100,000 LCC travelers stuck...

[MarkMyWords]

But we are te only airline doing so badly at recovery we made the national news repeatedly.

We are todays poster child. Yesterday it was CO in EWR and the international carriers in JFK. Last month it was JetBlue. The news agencies are going to try and sensationalize everything. Not to diminish the event by any means. CO cancelled a large number of flights this morning to try and recover, why is that not in the news. Cause it isn't as dramatic as seeing people laying on their suitcases at the airport.

how many times do you think ATO and RES agents had to hear how, "this is even worse then JetBlue". How many text messages and e-mails would have been sent to new agencies had the "JetBlue" story not been posted all over the headlines last month. :blink:

 

[Dog Wonder]

Coming up on CNN

 

[MarkMyWords]

I agree with you 100% Bob. How we handle irregular operations speaks volumes. And you are right, the east has always been very good at reacting to storms. But we have gotten it wrong before. When you are basing your decisions on weather forecast models, it is hard to predict with 100% accuracy. With 10 weather events this year, 9 we got right, 1 we got wrong. Seems like every year there is that one storm that we didn't quite get right.

As for the experience that your friend had with CO. Great product by CO and an awesome customer response. Unfortunately, we have not been able to develope the same type of system, YET. Being on two reservations systems complicated things. Now that we are on one system, we can get back to making the necessary improvements for these types of situations. Not everything can be fixed overnight. Now that we are all in SHARES, we can work at getting things right.

With over 1500 flight cancellations on Friday - it would have been nearly impossible to have queue'd them all up and made calls to all affected customers. Could we have done better then we did? ABSOLUTELY.

 

[BoeingBoy]

Well, heading toward the end of the second "recovery" day, here's the scorecard courtesy of FlightStats.com:

US mainline 30% OT departures/4% of flights canceled
- East mainline 12%/5%
CO mainline 57%/2%
DL mainline 80%/.2%
AA mainline 75%/.3%
NW mainline 79%/.9%
WN 85%/.1%
B6 46%/.5%

NOTE: EWR (CO) has had an ATC ground delay program in effect since 13:20 this afternoon and CO instituted a ground stop of their aircraft between 18:30 and 20:00. General GDP continues.

NOTE 2: JFK (DL & B6) instituted a GDP at 13:38 which ended at 19:20

NOTE 3: PHL hasn't had any ATC delay programs today

Jim

 

[US1YFARE]

Have we made similar mistakes in the past.
...

We are not the only airline that had problems this weekend.

...
Hopefully this was a lesson learned by all.

1. Yes, Feb 14th when I was stuck in the PHL for 16 hours.

2. Who cares. The pax flying your airline don't get any consolation that other airlines are having problems. They didn't pay to fly the other airline.

3. You haven't learned yet. What makes me believe that you will learn from this event?

I'd love to see Dougie or Travis or Kirby stand in one of the customer service lines at PHL for hours...or even better, call the US1 line had have to wait on hold for 25 minutes to get an overflow agent who can't figure out SHARES.

 

[safety stud]

It's easy to blame SHARES, it's easy to blame PHL, and it's easy to blame DP and SK. It's easy. I get that. I see from all of your groaning that you think the Cluster**** this weekend is the ruination of LCC.

Take a deep breath...

It's not.

Dropping the ball this weekend DID happen. However there is a more fundamental issue here that is much worse. And it's not just with LCC or Jetblue. Media attention has been rampant with the problems all the airlines have been having this winter. They focus on passenger problems and complaints instead of the true problem: "To much regulation in a de-regulated airline industry".

Here's how I see it. Since 1979 when deregulation occured certain airlines where able to EXPAND, PROFIT, and PROSPER in and industry basically run by the DOT. When the restrictions disappeared, the airline industry ran there operations at a feverish pace. The all mighty dollar to this day drives who flies what airline. Brand loyalty is gone with the $39 dollar fare. Now you have an industry of Legacy carriers who try to run their airline as a low cost carrier to compete with the Jetblues, Southwests, and Frontiers. The media is more concerned with poor Johnny who spent $39 for his roundtrip ticket to east gabip and sat on the runway for 8 hours, instead of the poor airline that now has to spend hundereds of thousands of dollars to get poor Johnny to his destination. And yet... Are you with me...The poor Bast*** will complain if he has to spend a dollar more for his ticket next time.

All of this with the added costs of Security, Fuel Costs, Labor, Airport Landing Fees, Aircraft Leasing, Communication, Terminal Rental Fees, Obscure Reservation Systems, Building Rentals, Etc. Etc. Etc. It's amazing that poor Johnny and his $39 fare was able to pay for all of this.

Bottom line: The Airline industry needs to be "Regulated" once again. Poor Johnny will then have to shell out $3939.39 to go to east gabip and the airlines will make the money to focus on what an airline does: Take someone from point A to point B. Period...

Regulation means less frequency (Full Flights)
Regulation means stable airfares (More Money)
Regulation means stable airlines (Less Bankruptcy)

Not to say Ice storms won't happen, and not to say NY blizzards won't happen. But being in a position to recover from it will.

Government will step in. Soon. And when it does hopefully you will see the changes you want.

Parker didn't cause the icestorm. Poor Johnny did...

 

[BuffaloJoe]

Government will step in. Soon. And when it does hopefully you will see the changes you want.

I don't want the Government involved, especially from this administration. They couldn't change a light bulb.

 

[US1YFARE]

Poor Johnny will then have to shell out $3939.39 to go to east gabip and the airlines will make the money to focus on what an airline does: Take someone from point A to point B. Period...

I think you are so offbase, but anyway...

If the airline industry were to be regulated again, I doubt I (personally) would see that much difference in the fares I pay since I don't buy the oft-quoted $39 ticket.

And, your company would FAIL miserably in a regulated world because competition would be based on CUSTOMER SERVICE and AMENITITES which your airline truly lacks....remember the days of buffets on cross-country flights...hot meals on short flights in coach...real china? LCC wouldn't know what to do if it had to beef up amenities.

 

[safety stud]

Hey US1YFARE, did you fly USAir when we went coast to coast with Wine and Orange juice, Cheese and Crackers, Hot Meals with Choices, Ice Cream, 3 Beverage Services, Hot Towels and A Mint. Oh by the way... That's what we gave them in coach... Or maybe PIT-PHL Hot breakfast on a 35 min. flight...

We did that...

You still want your $39 fare...

 

[tadjr]

With over 1500 flight cancellations on Friday - it would have been nearly impossible to have queue'd them all up and made calls to all affected customers. Could we have done better then we did? ABSOLUTELY.

Is there not an automated system out there can can take a queued flight, search for phone contacts (or email addresses from rez bookings) and send out notices that the flight has cancelled to call and get rebooked (with a dedicated line for rebooking?) or to actually get the website (dont laugh) to rebook people in a situation like this? It would take so much pressure off the (little) amount of staffing we have now to get at least some of the people out of the line/off the phone and on an automated system or the internet. I know you cant pull everyone off of "sales" bookings, but on a weekend like this, you need to take care of the thousands of people standing in line at the airport. I know I made a comment about no one leaving the line when advised by the manager (and this weekend was not a great time to try that approach). I had people coming to the airport getting through our long line trying to rebook people FROM OTHER CITIES. Someones daughter was in Paris and she got it done quicker in our line (adding to our queue) than she could on the phone or in Paris. Did they not mandatory anyone in Manila or Mexico City this weekend? 😛h34r:

 

[UWCactus]

I'm sorry but when people behave like she did there is usually a management issue lurking right under the surface. At least that has been my experience.

Just like when a drunk driver gets behind the wheel....it's the bartender/FA's fault right??

But we are te only airline doing so badly at recovery we made the national news repeatedly.

The media is only running this story, because it was a big story in the news a month ago and Jet Blue took the hit. Media will run the story over and over until something bigger happens...you must understand thats how media works. Every wonder why after a crash, suddenly it seems like planes are crashing left and right?? Its how the media reports the news.

 

[not so fast]

Just some FACTS for a change.

1) None of the forecast models predicted the ICE event to last as long as it did. Rain and snow events are much less a challenge as operating in an ICE event. By the time the forecasted models were changed, we were already behind the 8 ball.

This is NOT true. I've heard US use the "surprise ice storm" excuse all weekend. Do not believe it.

This is the fact. While the longer-term models did not predict the ice, the forecast for PHL (and NYC) was updated by midnight Friday and it called for a very prolonged sleet storm with 1"-3" of sleet. And that is exactly the weather that occurred.

It was this updated forecast that caused Jet Blue to cancel its flights before things got out of control on Friday. US had access to the same forecast, yet chose to ignore it.

 

[MarkMyWords]

Tad,

Pre-merger and Pre-Bankruptcy we were working on a proactive reaccom system that would do just that. Contact customers, notify them of the cancellation / delay, provide reroute information. If the reroute was acceptable, you would press 1, if you needed to speak to a RES agent you would press 2, etc, etc, etc. Great system, seemed to have real potential to communicate via telephone, pager, blackberry, e-mail or homing pigeon. Unfortunately the whole bankruptcy limited our ability to truly develope the product and use it to it's full potential. I believe (and someone can correct me if I am wrong) the east had a phone dialing system to notify customers of delays or cancellations - a flight notification system. But it has limited capabilities.

I agree with you 100%. We need to develope a system that has the ability to make massive amounts of calls - via an automated system. We need to notify customer PRIOR to their arrival at the airport to stop these issues of lines 3-4-5 hours long. This is where we fail miserably. We drag people to the airport in adverse weather conditions on the hopes of being able to operate the flight. They get to the airport to find long lines and cancelled flights. We need a system in place to do advance notifications and assist in the rebooking, reticketing process. Take the pressure off RES and the ATO. Imagine how much smoother things would have gone today if we didn't have hundreds of people in line at the ATO for cancelled flts. If they were able to rebook at home, online, on the phone.

I know that this process is in the works. Hopefully they will dust off the old US East program that was in early development and look at it's utilization and further developoment. We still have several hurdles to cross before we get there, but there is no doubt in my mind that this is going to be a top priority once we get through SHARES and Single Certificate issues.

 

[UWCactus]

In case you don't know, the same team who worked through the weather issues in years past are working through them now-- out of the OCC in PIT and they will do just as well. Wx in the NE is not an easy issue but the OCC will make the best of it!

This was exactly why I made my orignal post on here. Tempe is not making those decisions for east flying on an irregular basis. They have kept those people in place in OCC to handle this. People on this board, always point to Tempe as though they are in the office 24 hours a day, making operational decisions. Those decisions are made by other departments and in the case of the East operation this past weekend, most of this was handled by the same people that have handled it for years before this merger...the people that post and point to Tempe every time something goes wrong, must consider this.

 

[BoeingBoy]

I love it - there aren't any problems, it's all a media conspiracy.....

Jim