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August 01. 2007 5:58PM
Northwest says Web site’s flight stats wrong
Northwest Airlines will soon begin posting online its own flight status information, including cancellations, after disputing the statistics from a consumer Web site that tracks commercial flight activity that is regularly quoted by the media.
The airline, struggling with more than 2,000 cancelled flights both in June and July, said Wednesday the numbers provided by FlightStats.com don’t match Northwest’s own figures and don’t properly differentiate among types of cancellations. The privately owned, Portland, Ore.-based Web site collects flight information from various sources, including the airlines and Federal Aviation Administration, and is often used by the media in airline stories.
“We’re disputing (the numbers), which is why we’re going to start putting up our own,†said Andrea Fischer Newman, senior vice president for government affairs for Northwest (Nasdaq: NWAC). She did not know when the airline will post its flight statistics.
The Web site said the numbers reported by the media from its real-time airport scorecard often are not in context and should be reported more carefully.
“The real-time information is at best an indicator,†said Meara McLaughlin, vice president of development and marketing for Flightstats.com. She said Northwest’s statistics include freight flights in addition to passenger flights, and the airline is cancelling some freight flights to use the crews for passenger service. That can skew the numbers, she said.
Flightstats.com site showed 23 cancellations for all of Northwest globally on Wednesday, including 13 departing or arriving flights at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. The airline, the largest carrier at Detroit Metro, said it had a total of eight cancellations globally and none for Detroit, Fischer Newman said.
Flightstats.com doesn’t take into account precancellations, Fischer Newman said. She termed those as flights cancelled prior to the day of departure, and that many of them lately have been part of the airline’s effort to reduce its number of flights and eliminate day-of cancellations. Northwest is cutting flight frequency, bringing back 383 furloughed pilots and hiring 300 new pilots over the next year to alleviate the cancellation issue, which it blames primarily on weather and pilot absenteeism.
Passengers on precancelled flights are put on other flights, other airlines or refunded their money ahead of the day of departure, Fischer Newman said.
McLaughlin said Northwest is wrong that Flightstats includes precancelled flights in its real-time numbers.
“If they have precancelled a flight, they have not filed a flight plan and we don’t track it,†she said.
On Sunday, Flightstats.com showed 223 Northwest flights to or from Detroit as cancelled. Northwest said the actual number was 150 for the entire airline, of which 114 were because of lack of crew. The other issues were storms on the East Coast and aircraft maintenance, Fischer Newman said.
The airline currently has about 4,900 pilots, and the Air Line Pilots Association, the union representing Northwest’s pilots, has said understaffing at Northwest is the issue.
August 01. 2007 5:58PM
Northwest says Web site’s flight stats wrong
Northwest Airlines will soon begin posting online its own flight status information, including cancellations, after disputing the statistics from a consumer Web site that tracks commercial flight activity that is regularly quoted by the media.
The airline, struggling with more than 2,000 cancelled flights both in June and July, said Wednesday the numbers provided by FlightStats.com don’t match Northwest’s own figures and don’t properly differentiate among types of cancellations. The privately owned, Portland, Ore.-based Web site collects flight information from various sources, including the airlines and Federal Aviation Administration, and is often used by the media in airline stories.
“We’re disputing (the numbers), which is why we’re going to start putting up our own,†said Andrea Fischer Newman, senior vice president for government affairs for Northwest (Nasdaq: NWAC). She did not know when the airline will post its flight statistics.
The Web site said the numbers reported by the media from its real-time airport scorecard often are not in context and should be reported more carefully.
“The real-time information is at best an indicator,†said Meara McLaughlin, vice president of development and marketing for Flightstats.com. She said Northwest’s statistics include freight flights in addition to passenger flights, and the airline is cancelling some freight flights to use the crews for passenger service. That can skew the numbers, she said.
Flightstats.com site showed 23 cancellations for all of Northwest globally on Wednesday, including 13 departing or arriving flights at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. The airline, the largest carrier at Detroit Metro, said it had a total of eight cancellations globally and none for Detroit, Fischer Newman said.
Flightstats.com doesn’t take into account precancellations, Fischer Newman said. She termed those as flights cancelled prior to the day of departure, and that many of them lately have been part of the airline’s effort to reduce its number of flights and eliminate day-of cancellations. Northwest is cutting flight frequency, bringing back 383 furloughed pilots and hiring 300 new pilots over the next year to alleviate the cancellation issue, which it blames primarily on weather and pilot absenteeism.
Passengers on precancelled flights are put on other flights, other airlines or refunded their money ahead of the day of departure, Fischer Newman said.
McLaughlin said Northwest is wrong that Flightstats includes precancelled flights in its real-time numbers.
“If they have precancelled a flight, they have not filed a flight plan and we don’t track it,†she said.
On Sunday, Flightstats.com showed 223 Northwest flights to or from Detroit as cancelled. Northwest said the actual number was 150 for the entire airline, of which 114 were because of lack of crew. The other issues were storms on the East Coast and aircraft maintenance, Fischer Newman said.
The airline currently has about 4,900 pilots, and the Air Line Pilots Association, the union representing Northwest’s pilots, has said understaffing at Northwest is the issue.
