The Realization of United Express
 

I work for XJT and just wanted to comment on my experience the past few months flying as United Express. I think I can speak for all of us when I say it has been shocking to see the type of service and conditions UAL provides to its express carriers. I don't know if it’s common or if Continental has just spoiled us for all these years but this is truly unbelievable. I was doing a walk around the other day and couldn't believe how filthy the aircraft was as I had never seen a plane so dirty before. One of our supervisors informed me that at CAL our planes are washed daily to maintain a clean appearance. I never knew that before, I guess I just always assumed our aircraft didn't get that dirty since we fly higher and faster.

Anyway after this, I went inside to help the flight attendant cross seat belts. I was appalled at how dirty the inside of the plane was. The flight attendant informed me that she was trying to do the best she could but at UAL they don't have cleaners cleaning the inside of the aircraft after every leg like they do at CAL. Again I never realized some airlines don't do this. Finally, I went to the back to use the Lav. It was absolutely appalling. I couldn't believe the smell and condition. Again, I was informed that at UAL, they don't come inside the aircraft after every leg, wipe down the lav, or spray air freshener. I never knew that this wasn't the norm.

Then our flight got underway and I waited for our PDC to come up on my FMS screen. I was then informed by the captain that at UAL, we don't get PDCs and we have to call and get our clearance. After waiting to get a word in for 10 mins I finally called and got the clearance. After we were in flight a while, I decided to send a weather message to get the latest TAF and metar for our destination since it didn't have digital ATIS. I was informed that at UAL, we don't have weather messages and have to rely on our 5 hour old TAFs in the weather packet we received prior to boarding. I couldn't believe it. About 40 mins from arriving, I went to send the in-range report to find out our gate, where the aircraft was going, if it was on time, where we were going, and to let ops know of our specials. Well, you guessed it, no in range reports at UAL, we have to call ops from in the air. This is something I have never done in my almost 5 years here. We have to call ops when we land to tell them we're on the ground? I constantly forget because again, I've never had to do this, it comes up on their computer as soon as we land and they are always there waiting for us. Not at UAL.

Waiting for marshallers to park us? Barely ever seen that, they are almost always waiting for us at the gate with no call required. I am quickly realizing how much extra work some of these other companies have to do in a given day! No wonder you guys are tired! While I realize a lot of this stuff isn't a big deal (with the exception of cleaning the aircraft cuz that’s nasty), it has really opened my eyes to how what we are used to isn't the norm. While I'm happy to get additional flying (but not happy about Mesa guys losing work), I'm really going to have to get used to this. What have your guys experiences been?

Wait! What?! I worked for ExpressJet from Nov 04-Feb 08. I was a EWR FO-IAH FO-EWR CA-ONT CA and the only place I never had to wait for rampers was ONT. It was quite common to wait for rampers in EWR and IAH. Maybe this has changed in the last year or two, but it certainly was common to wait when I worked at XE.

Most of what you said was true, however the PDC, WX and gate request are not. At ASA, PDC works just fine in IAD and ORD. The same can be said for inflight WX requests over ACARS. We are able to get TAFs and METARs for anywhere we want. We are also able to request gates over our ACARS, however they did say they wanted us to call in range and I have noticed by calling again on the ground, the amt of time you have to wait for rampers is reduced exponentionally. BTW, do you guys have travel on United and if so, can you check the loads at home?

welcome to the wonderfull world of UAX.

Not yet but I hear its coming shortly with details to be announced soon. How about you guys? I've heard some say we may have to choose benifits on UAL or CAL but can't have both. If thats the case I can't imagine anyone who would want to give up CAL because we still have our old deal from when we were part of them and its pretty hard to beat. Thats good the other stuff works for you guys though. Not sure if we'll get it going on the United side eventually or if its a permenant thing.

We had the choice to opt in and pay (50 for you, or 200 for family). Supposedly it starts March 1, however I have heard that we can't check loads at home, only on work computers.

What? Dude...are you a pilot or a crack smoker?

This is normal for United. Working for Skywest we got to see the stark contrast of how Delta and United operated. United is a joke. The management has completely destroyed that airline. They've basically trimmed the company down to a shell of a company so that it gets bought and merged. The only UAX flight I took since getting hired on at Delta was from JFK to IAD. The gate agent didn't show up until 5 minutes before the flight was scheduled to depart. The plane was nasty inside and we had to sit on the ramp in IAD for almost 20 minutes waiting for somebody to park us. Then they took another 20 minutes to get our carry ons. United employees just don't care anymore and who can blame them? It's just sad...

Yeah, you're somewhat spoiled. My airline didn't even have ACARS. We had to clean the plane each leg. For some reason ORD had cleaners for us. (I worked for a DL Connection carrier) Atis was done the old fashioned way that we were taught in Private. So was getting the clearance and calling in range to ops over the radio. Had to talk to dispatch over the radio. Sounds like CAL really takes care of you at XJT. At least as far as daily ops go.

Waiting for a marshaller is one of the things that just drives me nuts. If you just paid one more guy $8/hr, you wouldn't have a widebody aircraft holding short of the gate with one or both engines running, burning fuel that costs more than you would ever pay a marshaller. Then imagine if waiting 5 minutes for a marshaller causes just 1 person to miss their connection... now they must be rebooked on another airline (along with their revenue). Plus it is really annoying for the pax and doesn't help with on time performance, especially when you are already late and trying to make up some time.

There are some places where it is ok to save some money. Running lean on marshaller's is not one of them (tripping over dollars to save pennies).