UAL On-Time last among legacy carriers
 

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-a...-airlines-3The

10 major US airlines were ranked by how many delays they had in 2019 — see the full list



10. Frontier Airlines



Ultra-low-cost carrier Frontier Airlines ranked last on the on-time list for 2019, with an average on-time percentage of 73.1. The carrier operates a mixed hub-and-spoke and point-to-point route network, with the former centered around Frontier's main hub in Denver, Colorado.

9. JetBlue Airways


Although 2019 saw JetBlue take delivery of a new aircraft type and announce a historic expansion to Europe for 2021, its on-time percentage for the year was the second-lowest out of the top ten major carriers. The New York-based low-cost carrier only averaged 73.5% on-time arrivals for the year.


8. United Airlines


The nation's third-largest carrier failed to surpass any of its legacy carrier competitors in terms of on-time arrivals, earning a percentage of 75.2 for 2019. The carrier, however, just enacted a new program called connection saver that would hold flights for connecting passengers if the flights were in jeopardy of leaving without them, potentially delaying flights.

United was one of the carriers affected by the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max as the carrier operated the Max 9 variant.

7. American Airlines



American Airlines narrowly beat its competitor United by 2.2 percentage points earning an on-time arrival average of 77.4%. American has historically struggled with flight delays during the peak summer season.

The world's largest airline also faced a dispute with aircraft mechanics and was affected by the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max.

6. Allegiant Air


Allegiant Air managed to do better than its ultra-low-cost competitor Frontier Airlines, earning an on-time arrival rate of 78.7% for the year. The Las Vegas-based carrier recently retired its fleet of aging aircraft including the McDonnell Douglas MD-80 series of aircraft and Boeing 757-200 in favor of a newer all-Airbus fleet.

5. Spirit Airlines


Spirit Airlines ranked the highest out of any low-cost carrier in the US, coming in with a 79.5% on-time arrival rate and fourth overall for the year. The carrier as been endeavoring to become more reliable since 2016, according to Skift, and was the most on-time carrier in the US for a brief period in October 2018.

Spirit, however, failed to beat its 2018 percentage of 81.1%, according to data from the Department of Transportation.

4. Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines earned the title of the highest-ranking low-cost carrier on this list with an on-time arrival percentage of 80.2%. The Dallas-based carrier prides itself on quick turnaround times for its flights, often giving as little as 20 minutes from gate arrival to pushback.

The airline is among those affected by the Boeing 737 Max groundings that have also affected American Airlines and United Airlines in the US.

3. Alaska Airlines

Though failing to match its 2018 numbers, Alaska Airlines once again placed third on the list with an on-time arrival rate of 81.3%. The predominantly West Coast airline recently completed a merger with Virgin America that saw it operate new routes and adopt a new subset of Airbus aircraft.

2. Delta Air Lines

The world's second-largest airline ranked again as the US' second-most on-time airline, scoring 83.5% for on-time arrivals. Delta Air Lines increased its on-time arrival rate by .3 percentage points from 2018 and took delivery of two new aircraft types in 2019 including the Airbus A220 and A330-900neo.

Delta is one of the three legacy carriers that do not operate any Boeing 737 Max aircraft, allowing it to remain largely unscathed by the 2019 grounding that affected United and American.

1. Hawaiian Airlines

Hawaiian Airlines once again earned the top spot on the list with the highest on-time arrival percentage. The Honolulu-based carrier beat out Delta by 4.2 percentage points scoring 87.7%.

Though the ranking is the closest to 90% than any other carrier, Hawaiian failed to meet or beat its percentage from 2018 by .1 percentage points. Hawaiian expanded its route network in 2019 with its new longest route between Honolulu and Boston.

We will never be at the top with “connectionsaver” and I’m fine with that, better customer service in the end!!

DOT on-time metrics are an obsolete measurement of quality.

Connection saver isn’t the reason. How about no marshalers, no tug crew, occupied gate, congestion, etc... our ground game is terrible, and that’s the reason we’re late. Flight crews bust their ass to be on time, and then a 10 min early turns into a 10+ min late flight as we sit on the ground and wait... frustrating for everyone.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve experienced any of that. Is this a specific base? Newark, perhaps?
*edit* I’ll save the rest for internal comms...

The end game for management is efficiency. That is what they emphasize and focus on.

The more efficient you are, the less flexibility there is for unexpected and unplanned factors.

And let’s face it, ORD, EWR & DEN are hubs that you need flexibility.

Terrible is an understatement!

The sEWeR, the airport that never fails to disappoint.



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I haven’t seen this at all, and I’m Newark based, only issue I’ve had is with strong tailwind and early arrivals the gates aren’t open yet. But I’ve rarely if ever waited on the crew lately. Newark is just an over crowded airport, unless the FAA reduces slots that’s out of UAL control.

Newark isn’t slotted.

SFO....almost every time.

^^^ 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.

EZCCS > Travel > Shares -Inbound connections

The LITERAL definition of stepping over a dollar to save a dime.

Perhaps there are a few isolated instances of agents going rogue, but I haven’t seen it yet. Besides, as earlier mentioned, we can access it ourselves quickly with ezccs.

I wouldn't necessarily call them going rogue. On the occasion that I've inquired about connections, I was told all is good. Shares said otherwise in some instances.

Hahahaha. I could give a crap. There is a layover I need to get to.

I can’t count how many times I’ve landed on time or early in EWR, many times working hard on a transcon the whole way to make up for another delay... only to hold somewhere on the ground and wait for a gate, marshal, tow in or all of the above and the dumpster fire that is EWR turns my 5 early arrival into 25 late or more.

I’m sick of this blitz/star crap, if pilots are the problem... show me. Otherwise get the rest of this place running right. Blocking out 15 minutes late when we’ve been sitting there ready to go for 30 is beyond our control. I do my job 100% with the tools at my disposal every time.

I have also noticed that we have reduced block times over the past year. On the guppy, I remember when the majority of flights were planned CI10 and arrive somewhere more than 5 minutes early. Now a days, seems like many many more CI120. They probably realized there is a big expense with paying pilots and FAs block times that are greater than they have to be while fuel isn't horrifically expensive and pilots fly fast anyway.

That’s a great plan, especially when they plan a CI of 200+ through moderate turbulence. What’s a few injured FA’s when we can make up time? Their self-imposed scheduling brush fires are not my concern.

Carried pax for both..
 

DL and AA will close the boarding door and drop the brake to get the on time. UAM is not the focus with either of them.. I cant speak for the others.

I think the increased cost index is coming from them running a tighter schedule to get more productivity from each airplane to minimize the impact of the missing MAX fleet from the schedule.

The moderate turbulence doesn’t care, it’s still bumpy.

All you guys realize that we are still.....in contract talks, and.....we are paid by the minute.

Don't worry about what you can't control. If UAL wants on time, they know exactly how to fix it, and most times it costs money. Its a conscious decision on managements part to not spend that capital.

Pivot,
Rather than saying last in O.T. perhaps one should just state ranked 3RD amongst the legacies in O.T.

I miss Old Makos comments. I'm sure he would have some wry input regarding this.

Exactly. Fly plane...go home...cash check. Repeat.

Boy you guys seem awfully stressed about what you have no control over. Do your job and relax. You are not a ramper nor a CSR nor a move team. Your job is to get from point A to point B safely efficiently and on time. If the operation falls apart around you keep the passengers up to date. If you feel REALLY upset send an IOR. FOs can write IORs so do so if you feel the need.

the company needs to pay a livable wage in SFO or people will quit. But there is nothing you can do about that.

Great points. But be careful about IOR's. Pilots can, and have, incriminated themselves sending in information.

There has been talk recently about some kind of cost of living rider, but nothing substantial has come of it for people in the SF bay area, rampers in particular. Something similar to maybe what Guam gets for pilots. But I don't see the IAM allowing that for one base while another doesn't get it.

My personal favorite was a few years ago when they heavily padded the flight times to absorb delays and go for number one in on time arrivals. We were getting in early everywhere we went and I lost count of the number of pilots who I heard complaining about not getting any overs. They were too dumb to realize that we were getting overs on every leg. This is a dollars per minute gig. Do your job, collect a check, and enjoy your time off. Pilots amuse me.

Your paid the big bucks to adjust the cost index and change altitudes for comfort, safety and efficiency. Those high cost index numbers mean nothing, a number spit out by sabre.... I use 5-75 CI on almost every flight for best efficiency (737). All we can do is the best within our own job, rest is out of our control.

Regional performance is included in that, right? As someone that gets to see all three legacy operations I’d say a big factor is the auto close out weight and balance. Both American and Delta can upload that through ACARS and it beats the hell out of waiting for a passenger count and bag count. I do think United has much better rampers than American, at least in ORD

I make them redo the flight plan, I’m not flying in known turbulence for hours at a time. Standard answer is “that wasn’t there when I made the flight plan.” Whatever.