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A supposedly on-time record at the expense of its own customers isn't exactly a great long term business model.
If I am understanding the situation correctly both actors were sold tickets directly from UA, assuring them there were available seats. In the case it was same iternirary this is unacceptable.
Your first leg is delayed obviously (assuming the 1st leg was UA) so no you fail in the on time category. 2nd issue is the passenger had no checked luggage, but what if they did? Now you've just separated the passenger from their luggage and created a second opportunity for having to reimburse, in the event luggage is stolen or "lost", aside from the rebooking hassles.
Now as far as "at the Gate attendant's discretion"... Obviously that is a poor business model. Not only do you pay for the opportunity cost of a potentially empty first class seat and probably some others as well, you have to potentially bump someone on a subsequent flight to make room for your inability to wait 5 minutes...Something that could potentially be made up in the air? Potentially creating two unhappy customers, bad PR and declining revenues. Once oil prices go up and a recession comes along with lower consumer demand they will be the first to feel the brunt of the impact given their cavalier approach towards customer satisfaction and their public image.
The lack of logic from UA administration never ceases to amaze me. They continue to lead the overall race to the bottom in the overall industry by leaps and bounds. I am glad to live in NYC where I can adequately avoid the carrier no matter where my destination is.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,722 posts, read 58,054,000 times
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Flying SWA 150x / yr and UA / legacy carriers 20 - 30x (minimally as possible, usually only international)
One has to wonder how legacies can survive... HUGE / long / complex boarding times.
The last time UA shut the door in my face... Alaska put me on (for free), and I arrived (non-stop) earlier than UA (probably still on the taxiway)
Last flight out on legacy carrier...on (3x) delayed departure ... seat mate, "If we were on SWA, we would have BEEN THERE by now"
Herb had a better plan (and it works 4,000x every day) LUV
I like being on-time as much as anyone, but there are times when it's better to be 30 seconds late.
Quote:
"If one of my gate agents sees a young woman with three kids running down but our schedule says we close in 30 seconds and she's a minute away or 10 minutes away or whatever, we have historically tended to shut the door" (United CEO Oscar Munoz).
If this hypothetical (?) woman and three kids were really 10 minutes away, the gate agent wouldn't see them. The agent would only see them when they're about a minute away from reaching the gate. So yeah, slamming the door on their faces instead of waiting the extra 30 seconds is nothing but cold and cruel.
I haven't flown United in at least a decade or so. And as long as Mr. Munoz is running the show, I'll continue to stay away.
The 30 second delay at the gate can easily cascade during busy times- it can mean the plane is five spots further back in the taxiway departure line so 10-15 minutes later to depart, so gate allocation at the arrival airport is messed up resulting in another 15 minutes to find a new gate and passengers are misconnecting, the next flight scheduled to use that plane....
All the airlines, Southwest included, operate on ‘the needs of the many this travel day are more important than the needs of the one or the few’ even if it’s not always obvious, and all you can really do is be zen about it
The 30 second delay at the gate can easily cascade during busy times- it can mean the plane is five spots further back in the taxiway departure line so 10-15 minutes later to depart, so gate allocation at the arrival airport is messed up resulting in another 15 minutes to find a new gate and passengers are misconnecting, the next flight scheduled to use that plane....
All the airlines, Southwest included, operate on ‘the needs of the many this travel day are more important than the needs of the one or the few’ even if it’s not always obvious, and all you can really do is be zen about it
Point taken, but airlines are not scheduled with the to-the-second exactness of a Japanese bullet train. Their schedules are intentionally "padded" to allow for en-route delays and still keep within their schedule. Barring an extremely unusual situation, leaving 30 seconds after their scheduled time won't mess up things so badly that they'll be "late" at the other end, according to the schedule.
Incidentally, check out the concluding paragraph of this article:
Quote:
The most insidious reason to add additional buffer time to your flight, though, is that airlines want to win. By adding a few unnecessary minutes to the flight time, airlines can all but ensure they'll be early, skewing their arrival time stats. Think that's a stretch? Which? cites Hong Kong Airlines' "most punctual airline" award last year, with a 94.8 percent on-time arrival rate, as proof. The airline may have been on-time almost every time, but they also added ten to 20 minutes onto almost all of their flights to ensure just that, the South China Morning Post found. The airline's vice-chairman Tang King-shing responded—and we'll have to give him points for honesty here—saying, "We saw on-time performance (OTP) was a problem, so we allowed extra time." Mic drop.
There's nothing "insidious" or dishonest about adjusting schedules. In fact, it makes perfect sense to do so, if you see that on-time performance is a problem. Hong Kong Airlines is not claiming that adjusting their schedules makes them go faster; they're claiming that it makes them better able to adhere to their scheduled arrival times. And since they were recognized with the "most punctual airline" award, it would appear that they were right.
Point taken, but airlines are not scheduled with the to-the-second exactness of a Japanese bullet train. Their schedules are intentionally "padded" to allow for en-route delays and still keep within their schedule. Barring an extremely unusual situation, leaving 30 seconds after their scheduled time won't mess up things so badly that they'll be "late" at the other end, according to the schedule.
You're not considering that their schedule has to work with air traffic control. Their scheduling doesn't allow for a great deal of padding. They've got flights taking off and landing literally seconds apart. A couple of delayed flight departures can mess up other scheduled departures. Ever been on a flight that's 12th in line for takeoff? It's because of other flights that didn't keep to their schedule.
Point taken, but airlines are not scheduled with the to-the-second exactness of a Japanese bullet train. Their schedules are intentionally "padded" to allow for en-route delays and still keep within their schedule. Barring an extremely unusual situation, leaving 30 seconds after their scheduled time won't mess up things so badly that they'll be "late" at the other end, according to the schedule.
As someone who lives in the small airport Southeast, I'm very used to Delta's 'load and hold' procedure for their outstation to ATL routes. Yes, they will close the aircraft door on time and taxi out just after that. Then you have the waiting game of 'has ATL ATC given us approval to take off yet?' it might be right away; it might be a 20 minute hold and yet arrivals are still typically close to original timetable because of gate assignment issues regardless of how long the ATC outstation hold was.
I've also had my share of flights where the pilot has cheerfully informed the plane that 'We are currently #27 in line for departure!' and such and queue position does matter at that point.
You're not considering that their schedule has to work with air traffic control. Their scheduling doesn't allow for a great deal of padding. They've got flights taking off and landing literally seconds apart. A couple of delayed flight departures can mess up other scheduled departures. Ever been on a flight that's 12th in line for takeoff? It's because of other flights that didn't keep to their schedule.
So if a plane that was due to leave at 4:15:00 ends up waiting the extra 30 seconds to board the last-second passengers and actually pushes back at 4:15:30, maybe it becomes 13th or 14th in line to take off. It'll cost them a few extra minutes, not enough to seriously disrupt the schedule. To me, this is certainly better than making the young woman and her young children barely miss their flight and have to get rebooked on another flight (potentially forcing someone to get bumped from that later flight to accommodate them), in the meantime leaving her stuck at the airport and causing her to be some number of hours late getting to where she's going, while she watches her plane depart right on time with a few empty seats (representing potential revenue that is forever lost to the airline) that she could have been sitting in.
So if a plane that was due to leave at 4:15:00 ends up waiting the extra 30 seconds to board the last-second passengers and actually pushes back at 4:15:30, maybe it becomes 13th or 14th in line to take off. It'll cost them a few extra minutes, not enough to seriously disrupt the schedule.
You missed the point. These flights leaving the gate late is wat causes these queues of flights waiting to take off. If they left on time, they would all be scheduled properly, and wouldn’t have to wait.
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