Air Travel

Question:

>Ah, yes… >I lived in Germany for 3 years (1987-90) and got to experience what >flight delays are all about. There’s a combination of >1) Much heavier air traffic

You try flying into EWR on a Friday afternoon.  US air traffic is much heavier than European.  Witness the fact that we have the largest airports, like ORD and ATL, and NYC would be up there in the rankings if you combine LGA and JFK like they do during bad weather, and add the fact that EWR is close by and impedes holding patterns for NYC.  Low pricing stimulates very heavy traffic in the US. >2) ALL short flights (2 hours is a pretty long stretch in western >   Europe)

NYC’s #1 destination is BOS, BOS’s is NYC.  This does not affect traffic loads, though. >3) Evil weather (less snow, but lots of fog & rain)

BOS is vulnerable to snow; EWR has big fog problems very often. >4) Heavy travel peaks; almost all vacation travel is in late >   summer, and most seems to be by charter flights, and

Heavy peaks on Friday afternoons due to businesspeople.  Many of the charter flights you speak of are big planes with lots of people. And Europe doesn’t have any peak travel to match our airline’s hubs such as ORD, ATL, DFW, etc. >5) lack of an integrated ATC system. Look at it this way; why >   should Belgian authorities hire more controllers to get >   passengers from France to England?

True, but look at the US system.  Dereg has boosted air travel and the ATC barely keeps up.  Add to that IBM’s dismal failure in building ATC. Perhaps European traffic is worse than most areas of the US, but the Northeast is definitely worse than European/German air traffic. Of the 4 times I’ve been through FRA, I’ve never had a delay, and one landing was in bad weather on a Friday.

Response:

This is kind of off the subject, but I flew DL a while back (EWR-MCO) and I was delayed, oh, 5 hours!  (Consequently, my reserved hotel room was given to someone else, etc.) Anyway, the weather was to blame (it was, as a matter of fact, less than a week before Hurricane Andrew…) Nevertheless (geez I love using that word), I have flown DL many a time, never got a delay, or was late, etc. Just my penny’s worth (and in this market, it’s probably worth $.00001) -Evan S  U  N  R  I  S  E     A  I  R  L  I  N  E  S     G  R  O  U  P       of U N I T E D   S U N R I S E   I N T E R N A T I O N A L   H O L D I N G S S  U  N  R  I  S  E     A  I  R  L  I  N  E  S     G  R  O  U  P       of U N I T E D   S U N R I S E   I N T E R N A T I O N A L   H O L D I N G S

Response:

: Well I fly Delta (UK-USA) and British Airways (in Europe) quite a lot and get many more flight : delays on BA.  Last week was the first time that I had a real Delta delay that resulted in my : spending the night in Salt Lake City.  Not part of my original travel plan to stay overnight   : but I recognise that when you fly as much as I do things do go wrong occasionally.  The airline : kept us informed over the delay, advised us that some of the connections may have left (we were : 1.5 hrs late) and on arrival had sorted out hotels, accomodation and made any necessary phone : calls to sort out other Hotel and car bookings.  I thought they did a pretty fair job of not making : too much of a crisis for me. : As to punctuality I find that my transatlantic flights are usually on time, if not early. : In Europe I find about half the flights are delayed usually as a result of going around in : circles trying to find a slot to land.  An hour circling after an hour flight isn’t unknown and : its got to the level that the Airline staff don’t even bother to tell you what’s going on.     :   : How do flight delays compare with driving by car or bus and keeping to a 5 minute pre-planned : schedule over a couple of hours journey.  It’s all relative. : If only the world was perfect. Ah, yes… I lived in Germany for 3 years (1987-90) and got to experience what flight delays are all about. There’s a combination of 1) Much heavier air traffic 2) ALL short flights (2 hours is a pretty long stretch in western    Europe) 3) Evil weather (less snow, but lots of fog & rain) 4) Heavy travel peaks; almost all vacation travel is in late    summer, and most seems to be by charter flights, and 5) lack of an integrated ATC system. Look at it this way; why    should Belgian authorities hire more controllers to get    passengers from France to England? What’s more, there always seemed to be some sort of strike or slowdown by controllers somewhere during the summer months. Flying from CGN (Cologne-Bonn) to STD (Stansted), quite often we would be delayed pushing back because Spanish controllers were on strike or some such; if the charter flights couldn’t leave STD for Spain, everything backed up. I don’t think American passengers can really imagine needing a landing slot assigned before takeoff, which is routine in Europe. As I recall, moves were afoot to try to integrate ATC under a single international organization, but there was no real hope of rapid change. -Steve Westin

Response:

: I’ve added the following DOT statistics to the FAQ. They have some : bearing on the original poster’s complaint about "Delta always late". : Please note that the DOT defines "on-time" to be "arriving within 15 : minutes of scheduled arrival time". The following statistics show the : percentage of flights arriving on-time according to the DOT. The : average for all airlines was 83%. : With about 1/4 of their flights arriving "late", it isn’t unlikely : that some travelers will find all their segments arriving late. :       Best  – Southwest    90.2% :                America West 89.1% :                Northwest    89.1% :                Alaska       83.9% :                TWA          83.5% :                USAir        83.5% :                American     82.6% :                United       82.4% :                Continental  78.3% :       Worst — Delta        76.8% : Mark Kantrowitz : Maintainer, rec.travel.air FAQ Are there statistics on HOW LATE the "late" flights are? I once sat from 7:30 PM to 12:45 AM in a plane on the ground at Detroit (NW non-stop to SLC); there were de-icing problems, closed runway etc. I got the feeling that once you’re late, you may be very late indeed as later flights get sent out at higher priority; they still have a chance of being on time, which is the number they’re trying to maximize. -Steve Westin

Response:

: >Most (if not all) airlines pad their flight schedules, such that for a : >given flight, the actual air time is much less than the interval : >between the published departure and arrival times. The purpose of this : >is to have the statistics show up better on the DOT reports, since : >they use scheduled arrival time as measure of performance, not : >departure time. : Arguably this is an improvement in more than just statistics.  Most : people can deal quite easily with getting to a destination earlier : than they planned.  Arriving late is not so easy. I agree. Back in the dark ages of, I believe, the late ’70’s and early ’80’s, the airlines competed to get the earliest arrival time, since travel agents’ computers were rigged to prefer that. Imagine the scenario: CUSTOMER: What’s the soonest I can get to Chigago if I leave right           atfer 5? AGENT: Hmmm… That’ll be Braniff 908, arriving at 6:13. Result: Braniff 908 is full, but Eastern 302, scheduled to arrive at 6:14, is almost empty. If you work for Eastern, the answer is obvious: change the arrival time to 6:12. Of course, Braniff retaliates, as do American, Northwest, etc., and soon you have flights that average an hour flight time but are scheduled for 1:02 total, including taxiing, ground traffic problems, late connections, headwinds, etc. Or worse. Arrival times got to be utter fiction. I believe it was American who first decided (no doubt after years of market research) that this made for irritated passengers, as almost every flight was late. They publicly announced that they had been lying to us all along, and they promised to stop it. Other airlines followed suit, and we wound up with the more realistic flight times we have today. It’s up to you, I guess, to decide whether a shorter (more optimistic) scheduled time on a "less reliable" carrier is better that a longer scheduled time on an airline with better on-time performance. Our travel agent, Thomas Cook, gives us on-time performance for specific flights to help in booking. Unfortunately I haven’t figured out how to decipher it yet. I daresay that other agents might do the same. -Steve Westin P.S. The scheduling game outlined above, and other games like it, were the basis in several suits against American by Braniff and others, since American provided reservation services through SABRE. If the SABRE folks, who of course were informed of any changes in advance, told the airline folks, that would give them an unfair advantage in scheduling.

Response:

One nice thing about Delta is that they often delay flights slightly to pick up connecting passengers whose inbound flights are late. I’ve been on Delta flights where I had to run through SLC to make the connection, but my bags still made it! (they were added to the plane after it had pushed back from the gate).

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I recently flew Delta from CVG>FRA>DEL>FRA>CVG and experienced, surprisingly, no delay anywhere the whole trip. First time.

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> I recently flew Delta from CVG>FRA>DEL>FRA>CVG and experienced, > surprisingly, no delay anywhere the whole trip. First time.

Just a question of curiosity: Does DELTA have a tougher time table or do they   need the same time for the same nonstop service (on the same plane)? Much more   spare time in the time table can save you from lots of "delays". Peter Loibl

Response:

Well I fly Delta (UK-USA) and British Airways (in Europe) quite a lot and get many more flight delays on BA.  Last week was the first time that I had a real Delta delay that resulted in my spending the night in Salt Lake City.  Not part of my original travel plan to stay overnight     but I recognise that when you fly as much as I do things do go wrong occasionally.  The airline kept us informed over the delay, advised us that some of the connections may have left (we were 1.5 hrs late) and on arrival had sorted out hotels, accomodation and made any necessary phone calls to sort out other Hotel and car bookings.  I thought they did a pretty fair job of not making too much of a crisis for me. As to punctuality I find that my transatlantic flights are usually on time, if not early. In Europe I find about half the flights are delayed usually as a result of going around in circles trying to find a slot to land.  An hour circling after an hour flight isn’t unknown and its got to the level that the Airline staff don’t even bother to tell you what’s going on.       How do flight delays compare with driving by car or bus and keeping to a 5 minute pre-planned schedule over a couple of hours journey.  It’s all relative. If only the world was perfect. Happy travelling Gordon de la Mare ..speaking for me and not Amdahl Corp.

Response:

>My flight from Atlanta to Philly was also delayed for about 45 minutes >to 1 hour.  When I walked down the Delta terminals, I noticed that the >planes were all scheduled to take off within 15 minutes of one >another.  I mean, the scheduled departure were all between 5:00pm and >5:15pm.  As a result, our flight had to wait for other 20 planes to >take off before we could use the airport lane…

This is a common feature of hub airports, not a unique feature of Delta.   American does the same thing here at DFW.  I think the goal is to have all of the arrivals at roughly the same time, and then 45-60 min later have most of the departures to minimize the layovers for the connecting passengers.  When the entire nation’s weather system is perfectly clear and there’s no delays, you usually only have 2 or 3 planes ahead of you, but if the east coast is under a snowstorm or fog socks in at your airport, you will get the much longer taxi line. — –Gail All comments are mine mine mine!! However, they may be borrowed free-of-charge at your own risk for up to 2 weeks, $0.25/day late fee.

Response:

>One reminder regarding airline schedules (also in the FAQ): >Most (if not all) airlines pad their flight schedules, such that for a >given flight, the actual air time is much less than the interval >between the published departure and arrival times. The purpose of this >is to have the statistics show up better on the DOT reports, since >they use scheduled arrival time as measure of performance, not >departure time. >I have often experienced flights that "push off" from the gate as much >as 30 minutes behind schedule, only to have them arrive at the >destination "on time". Occasionally, I’ve been on flights that depart >right on time, and arrive as much as 45 minutes ahead of schedule.

I do agree that the airlines have padded their flight schedules a little (I believe when the DOT first started keeping stats, the tv news reported most airlines added 15 minutes to most flights), but not all of the time over actual air time is padding. Don’t forget that the scheduled times also need to include taxi-ing time to and from the runway, and certain times of day this taxi to runway time will be larger than normal because of heavy airport traffic and long lines waiting to take off.  Also, if you’re flying into a hub and the flight departs late, often the pilots will be authorized to "floor it" to allow the passengers to make connections (easier on the airline to spend extra money in fuel than to find flights for a packed DC-10!!).  Prevailing winds can also help a flight land ahead of schedule–a good tailwind (more than normal which is included in flight times) can shave off 30 minutes between Dallas & Newark!!   — –Gail All comments are mine mine mine!! However, they may be borrowed free-of-charge at your own risk for up to 2 weeks, $0.25/day late fee.

Response:

Over the winter break, I flied Delta from Philly to Mexico with a layover at Atlanta.  I left Philly on Dec 23th, and had a short delay of less than 15 minutes at Atlanta.  I was happy with their service and had no complaints about anything. My returning flight on Jan 9th, however, was the worst nightmare I had since I flied Pan-Am four years ago.  I arrived at the Mexico City International Airport 2 1/2 hours before departure, and was confronted with the longest line I’ve ever seen at an airport.  I waited in line for about 2 hours, and during those 2 hours Delta had only three open desks to attend their passengers(two closed positions).  I figured that if I keep waiting in line, I would have no chance of catching this plane.  Luckily, I was given advance boarding passes when I left Philly, but I wasn’t sure if I could use them on int’l flights.  So I went through the customs and got to the place where you board the plane.  I talked to a Delta representative there and got a new boarding pass.  The plane departed more than 45 minutes after scheduled departure, and I was told that some people were bumped. My flight from Atlanta to Philly was also delayed for about 45 minutes to 1 hour.  When I walked down the Delta terminals, I noticed that the planes were all scheduled to take off within 15 minutes of one another.  I mean, the scheduled departure were all between 5:00pm and 5:15pm.  As a result, our flight had to wait for other 20 planes to take off before we could use the airport lane… This was my first time flying Delta, and as you can probably tell I did not enjoy my flights much. — Sonny Hsu                         Philadelphia is not dull.  It just seems University of Pennsylvania        so because it is next to exciting

Response:

>Most (if not all) airlines pad their flight schedules, such that for a >given flight, the actual air time is much less than the interval >between the published departure and arrival times. The purpose of this >is to have the statistics show up better on the DOT reports, since >they use scheduled arrival time as measure of performance, not >departure time.

Arguably this is an improvement in more than just statistics.  Most people can deal quite easily with getting to a destination earlier than they planned.  Arriving late is not so easy. | The opinions expressed above are my own and do not necessarily          | | represent those of The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA.           | |                                                                         |

Response:

I’ve added the following DOT statistics to the FAQ. They have some bearing on the original poster’s complaint about "Delta always late". Please note that the DOT defines "on-time" to be "arriving within 15 minutes of scheduled arrival time". The following statistics show the percentage of flights arriving on-time according to the DOT. The average for all airlines was 83%. With about 1/4 of their flights arriving "late", it isn’t unlikely that some travelers will find all their segments arriving late.       Best  – Southwest    90.2%                America West 89.1%                Northwest    89.1%                Alaska       83.9%                TWA          83.5%                USAir        83.5%                American     82.6%                United       82.4%                Continental  78.3%       Worst — Delta        76.8% Mark Kantrowitz Maintainer, rec.travel.air FAQ

Response:

One reminder regarding airline schedules (also in the FAQ): Most (if not all) airlines pad their flight schedules, such that for a given flight, the actual air time is much less than the interval between the published departure and arrival times. The purpose of this is to have the statistics show up better on the DOT reports, since they use scheduled arrival time as measure of performance, not departure time. I have often experienced flights that "push off" from the gate as much as 30 minutes behind schedule, only to have them arrive at the destination "on time". Occasionally, I’ve been on flights that depart right on time, and arrive as much as 45 minutes ahead of schedule. —   -|–+ /   /|          voice: 212-524-8059     fax: 212-524-8081 |    |||    ||           reduced service."

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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text ->  RLB> So if you fly Delta, be perepared for late flights. > I think you’re being too harsh. *everyone* is late over the holiday > season, and with the crappy weather, *everyone* has been late > *period*. (someone from our office flew from Boston to San Francisco > yesterday, and their flight was 3+ hours late in departing because of > delays due to getting equipment on the ground in Boston). >I can understand techncical problem traffic, bad weather, but definitely >not the lack of support and organization.  In this day and age I can’t >believe they have a computer on board that displays your position, altitude >ground speed and things like that to the passengers, but you have to rely >on personnel ability and memory to do the rerouting and accommodation >reservations.  Oh, boy I’m pissed.

True, I’ve kinda same experience with Delta a *couple* if times. I always check all possible alternates before flying on Delta now. – Sunil — Sunil Prajapati. System Programmer. db Concepts, Inc. (716) 726-7061 $HOME : 7, Silver Dr. Apt. 24, Nashua, NH 03060. (603) 891-3585. Miles to go before I sleep…  [H -> He + 24Mev] [These are my Opinions]

Response:

>Well I just went on a weeks vacation to the Carribean…I flew Delta >both ways.  Out of four flights, not one was on teim, and two were over >an hour late. >We left Salt Lake City on a 00h35 flight that did not depart until 00h45,

Don’t fly much, do you? >we did arrive in Alanta on tiem.  The flight from Alanta to San Jaun was over an hour and a half >late leaving Alanta.  We arrived only an hour late >in San Jaun, Puerto Rico. >Returning from San Jaun, we checked our bags at the pier, right off the ship, >but the plan was 20 minutes late leaving San Juan.  The plan in Alanta was >again over an hour late taking off from Alanta. >So if you fly Delta, be perepared for late flights.

Though I must admit Atlanta can be bad at times, especially when weather is a factor, in terms of lateness, an hour is not bad, considering they probably made it up during flight at least partly.  And considering the bad weather we’ve had across the country, it’s not bad. I am actually more annoyed by airlines that MUST leave on time.  I don’t know if they currently do this, but NW used to push their planes back from the gate and sit there just to be recorded as on-time.  Passengers moments too late were left sitting at the gate with the aircraft just a few feet away. The real people to blame is the FAA and IBM.  They can’t seem to get this whole ATC mess over with, even with the surplus they’ve built up from ticket taxes to pad the deficit. P.S.  get a spell checker.

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- Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – >I flew Delta last time I went from PDX to PHX via LAX, and the LAX-PHX >flight was delayed over two hours at the LAX gate "waiting for the >paperwork". >I left for Xmas vacation, on Dec. 15th.  I don’t consider that a holiday >season flight.  I was delayed over an hour from PDX.  I lost my connecting >flight in CVG to JFK.  No support whatsoever from Delta flying and ground >crew.  I rerouted myself on the La Guardia flight, which was over an hour >late too.  I had to payt a taxi cab $46 to make it to the JFK just 5 minutes >before departing time on my international flight.  That flight was kept >waiting for over two hours. >My return flight (Jan. 8th, again, I would not consider that holiday >season) was delayed of over 5 hours for bad weather, and was kept on >hold for one more hour before landing at the JFK.  The ground crew was >completely unprepared to manage the 5 late flights and the rerouting >for passengers fas painstakingly slow.  I had to wait for nearly 3 >hours to be put in a motel in the middle of Long Island, and it was >a really cold hall at the Delta terminal where a young lady with a >baby not more than 6 months and an old lady with a 2 months puppy >were waiting with no support whatsoever from the Delta personnel. >I can understand techncical problem traffic, bad weather, but definitely >not the lack of support and organization.  In this day and age I can’t >believe they have a computer on board that displays your position, altitude >ground speed and things like that to the passengers, but you have to rely >on personnel ability and memory to do the rerouting and accommodation >reservations.  Oh, boy I’m pissed.

The LAX delay sounded kind of bogus.  Did you get any specifics? I’m surprised by the problems you had getting rerouted at CVG.  In Terminal A, they’ve got information counters where they can do all kinds of rerouting rather easily for you.  Perhaps you were in Terminal B, where they’re a bit screwed up because they haven’t many information counters open yet.  (They don’t even use it it the morning yet.)  They also probably would have paid for ground transport to connect to JFK from LGA.  Did they refuse to do so? I agree that JFK is pretty bad, but it should get slightly better as time goes on.  Delta’s still experiencing growing pains from absorbing those Pan Am assets.  The terminal itself is much better compared to how it looked when Pan Am had it those last few years.  But the service is lacking from what I’ve seen.  I think there are a few reasons for this: (1) Ex Pan Am employees who aren’t totally in-tune with Delta’s usual level of service. (2) JFK’s general overcrowding, especially since most Delta flights operate out of JFK only from the afternoon onward.  JFK just is too expensive for anyone to have a great terminal to handle a big airline’s customers. (3) Employees sick of dealing with New Yorkers.  (I’m a native, I should know.) Still, you should complain about the service at JFK.  My feeling is that Atlanta isn’t completely aware of the problems that exist at the JFK terminal. In fact, there are a number of problems they face operationally there, most obvious of which is that they don’t have a very strong feeder service into JFK and have to rely on NYC-originating passengers for their traffic. Their other big problem is that they’re short-staffed in NYC, since many people would rather work at a city where the living costs are lower.  JFK is particularly bad because it is very far from a large city, and therefore finding employees for JFK is impossible at least compared to more easily accessible LGA and EWR, where public transport is available.  Still, it’s no excuse.  

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>  RLB> So if you fly Delta, be perepared for late flights. > I think you’re being too harsh. *everyone* is late over the holiday > season, and with the crappy weather, *everyone* has been late > *period*. (someone from our office flew from Boston to San Francisco > yesterday, and their flight was 3+ hours late in departing because of > delays due to getting equipment on the ground in Boston).

I flew Delta last time I went from PDX to PHX via LAX, and the LAX-PHX flight was delayed over two hours at the LAX gate "waiting for the paperwork". I left for Xmas vacation, on Dec. 15th.  I don’t consider that a holiday season flight.  I was delayed over an hour from PDX.  I lost my connecting flight in CVG to JFK.  No support whatsoever from Delta flying and ground crew.  I rerouted myself on the La Guardia flight, which was over an hour late too.  I had to payt a taxi cab $46 to make it to the JFK just 5 minutes before departing time on my international flight.  That flight was kept waiting for over two hours. My return flight (Jan. 8th, again, I would not consider that holiday season) was delayed of over 5 hours for bad weather, and was kept on hold for one more hour before landing at the JFK.  The ground crew was completely unprepared to manage the 5 late flights and the rerouting for passengers fas painstakingly slow.  I had to wait for nearly 3 hours to be put in a motel in the middle of Long Island, and it was a really cold hall at the Delta terminal where a young lady with a baby not more than 6 months and an old lady with a 2 months puppy were waiting with no support whatsoever from the Delta personnel. I can understand techncical problem traffic, bad weather, but definitely not the lack of support and organization.  In this day and age I can’t believe they have a computer on board that displays your position, altitude ground speed and things like that to the passengers, but you have to rely on personnel ability and memory to do the rerouting and accommodation reservations.  Oh, boy I’m pissed. — > ^ ^ < BICC – OHSU – 3181 SW Sam Jackson Park rd. – Portland, OR

 (_o_)  The church is near, but the roads are icy;  the tavern is    U    far, but I will walk carefully  [ Ukrainian proverb ]

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Hello, Well I just went on a weeks vacation to the Carribean…I flew Delta both ways.  Out of four flights, not one was on teim, and two were over an hour late. We left Salt Lake City on a 00h35 flight that did not depart until 00h45, we did arrive in Alanta on tiem.  The flight from Alanta to San Jaun was over an hour and a half late leaving Alanta.  We arrived only an hour late in San Jaun, Puerto Rico. Returning from San Jaun, we checked our bags at the pier, right off the ship, but the plan was 20 minutes late leaving San Juan.  The plan in Alanta was again over an hour late taking off from Alanta. So if you fly Delta, be perepared for late flights. roland — I am in Utah, this account is so I can read the USENET news!

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 RLB> Well I just went on a weeks vacation to the Carribean…I flew  RLB> Delta both ways.  Out of four flights, not one was on teim, and  RLB> two were over an hour late. Well you don’t mention what date(s) you travelled on. With the bad weather covering most of the country in the past several weeks, I’m surprised that your delay was just an hour!  RLB> We left Salt Lake City on a 00h35 flight that did not depart  RLB> until 00h45, we did arrive in Alanta on tiem.  The flight from  RLB> Alanta to San Jaun was over an hour and a half late leaving  RLB> Alanta.  We arrived only an hour late in San Jaun, Puerto Rico. A plane departing 10 minutes "late" is not late in my book. A late flight is one that does not get you to your arrival gate within 15 minutes of the scheduled arrival time. These aren’t just my criteria, they’re the criteria used by the Department of Transportation to measure hwo well the airlines are doing in keeping to schedule. NOTE that weather delays void all of this! I suspect you were suffering from a weather delay, either directly (SLC or ATL was snowed in, or the route between them had bad weather), or indirectly (the plane from ATL-Carribean was coming from Boston, and Boston was closed).  RLB> So if you fly Delta, be perepared for late flights. I think you’re being too harsh. *everyone* is late over the holiday season, and with the crappy weather, *everyone* has been late *period*. (someone from our office flew from Boston to San Francisco yesterday, and their flight was 3+ hours late in departing because of delays due to getting equipment on the ground in Boston). I fly Delta all the time and I’m immensely happy with them. Their hub’s terminals are quite pleasant (I flew through the new Cincinnati terminal over Christmas and it was *gorgeous*). You could have spent your layover elsewhere, say, Newark or New York-Kennedy. Be happy it was somewhere *nice*. –Helen — Kapor Enterprises, Inc.                 Flames to: I like: DL, WN, Boeing                  I don’t like: NW, HP, Airbus

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