^^^ This

at least on the Express side out of EWR, which I believe are the same handlers as mainline. I have to think that the people who need to know how bad this is don’t know. The ground handlers do not care and give almost no effort. It is literally the most frustrating part of the job when you fly in and out of EWR multiple times a day. I can’t count how many times we have had to hold short of the gate and watch as they go through their excruciatingly slow and unnecessary pre-marshaling routine while the passengers are sitting in the back waiting and worrying about their connections. How bad does this hurt the brand when they are already late and can look out the window and see that the reason they are further delayed and might not make their connection is because our ground handlers are giving 10% effort. It’s embarrassing and demoralizing, and I think it has a much more significant impact on our operations than some realize.

ah, I don’t go there much anymore.

I only see gate issues maybe 3 out of 10 times in and out of SFO. Most times we wait is for congestion in the alley between G and F Gates it seems.

I’ve held out in IAH twice in 30 days for empty airplanes sitting on our gate awaiting “move teams”. Ironically, these “move teams” are now going around tracking and shutting down APUs on gates when ground air/power is connected and the APU is running. What burns more fuel? I’m thinking the aircraft running an engine(s), burning crew pay/duty time along with diminishing passenger connect time while the move teams are out searching for APUs they can turn off. How about getting the 767-300 that has been sitting empty on our gate for over an hour off and over to tech ops pad so we can “arrive”.

any captain worth his salt already did this without the “connection saver”. Just ask the agent if there are last minute connections, and if there are, keep the door open until they arrive. Easy peasy. We all know we can make it up 99.9% of the time while enroute.

IAH.

EWR.

SFO.

DEN.

ORD.

LAX.

And many out stations. Other than that it’s pretty good.

Show me a contract “on time”

I agree. Lately SFO is making EWR look like a well oiled machine. I get there is construction at SFO but it’s been tough last two months there. Surprisingly EWR hasn’t been all that bad lately.

D=0 has a lot to do with it. About 18 months ago, the puzzle palace came up with this new metric and pretty much ignored arrival times. The result was as expected. Arrival resources are pulled for departures. Their figuring is that D=0 will take care of everything else...in theory.

In execution it meant cutting back on ground resources for arrival activities, which does also affect the next departure, but saves $.

Just enjoy the profit sharing check and leave the thinking to the young Turks in suits. If they want our opinion, they’ll scrape it...

Evidently the agents of today have been muzzled wrt that question.