hardstands waiting for issues like these? Nonetheless I wasn’t very impressed with American.
 
It looks they did actually swap the aircraft; the aircraft that flew into CHA early this morning did a CMH turn prior to flying JIA5160 to CHA. This is assuming I have the correct flight information.

In any case, there are a lot of factors. Regional airlines run on razor-thin margins and get penalized by the major airline who is paying them to make these flights. They can’t afford to have spare airplanes sitting around, and if they have a couple, they may have been flying somewhere else in the system.

If they cancel a flight early in the day, they have to rebook passengers on other flights .... every airline flight I have been on lately has been packed; it may be impossible to get everyone rebooked that same day.

I think AA is one of the worst airlines as far as transparency on what is going on with each flight (and their customer service has ****ed me off a few times in the past as well). In this case, PSA airlines flying under the AA banner just did what was going to be the best for their bottom line.
 
Slight thread drift question....

When the situation like what happened to Ryan in LAX occurs, is the flight crew and FA's considered "on the clock" and being paid for that time?
 
AggieMike88 said:
Slight thread drift question....

When the situation like what happened to Ryan in LAX occurs, is the flight crew and FA's considered "on the clock" and being paid for that time?
Click to expand...

I thought they only got paid for flight time? Of course there’s a min guarantee every month though.
 
Ryanb said:
My question is, what’s the purpose for airlines to push back flight times hour after hour after hour and then depart 8-9 hours late instead of just canceling? Any of those passengers would’ve obviously missed their connections hours ago. I realize the flight still has to be completed, but if a mechanical issue arises and causes half a day delay, why not just cancel it so it doesn’t affect the rest of the day’s schedule? At a hub like CLT, I’m surprised they don’t have additional aircraft on hardstands waiting for issues like these? Nonetheless I wasn’t very impressed with American.
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Delta is the king of rolling the delays for a long time to avoid a cancellation, and AA has definitely been doing it more and more - if the delay already exists, no sense in hitting the completion factor as well. I once jumpsat on a Delta 767 with 17 passengers - it had been delayed 23 hours - they'd rather fly the thing empty than take the cancellation. They're not stupid - it's all about the numbers, and you can't argue with Delta's results.
 
Jmcmanna said:
It looks they did actually swap the aircraft; the aircraft that flew into CHA early this morning did a CMH turn prior to flying JIA5160 to CHA. This is assuming I have the correct flight information.

In any case, there are a lot of factors. Regional airlines run on razor-thin margins and get penalized by the major airline who is paying them to make these flights. They can’t afford to have spare airplanes sitting around, and if they have a couple, they may have been flying somewhere else in the system.

If they cancel a flight early in the day, they have to rebook passengers on other flights .... every airline flight I have been on lately has been packed; it may be impossible to get everyone rebooked that same day.

I think AA is one of the worst airlines as far as transparency on what is going on with each flight (and their customer service has ****ed me off a few times in the past as well). In this case, PSA airlines flying under the AA banner just did what was going to be the best for their bottom line.
Click to expand...

PSA's bottom line is AA's bottom line, as they're owned by American...
 
Velocity173 said:
I thought they only got paid for flight time? Of course there’s a min guarantee every month though.
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Depends on the company. At mainline AA, if the delay is weather/ATC related, the crew starts getting paid at the original departure time, regardless of whether the plane boards or pushes from the gate. It's definitely a nice perk. Not sure if the regional contracts have it, though.
 
AggieMike88 said:
Slight thread drift question....

When the situation like what happened to Ryan in LAX occurs, is the flight crew and FA's considered "on the clock" and being paid for that time?
Click to expand...
A cousin of mine who flies with Trans States said her pay begins from the moment they’re pushed back, to the time they chock it at the destination gate. So long taxi’s or what not - they’re getting paid for that.
 
kayoh190 said:
Depends on the company. At mainline AA, if the delay is weather/ATC related, the crew starts getting paid at the original departure time, regardless of whether the plane boards or pushes from the gate. It's definitely a nice perk. Not sure if the regional contracts have it, though.
Click to expand...

Ok, that makes sense. Thank God I don’t get paid on flight time. With 101.7 hrs last year, I’d be on min wage.
 
Jmcmanna said:
It looks they did actually swap the aircraft; the aircraft that flew into CHA early this morning did a CMH turn prior to flying JIA5160 to CHA. This is assuming I have the correct flight information.

In any case, there are a lot of factors. Regional airlines run on razor-thin margins and get penalized by the major airline who is paying them to make these flights. They can’t afford to have spare airplanes sitting around, and if they have a couple, they may have been flying somewhere else in the system.

If they cancel a flight early in the day, they have to rebook passengers on other flights .... every airline flight I have been on lately has been packed; it may be impossible to get everyone rebooked that same day.

I think AA is one of the worst airlines as far as transparency on what is going on with each flight (and their customer service has ****ed me off a few times in the past as well). In this case, PSA airlines flying under the AA banner just did what was going to be the best for their bottom line.
Click to expand...
You are correct. The aircraft was swapped late in the evening, however the crew was not. I guess my question was in the event that a long Mx issue arises and the flight is delayed half the day, why not try to replace the aircraft early, instead of wait until 1hr before departure and then make the change (a/c and crew)? Would seem more cost effective in my eyes to take bad airplane out of service and stick a replacement in service to keep the schedule moving.

I’m sure that PSA has aircraft out on hardstands at a big hub like CLT. Again, just my own juvenile thinking.

Nonetheless, I got a nice CRJ-900 cockpit tour at the end by a nice CA.
 
kayoh190 said:
Delta is the king of rolling the delays for a long time to avoid a cancellation, and AA has definitely been doing it more and more - if the delay already exists, no sense in hitting the completion factor as well. I once jumpsat on a Delta 767 with 17 passengers - it had been delayed 23 hours - they'd rather fly the thing empty than take the cancellation. They're not stupid - it's all about the numbers, and you can't argue with Delta's results.
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Are you guys kept in the loop when something like this happens or does crew scheduling just call and say ‘re-route!’..?

I was surprised that the pilots that I was chatting with said they find out most of their information on the internet, just like us common folk do. Seemed odd that they wouldn’t be kept in the loop with better detail. Dunno if they were just blowing sunshine up my ass or that’s actually what happens.
 
Velocity173 said:
Ok, that makes sense. Thank God I don’t get paid on flight time. With 101.7 hrs last year, I’d be on min wage.
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Yeah, we call it an RFD (ready for departure) time, and we'll send one off to the company via ACARS if a weather or ATC/ramp delay pops up. If we have a really long EDCT for example, it's nice to leave all the pax in the terminal area until we're actually ready to go, but still make the extra scratch. The weather has been kicking our ass this season, but it's also been good for an extra 10 or so hours of pay per month. ;)
 
Ryanb said:
You are correct. The aircraft was swapped late in the evening, however the crew was not. I guess my question was in the event that a long Mx issue arises and the flight is delayed half the day, why not try to replace the aircraft early, instead of wait until 1hr before departure and then make the change (a/c and crew)? Would seem more cost effective in my eyes to take bad airplane out of service and stick a replacement in service to keep the schedule moving.

I’m sure that PSA has aircraft out on hardstands at a big hub like CLT. Again, just my own juvenile thinking.

Nonetheless, I got a nice CRJ-900 cockpit tour at the end by a nice CA.
Click to expand...
Most of the time, you don't know that's it's going to be a long maintenance delay. It's the rolling delay that's the killer.

You find a maintenance problem during preflight, call maintenance. You hope it's something as easy as pull/reset a CB, or change a lightbulb. Quick fix. Then it's not that. Now a little trouble shooting... "if it's what we think it is, it'll be fixed in 30 minutes." Great. Tell the passengers. Half hour and we'll be on our way. Now that doesn't work, we need to get a part. "We'll get the part and get it in. Hour tops." Ok... let the folks know that it's going to be more like an hour. Oops, "that part isn't in stock. We'll have to get it from another airline. Shouldn't be too long." Ok... another hour. Got the part! Great! Put it in... still doesn't work. Must be this other part. We'll replace that one...

You get the idea. That's how those delays usually end up playing out. The crew is just telling you the information they're getting, as they get it.
 
Sluggo63 said:
Most of the time, you don't know that's it's going to be a long maintenance delay. It's the rolling delay that's the killer.

You find a maintenance problem during preflight, call maintenance. You hope it's something as easy as pull/reset a CB, or change a lightbulb. Quick fix. Then it's not that. Now a little trouble shooting... "if it's what we think it is, it'll be fixed in 30 minutes." Great. Tell the passengers. Half hour and we'll be on our way. Now that doesn't work, we need to get a part. "We'll get the part and get it in. Hour tops." Ok... let the folks know that it's going to be more like an hour. Oops, "that part isn't in stock. We'll have to get it from another airline. Shouldn't be too long." Ok... another hour. Got the part! Great! Put it in... still doesn't work. Must be this other part. We'll replace that one...

You get the idea. That's how those delays usually end up playing out. The crew is just telling you the information they're getting, as they get it.
Click to expand...
Ah I see.
 
Ryanb said:
...I’m sure that PSA has aircraft out on hardstands at a big hub like CLT. Again, just my own juvenile thinking.

Nonetheless, I got a nice CRJ-900 cockpit tour at the end by a nice CA.
Click to expand...

Extra airplanes "just sitting around" waiting for something like this? Hardly. They cost many millions of $ each, and they make no revenue sitting on the ground. The game is to maximize utilization/time in the air and minimize the time each airplane is on the ground with no paying passengers in the seats.

The commercial passenger business sounds exotic to some, but its a brutal business in every respect. Heavily regulated, labor intensive in many ways, almost no control over one of the largest input costs - fuel (hello OPEC), security costs that are anything but trivial, and every seat on every flight has a limited shelf life - just like lettuce in the supermarket. I think the cumulative losses of the entire industry over its history are multiples of any cyclical profits.
 
Sluggo63 said:
Most of the time, you don't know that's it's going to be a long maintenance delay. It's the rolling delay that's the killer.

You find a maintenance problem during preflight, call maintenance. You hope it's something as easy as pull/reset a CB, or change a lightbulb. Quick fix. Then it's not that. Now a little trouble shooting... "if it's what we think it is, it'll be fixed in 30 minutes." Great. Tell the passengers. Half hour and we'll be on our way. Now that doesn't work, we need to get a part. "We'll get the part and get it in. Hour tops." Ok... let the folks know that it's going to be more like an hour. Oops, "that part isn't in stock. We'll have to get it from another airline. Shouldn't be too long." Ok... another hour. Got the part! Great! Put it in... still doesn't work. Must be this other part. We'll replace that one...

You get the idea. That's how those delays usually end up playing out. The crew is just telling you the information they're getting, as they get it.
Click to expand...

GRG55 said:
Extra airplanes "just sitting around" waiting for something like this? Hardly. They cost many millions of $ each, and they make no revenue sitting on the ground. The game is to maximize utilization/time in the air and minimize the time each airplane is on the ground with no paying passengers in the seats.

The commercial passenger business sounds exotic to some, but its a brutal business in every respect. Heavily regulated, labor intensive in many ways, almost no control over one of the largest input costs - fuel (hello OPEC), security costs that are anything but trivial, and every seat on every flight has a limited shelf life - just like lettuce in the supermarket. I think the cumulative losses of the entire industry over its history are multiples of any cyclical profits.
Click to expand...

Yep. Correct and correct. Amazing how passengers think that there are all sorts of spare aircraft and spare parts and other unlimited resources just sitting around at airports, just in case. That isn't how it works. And it is difficult to keep the pilots and gate agents completely updated and informed as to the status of the issue as the people who know what is really going on are scrambling like heck to solve the problem. Believe me, the folks in the SOC/MOC and on the line work their tails off when there is a delay, especially multiple delays. If you have never worked in one, it is hard to understand or appreciate what goes on and pretty silly to second guess the process and its people.
 
GRG55 said:
Extra airplanes "just sitting around" waiting for something like this? Hardly. They cost many millions of $ each, and they make no revenue sitting on the ground. The game is to maximize utilization/time in the air and minimize the time each airplane is on the ground with no paying passengers in the seats.
Click to expand...
I get that, however I’m not blind to the fact that at a large hub facility such as CLT, there are aircraft around that are sitting idle throughout the night, not scheduled to fly for several hours or at the beginning/end of a maintenance cycle. I’m not meaning for a comparable spare aircraft at every station, but their hubs, there should be in most cases.
 
Ryanb said:
A cousin of mine who flies with Trans States said her pay begins from the moment they’re pushed back, to the time they chock it at the destination gate. So long taxi’s or what not - they’re getting paid for that.
Click to expand...
But what if they are denied push back?
 
Cluemeister said:
Found the problem.
Click to expand...
I used to fly America West for work, every round trip had at least one leg delayed or cancelled. After several acquisitions they're now part of American... It's good to see that American is keeping up the same level of quality and customer service as America West.
 
chartbundle said:
I used to fly America West for work, every round trip had at least one leg delayed or cancelled. After several acquisitions they're now part of American... It's good to see that American is keeping up the same level of quality and customer service as America West.
Click to expand...
I realize that any airline is a total crap shoot, but this trip was my first on AA and it wasn’t too convincing. Knock on wood, I’ve almost always had great experiences on Delta and SWA. AAL’s punctuality on average seems to be lacking.
 
Ryanb said:
I realize that any airline is a total crap shoot, but this trip was my first on AA and it wasn’t too convincing. Knock on wood, I’ve almost always had great experiences on Delta and SWA. AAL’s punctuality on average seems to be lacking.
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I've actually flown AAL several times recently. Usually going into LAX. On 2 recent trips I used United instead, it turns out that the usual 30+ minute taxi for American is not actually normal, between that and not having to use the 'Remote Terminal' at LAX, I think I'll use United, even for those times when I have to make a connection through SFO to LAX. The downside to living in the middle of nowhere on the west coast is my options are limited for direct, and Delta would go through SLC, and Alaska through PDX or SEA. Now, if I only had a working plane... sigh.
 
AggieMike88 said:
But what if they are denied push back?
Click to expand...

Again, depends on the contract. At mainline AA the pilots will throw an RFD into the box of whatever time they were ready to push and be paid from that point (assuming it's ramp/taxiway congestion or some other ATC/weather issue). But that ability doesn't exist everywhere (it didn't at my last airline).
 
Ryanb said:
The majority of the times that I’ve flown commercial, 9 times out of 10 things go quite smoothly, knock on wood. Yesterday was an exception.

Took AA from Los Angeles to Charlotte and then a connection from Charlotte to Chattanooga. The fun began with nearly an hour delay at LAX after we had boarded due to what was said to be ‘taxiway congestion’. So we’re on the aircraft for close to an hour before they push us back for taxi. We ended up getting into CLT about 35 minutes behind schedule and many pax were pressed tightly to make their connections. Fortunately for us, the airline was gracious enough to delay our flight for an initial 25 minutes. Cool, not biggie, it’ll give us a little extra time to deplane and grab a bite to eat.

Ended up being SOL as the restaurants closed at 10p. Okay, scratch that idea, lets just walk to the gate, we’ll be leaving shortly anyway. We get to the gate and get the classic airline run around. What was originally a scheduled 10:35p departure ended up being a 1:24a takeoff. The inbound aircraft was delayed in JAX for 8+ hours. FlightAware said this inbound flight was over 8hrs late, which I assumed to be a mechanical issue as the Wx wasn’t a concern.

The original departure time for this inbound flight from CLT to JAX was 1:10p yesterday afternoon. It didn’t depart for JAX until after 9p, had to make its turn and then come back to CLT. 11p our aircraft arrives from JAX, but that crew timed out so we waited for another crew for our flight. By this time it was nearly 11:30 and the board changed to a 12:45a departure. Inbound crew was over 6hrs late and I was afraid they were going to time out as well and we’d be stuck in CLT. I walked through the E concourse and found a pair of PSA pilots who were also waiting for an inbound. I chatted them up and told them what was going on with my flight and they said they were as much in the dark with things as the passengers as they didn’t know what was going on either. I found that quite strange. Long story short, the crew arrived and we finally departed CLT for CHA at 1:24a.

My question is, what’s the purpose for airlines to push back flight times hour after hour after hour and then depart 8-9 hours late instead of just canceling? Any of those passengers would’ve obviously missed their connections hours ago. I realize the flight still has to be completed, but if a mechanical issue arises and causes half a day delay, why not just cancel it so it doesn’t affect the rest of the day’s schedule? At a hub like CLT, I’m surprised they don’t have additional aircraft on hardstands waiting for issues like these? Nonetheless I wasn’t very impressed with American.
Click to expand...

I felt your pain a couple weeks ago... Maybe the problem is LAX...
 
Zeldman said:
I felt your pain a couple weeks ago... Maybe the problem is LAX...
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That's part of it, but much of it is the saturation of gate space that's occurring as AA grows its LAX operation. We landed almost 40 minutes early a few weeks back and had to wait 20 minutes for the airplane on our gate to push (on time). We still got to the gate 10 minutes early, but nonetheless I had to listen to a couple of snarky comments from passengers*. There just aren't a lot of gates sitting open at any given time. On the flip side AA has an excess of gates at JFK, so there's rarely any wait unless a weather event has a bunch of planes on the ground when they shouldn't be. So like you said, the perceived quality of a given airline's operation can very much depend on what hub you're dealing with.



*it's times like these where I stare longingly across the south runways at the cargo complex. :D
 
Jmcmanna said:
It looks they did actually swap the aircraft; the aircraft that flew into CHA early this morning did a CMH turn prior to flying JIA5160 to CHA. This is assuming I have the correct flight information.

In any case, there are a lot of factors. Regional airlines run on razor-thin margins and get penalized by the major airline who is paying them to make these flights. They can’t afford to have spare airplanes sitting around, and if they have a couple, they may have been flying somewhere else in the system.

If they cancel a flight early in the day, they have to rebook passengers on other flights .... every airline flight I have been on lately has been packed; it may be impossible to get everyone rebooked that same day.

I think AA is one of the worst airlines as far as transparency on what is going on with each flight (and their customer service has ****ed me off a few times in the past as well). In this case, PSA airlines flying under the AA banner just did what was going to be the best for their bottom line.
Click to expand...
Sorta. American and psa are owned by the same holdings company. PSA doesn’t make money. It saves money for AA.
 
chartbundle said:
I used to fly America West for work, every round trip had at least one leg delayed or cancelled. After several acquisitions they're now part of American... It's good to see that American is keeping up the same level of quality and customer service as America West.
Click to expand...
The people that ran America west now run American. That’s the management group that rose to the top in that three step merger.
 
Cooter said:
Shut the door, release the brake and the clock starts.
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I was with Trans States 15 years ago. In that case shut the door, tell the ground crew you're releasing the parking brake and the clock starts. You'd tell the ground crew what was going on because the plane may move a little. Now take into consideration at that time we had some aircraft that when you shut the door the time went out. You'd have to know the plane you were in. Different airlines have different contracts but at TSA that's what we did. It may have changed since then.
 
IK04 said:
I will be traveling all day tomorrow and my second stop is Charlotte. I haaaaaate Charlotte!
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Charlotte is KNIRVANA compared to Philly.

Edit... what's the over/under on making a 35 minute connection on a Tuesday evening, flying Delta, in Detroit?
 
MuseChaser said:
Charlotte is KNIRVANA compared to Philly.

Edit... what's the over/under on making a 35 minute connection on a Tuesday evening, flying Delta, in Detroit?
Click to expand...

50/50.

Philly sucks, but is slightly better than it was ten years ago...

BWI, on the other hand, can only be fixed by demolition...
 
Ah performance metrics. Delta loves to put 12 hour delays on flights so they say they have the least amount of cancellations. It’s all about padding metrics and data
 
Ryanb said:
Took AA
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Well that was your first mistake.. every airline has a bad day, but the half a dozen or so times that I flew American Airlines each time was a complete disaster
 
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