US News Now

[nycbusdriver]

Blaming the wx is BS. I worked crappy wx a few years - one winter, temps went to -25F (-50F windchill) and snow drifted up to the middle of my second story window.

The difference is, we planned for such a weather event - staffing, equipment, supplies,etc. ahead of time. Management had the foresight to rent a few tractors with snowplows, knowing they had some farm boys who knew what to do. I made some nice OT on a tractor clearing our gate spaces and fuel farm - the airport was busy on the runways and ramps.

During the worst of it, we had heavy falling snow. We set up four deicing rigs as a 'car wash' at the end of the runway. The planes got shot and immediately took off. When two rigs ran out of fluid, we had two more ready to go. Not rocket science, yes?

The notion of "if the temps had been a few degrees higher, we'd be ok" is BS,too. You shouldn't cut it that fine, and you should plan for the worst. I fully understand you can't fly with ice pellets. Cancel where you're most likely to have them, and design the system to recover where you don't. If the NE is going to sock in, ferry the canceled flights and crews to CLT. Game it out ahead of time, and design a computer program that will automate the heavy lifting. Or can't SHARES do that? If it can't, the BOD needs to do the job the stockholders hired them to do.

Of course, that takes $$$ and insight.To date, US misspends one and has none of the other.

While I think that WX was only part of the story for USAirways, it does appear that the WX in PHL was more disruptive than your personal horror story of heavy snow and extreme temperatures. There is an entire page full of tablulated criteria which we now consult whenever the temps are at or below freezing and some form of H2O is falling. Heavy snow does not stop operations entirely, as long as the procedures are followed. Hence, in your experience, the airplanes were car-washed and left immediately. And that's legal.

Ice pellets, though, (unless they are reported as "light") STOP air carrier departures. Finis. End of story. Car-wash till the cows come home, you still can't go. If Ice Pellets are reported, you could have the deice truck chase you down the runway, and it still would be illegal to depart. That's the law.

Now, the forecast for the meltdown (no pun) date was for improving conditions, but moderate or worse ice pellets continued unabated despite the expectation that conditions would improve. THAT is why operations had to shut down.

You just cannot depart an airport reporting ice pellets (moderate or more) no matter what de-/anti-icing precautions are taken.

 

[Squonk]

Thanks for the informative post nycbusdriver.

 

[diogenes]

nycbusdriver,

You are correct in every aspect of your assessment of flying (or rather, not flying) during ice pellets.

When you have them, game over.

OTOH, if you know there's a good chance of ice pellets, pre-cancel as needed and divert the fleet elsewhere. Contingency planning (Plan A, Plan B, Plan C), hopefully automated, would be good.

If ice pellets were the sole cause of operational meltdowns, we wouldn't have a long history of 'weather events.'

But we both know ops have gone south because of holdover times, hubs running out of deicing fluid, hubs applying cold deicing fluid, failure to anticipate the severity of the storm, etc.

Years ago when Schofield blamed annual losses on Hurricane Hugo, I opined that US management would lay their incompetence at the feet of a summer storm, a winter storm or April Storm.

Doesn't seemed to have changed.

 

[MarkMyWords]

Barbell first made the comparison to WN - I was only responding to that.

Care to explain CO in EWR them. Or B6 in JFK. While both had significant cancellations on Friday (B6 especially), they both precanceled flights and their recovery was significantly better than US.

Jim

ps - yes, PIT had some sleet. Didn't you say that the PHL forecast also included sleet? Yet defended the decision to attempt a normal operation because of that forecast. So either "some sleet" was a factor and should have been considered in the planning or it wasn't. You can't ignore it in the PHL forecast yet use it's impact in PIT to excuse US' performance.

CO in EWR did not fully recover until Monday - just like US. CO was still cancelling flights on Sunday morning due to crew issues and a/c out of position.

B6 had a better operating plan with one major hub, one crew base.

And lastly....the PIT forecast was for snow, 2-4 inches. The snow turned to sleet/freezing rain for several hours in the morning, haulting departures for several hours. It was not forecasted and not an all day event. So it did have an impact on the operation in PIT when the morning bank of flights were delayed several hours due to deicing and icing conditions. When you dleya the first bank, it has a ripple effect throughout the remainder of the day - which I know you are full aware.

 

[ISP]

B6 had a better operating plan with one major hub, one crew base.

B6 OPS aren't as simple as people make them out to be. There is not 1 crew base - there are 4 (JFK/BOS/LGB/FLL).

While JFK may be the "major hub", consider that B6 runs more flights out of BOS than US does (mainline) from BOS, PIT, or LGA.

B6 also runs more flights from JFK than US does (mainline) from PHL (185).

JFK was impacted just as badly, if not worse than PHL this weekend. If you want to factor in Express fine, but in terms of aircraft movements affecting an airfield, JFK has just as many (or close to) PHL now that DL has all their lawn darts flying in there every day.

US dropped the ball here. I won't complain though, I am just stating facts. I was flying LGA-CLT-MIA Friday morning and returning Monday evening. I was on the 800AM, was concerned seeing the weather Thursday night, so I was booked confirmed 1A & 1C out of LGA with Mrs. ISP as a "backup" on the 640AM flight. Got on that one, and from what I hear, was very lucky to do so. Made my cruise, and got back on US with no problem Monday as well. Only sign of what had happened was the baggage area in LGA Monday evening.

By the way... the new computers are pathetic. Waited in the FC/Preferred TKT CTR line in LGA and MIA for 15 minutes on both occasions. Can't win em' all I guess.

 

[BoeingBoy]

CO in EWR did not fully recover until Monday - just like US. CO was still cancelling flights on Sunday morning due to crew issues and a/c out of position.

Just like US?

Tuesday - East mainline departures under 40% S+14
Wednesday - East mainline departures 43% S+14

Wednesday - combined US mainline departures 65% S+14

I don't remember CO's mainline OT departure rate for Tuesday, but Wednesday it was 88% S+14

B6 definitely appears to have learned a lesson from their Valentine's Day Massacre. By Sunday, they were above 70% in OT departures S+14, IIRC.

Before you say that US has a larger percentage of operations in the affected area than CO does, let's look at just PHL and EWR:

Wednesday - East mainline PHL departures 25% S+14
Wednesday - CO mainline EWR departures 84% S+14

and just for kicks...

Wednesday - B6 JFK departures 79% S+14

(all from FlightStats.com)

You can sugar-coat it all you want, but US had much bigger problems the day of the storm and has recovered much more slowly than any other airline. And remember, both EWR and JFK had ATC delay programs Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. PHL had no ATC issues those days. CO even had a self-imposed ground stop on their flights to EWR for about 1-1/2 hours Saturday afternoon. All else being equal, US should have recovered faster than either CO @ EWR or B6 @ JFK. Yet, on day 5, US still lags far behind.

Jim

 

[HPearlyretiree]

I don't think the users of this board are being fair ..... I'll take this mgt team any day over the past 5 we've had.

In fact, I think this board is loosing its creditability ..... nothing but negative BS.

I agree, this place is turning into a Biotch fest.

You don't like your job, quit, its quite a liberating thing.

If you can't quit, learn some skills so you can.

No one has a gun to your head, and the world is full of opportunities.

 

[USstew23]

I agree, this place is turning into a Biotch fest.

You don't like your job, quit, its quite a liberating thing.

If you can't quit, learn some skills so you can.

No one has a gun to your head, and the world is full of opportunities.

As usual taking the easy way out. Yep!! Just quit that solves everything. There was once an article about "America's Worst Airline" (Airliners July 1999) and the employees there did the same thing. Seems to be a pattern. I worked this past weekend and was embarrassed and completely in shock of how the passengers were treated. I invited every single one of them to Tempe to explain how they felt.

 

[BoeingBoy]

Let me give you a couple of quotes, Bob. You'll probably get a laugh or two.....

US Airways combined its old reservations system with America West's early Sunday morning and knew that not all of the information in each passenger's record was going to transfer properly to the new system, Kirby said.

March 7 Philadelphia Inquirer

He [Kirby - Jim] explained that during the change-over, 1.5 million of about 7 million reservations didn't "match up," which caused long lines at check-in.

"We didn't find that in our testing process," Kirby said.

March 22 Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Jim

 

[Harry Callahan]

If I had Doug's position & money I don't think I would even have a drivers license.

 

[MarkMyWords]

OK OK OK! I surrender.....I know absolutely nothing. I've had to much kool-aid. The sun in Tempe has fried my brain. You win!

US AIRWAYS SUCKS! DOUG NEEDS TO LEAVE! TAKE SCOTT WITH YOU! SHARES IS THE WORST COMPUTER SYSTEM EVER! WE'D ALL BE HAPPIER IF THIS RAT HOLE OF A COMPANY HAD GONE OUT OF BUSINESS!

Better?

 

[gaucho99]

Just like US?

Tuesday - East mainline departures under 40% S+14
Wednesday - East mainline departures 43% S+14

Wednesday - combined US mainline departures 65% S+14

I don't remember CO's mainline OT departure rate for Tuesday, but Wednesday it was 88% S+14

B6 definitely appears to have learned a lesson from their Valentine's Day Massacre. By Sunday, they were above 70% in OT departures S+14, IIRC.

Before you say that US has a larger percentage of operations in the affected area than CO does, let's look at just PHL and EWR:

Wednesday - East mainline PHL departures 25% S+14
Wednesday - CO mainline EWR departures 84% S+14

and just for kicks...

Wednesday - B6 JFK departures 79% S+14

(all from FlightStats.com)

You can sugar-coat it all you want, but US had much bigger problems the day of the storm and has recovered much more slowly than any other airline. And remember, both EWR and JFK had ATC delay programs Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. PHL had no ATC issues those days. CO even had a self-imposed ground stop on their flights to EWR for about 1-1/2 hours Saturday afternoon. All else being equal, US should have recovered faster than either CO @ EWR or B6 @ JFK. Yet, on day 5, US still lags far behind.

Jim

I think there is another factor that is being ignored. Most of the flights operated by CO and B6 from their northeast hubs leave the region. Ex.- CO flt from ewr may go to iah or ord or lax. All areas that were experiencing good weather which put an end to the delays and made recovery easier. US has a ton of flts in the affected area that stay in the region. ex- phl to bwi or lga to dca or phl to lga etc. Many of these flts turn around and go back to the same or another city in the same region. Makes a big difference when you look at total flts affected and the time needed to recover.

 

[Itestwell]

I think there is another factor that is being ignored. Most of the flights operated by CO and B6 from their northeast hubs leave the region. Ex.- CO flt from ewr may go to iah or ord or lax. All areas that were experiencing good weather which put an end to the delays and made recovery easier. US has a ton of flts in the affected area that stay in the region. ex- phl to bwi or lga to dca or phl to lga etc. Many of these flts turn around and go back to the same or another city in the same region. Makes a big difference when you look at total flts affected and the time needed to recover.

Hmm... BoeingBoy, your witness........

 

[longing4piedmont]

Better?

No. But you are getting there...

 

[jimcfs]

No. But you are getting there...

It takes a while for the kool-aid to completely leave your system once you're finished with it, right l4pi? 😛