On days like today, I hate United Airlines
Dec 31st, 2007 by Nick
If you live in Chicago, you’ve probably heard that United had to cancel something on the order of 400 flights this week because they did not have enough crew. Crew can only fly so many hours in a month (and for pilots, in a year), and with the snowstorms that hit in early December, a lot of crew ran out of hours. That’s one reason I did not fly out on December 30 or 31, but waited until January 1. United could solve the problem by paying more pilots to be on reserve, but then it ends up being rather unprofitable if the weather is fine all month. Still, none of the other major airlines, including American who also flies out of Chicago, have had this level of problem this month.
Anyway… I go to look at availability for standing by tomorrow, and the entire day is now sold out. I do a little digging, and it turns out that United has cancelled a 9am Chicago-LA flight because they do not have crew. Think about this for a second…Illinois is playing USC in the Rose Bowl in the afternoon. Can’t they find a different 757 to cancel?
United went and stuck a spare 747 on a later flight to make up for it. See, 747 crews were not as affected by the weather in December, so they’re all in the right place. This way, they can use one crew to a place where a 747 is useful: it can be a spare in case the LA-Sydney, LA-Hong Kong, or SF-Sydney planes have a problem, and if not, they can fly it back to Chicago in the morning and take lots of extra passengers willing to pay $50 to fly out earlier on Monday.
Meanwhile, my odds of standing by for an earlier flight are now minimal, and the odds of the LA-Sydney flight also being delayed if my flight is delayed are also shot (after all, they have a spare 747 there….). Fortunately, there are currently 11 upgrade seats on January 2 from either LA or SF to Sydney, so if I miss my flight, there’s still a solid chance that I’ll get a business class seat on Tuesday’s flight.
