Technology Comparison
 

I was just wondering if some similar capability exists at CAL on these items.

UAL ACARS.
Other then the typical stuff that everyone has these are some of the items that the UAL boxes can do.
-Request and print entire release (Works great for reviewing your next flights paperwork on current leg.)
-Request and print graphical depiction of an airports radar. More of a gee zee thing than a practical application.

UAL Electronic Maintenance Records
-No paper write ups
-Write ups done by entering up to a 8 digit code via acars. (This triggers the notification to MX, voids current MX release, and sets up auto notifications to next flight that an open log book item exists.)
-MX release (aka airworthiness sign off) can be reprinted at any time.
Even though its an electronic system the last 20 items or 14 days worth of write ups are included in the release document.

Yes, the technology exists, and no, we don't fully use it. For flight plans, on the 777, we could receive a flight plan enroute to address track/routing changes. Normally, we didn't receive it that way. On the 737, I've never seen it. Radar...no.

We still use logbooks, although we send maintenance messages via ACARS. So we actively use archaic means of business despite the fact all the means to step into the 21st century are at our disposal and operational. A nice little aside is that unsigned pages in logbooks are a hot item, regardless of whether the gripe is signed off in the master maintenance computer.

In the technology "I'll show you mine..." vein, I heard you guys don't do LNAV approaches and still use dive and drive NPAs.

Rumor or Truth.....
UAL's B756 Fleet is "GPS-less"??

The electronic log books are great for not having to deal with the “signature” missing petty stuff.

UAL does constant rate descents for NPA.

Never flew the 756 fleet but I do believe you are correct that they do not have gps.

No Rnav approaches, that I'm aware of. LNAV and constant descent path on NPAs

GPS on only the 2-class 767

Satcom on all 767s

neither on 757s

BTW...assuming the combination of all 75/76s that's 219 planes in the fleet, and 219 pages of differences in the FM

Here's the 57/67 fleet breakdown:

757s: None have GPS or SATCOM. Some ETOPS and PS jets have winglets (PS= Premium Service three class config with WiFi, used on LAX and SFO to JFK markets). Only a few have the second jump seat installed. Some of the non-ETOPS birds are non-overwater equipped and must stay within 50nm of land. MTOG is 240k for all UAL 57s, and they fly domestic, Caribbean, and Hawaii.

767s: all -300s, none have winglets, all have SATCOM. We know them as 56k and 60k jets based on the rated thrust. 56k are two class cattle cars for the Hawaii market and hub-hub flying, and are the only GPS equipped jets in the 57/67 fleet. 60k have a new and improved three class config for the ORD and IAD to Europe and South America markets.

The entire fleet is P&W powered, and a recent upgrade made all the FMCs Pegasus, which is a big improvement over the several different FMC types we used to have.

There you have it. Now let's hear about the CAL jets.

Snake

Nice hearing the straight scoop.

Well for starters, we call them 75's and 76's not the other way around. But here is a few notes

757-200's - all RR powered, with 180 min ETOPS, SATCOM, being configured for lie flat seats (like 20 done so far), GPS, most with EFB's and all with 2 jumpseats. Used on domestic, south america, europe and carribean

757-300's - a mixture of ETOPS and non-ETOPS birds, configured the same as above except no lie-flat first class. Used domestically

767-200 - the rocket ship of the fleet, all 767's have GPS, SATCOM, ETOPS, regular first class seats. Used on Europe and South America


767-400 - same as above but flown to Europe and Hawaii

We fly monitored approaches, RNP, and constant rate (VNAV) descents on all Non precision approaches

AV8RRob,

You forgot to mention we fly the 75's where everyone else flies 777 and 74's.:rolleyes:

No discussion of technology at UAL would be complete without mentioning UNIMATIC the companies 50+ year old core computer system. Ive seen the CAL flight planning products in NRT and IMO are light years ahead of of UAs new Flywize product.

Also worth mentioning are the legions of IT outsourcing liaisons at HQ in Chicago. UAs IT department doesn't produce much, if anything. Its core job is to write the spec and QA code that's outsourced to India (tiger team). UA IT has built it's own empire by becoming a revenue source for the company, however by some twisted accounting scheme, the revenue source is other corporate divisions (ie flight ops). On the upside, the line for hamburgers in the HQ cafeteria is alway short.

.....CAL's 767's are all GE Powered Engines.

Configurations on all 757's are the same fleet wide.
200: 16/159
300: 24/192

Configurations on the 767's are:
200: 25/149
400: 20/236...some coded "H" are 35/200

Heard 'talk' that the UAL WB Fleet has several different configs & various configs are flown region specific.....any truth???

see this page
 

Check out this page:

United Airlines: Best Seats - SeatGuru

2-Class planes are usually domestic/Hawaii
3-Class occasionally domestic between hubs
International long-haul PAC/ATL/SA is always 3-class

Exception is 3 class 757 Premium Service only flies JFK-SFO/LAX
12 lie-flat /26 first class/ 72 economy plus
Very popular among rich and famous

Anybody ever jumpseat on America West 757 with 35 seats forward of door 2. Yikes!:(



My question is what are the Designated Pilot Rest Seats/Bunks on 8+ hour flights at CAL?

Not to mention 50-seat RJs where everyone else flies 737s, 757s, 767s and Airbuses.

737: 1B or 1E (forward most aisle seat in first class). I put this in there because we do some IRO turns on the 737.

757: 200 - 16DEF; 300 - 22DEF (coach seats)

767: 200 - 18DEF; 400 - either 15DEF or 28DEF (coach seats)

777: Crew rest bunks

So let the comments begin on this one! You can't say anything to us at CAL about the 756 rest seats that we don't already know or say ourselves.

Or major markets such as DCA, BOS, and RDU getting their EWR Colganoscopies. That's ok. I don't think there are a lot of pharmacuetical companines traveling between EWR and RDU, gov't travel between EWR and DCA or any business travel between EWR and BOS.

They are probably too stunned to type.....

***
 

Lets put it this way... your management is in for a rude awakening:eek:


In case you were wondering:
747: 2 bunks in own room in cockpit

777: Bunks in some models and Lie flat seat in 1st w/blackout curtain

767: Lie flat seat seat in first class w/blackout curtain

757/airbus have no 8hr flights but would require a first class seat if so.


I believe these are contractual, so you can imagine some consternation on the part of management when we merge our contracts, and that it will not include any concessions. I would love to see our openers on the JCBA and the company's private reaction to it.

I think the 777s with bunks still block a business class seat for each augmentee.

I will vote against any agreement that takes away our current crew rest provisions. I hope we all do the same! Heck, do a google search for the IFPTE upgrade to all of our international jets. The first class suite is our rest seat. You'll like it;)

Yes that is true axlf16 as far as the business seat being blocked on the 777 with bunks. However I think they are changing the 777 to have one of those first class seats in the bunk area and then another first class seat for the other.
Also on the Hawaii flying out of ord on the 777 they use a 2 class 777 with a first class seat for break but not the lay down model.

Never heard that term before, but it's funny and I am adding it to my vocabulary!

I hear that starting in September all our bases will get daily Colganoscopies with the addition of the Q400 in CLE.

I feel very certain that the UAL rest rules will win out in the JCBA. Even the management folks know it is coming. Love it when the agents "upgrade the IRO" to BusinessFirst..... They act like they are doing us a favor. Rest in coach is something I've done only a handful of times(Rio/AMS/HNL from IAH) but the experience was so horrible I will remember those times forever....

Real interested in how our 757/767 fleets will be integrated. Lots of talk about breaking up the flying we do currently on the CAL side. Also, with 2 777 types and the 787 on the way, how will the company divide the flying of the 777 and 787?

Funny how we perceive our own. How many use hours, how many rebuilds do some of the airline's ramp equipment seemed to have lived through? I think the same is generally true of the industry's technology infrastructures as well. I watched with envy as AMR installed gate readers for boarding in the early 1990's while Crandle gloated and yet years later we were still dealing with seat duplication delays.

Many of us couldn't tell someone the difference between Unix and Linux, but we all know out dated when we are subjected to it as end users. Ancient green screen CRTs, running text string commands and no home access to schedule or bid information, long after the rest of the industry had converted to GUI systems. They never upgraded until late, partly due to the relationship with EDS, but also because the managerial teams prior to Bethune, were less than willing to spend any money that didn't go into their own golden parachutes. Both the current schedule access system and the PBS process are antiquated and sadly in need of some reprogramming to make links that are more realistic to the data access required by crews. Many of the promises to make PBS better, such as off line access, have long since been broken. Yet the system is alive and does see improvements, most recently a bid analysis tool. None the less, union infighting and the excuse that the merger is taking precedence, seems to be a catch all excuse for continuing failures.

On the training end of the spectrum, if you want home access for recurrent training relief, you'd better have a windows system at home that runs I.E. 6.x or earlier. Most of the modules won't run on more updated systems funning later versions of I.E.

On the upsides? FOQUA or is it FOQwah? ATC liaison and telemetry. The embrace of the B-777 in the heyday of cash flow, brought some great tech use and support people to the airline. Data link, telemetry and AIM (airline amendable module) portions of the FMCs were deeply configured and well utilized due to the diligence of a few key people, many of whom have sadly since retired, or lost political traction and slid off the edge into the dismal abyss of line flying.

Satan. I mean Jeppesen.

Maintenance bases
 

Can anyone tell me the domestic stations that have daytime CAL mechanics?

UAs are:
Bos
Den
Hnl
Iad
JFK
Koa
Lax
Lga
Lih
Ogg
Ord
Pdx
Sea
SFO

I think our list is longer than that. I can't think of them all to be honest. Some of the ones I know of off the top of my head:

EWR, CLE, IAH, BOS, ATL, MCO, MIA, TPA, FLL, ORD, AUS, SAT, DFW, DEN, SEA, LAS, PHX, SFO, LAX, SNA, HNL, CUN, MEX

Maybe not so important regarding technology, but wondering how UA's non-rev system works? I am not talking about pass levels, and all the benefits. I am asking about actually finding flight availability, viewing loads, non-rev listings and listing on flights.

At CO, employees use coair.com. On that is a link to employeeRES. There we can pull up flight schedules with detailed passenger boarding totals (PBTs), seat availability, revenue standby, non-revenue positive space (i.e. DH crews or company required travel), and non-revenue space available. We can then view the non-rev list in priority order from the PS down to the last SA person and see where we fall in the list. Any personal travel plans we make or PS travel arranged for us is listed on a side bar with the record locator number (PNR) and city pairs. These PNRs show as links to pull up the itinerary and also to be able to check-in 24 hours prior for your seat.

So wondering how UA does it? Is it that simple? Is it Skynet or is that just the basic employee site which we call COAIR? Thanks for the information.

PS. I don't know about any other CO pilot, but I no longer use the mobile boarding pass option for my smart phone. The past several times I have used it and checked in 24 hours prior and chosen my seats it dropped me out of check in within an hour of the flight. Had to go to the agent at boarding because I couldn't pull up the boarding pass and was told I didn't check in. So I was essentially unseated and stuck with seats I didn't want. One of the flights I lost the 1st class upgrade seat I was in line for and an Express FA got it because "I didn't check in until boarding started and upgrades were already cleared." HMMMMMM

It is all on skynet and easy to use to check loads and such also to print up your boarding pass. When you get to the gate you can see where you are in reference to other non revs by just looking at the tv screen at the gate. Never had any problem with the system.

We use Weblist in Skynet to check loads and list for flights, both Positive Space (PS) and Non-revenue space available (NRSA). We do not have access to the Departure Management (DM) list, which has been a source of irritation since I've been at UAL. You can get an idea of where you stand using the Apollo res system, but it is cumbersome and time consuming (think typing multiple DOS commands here) if there are a lot of SAs listed. Some of the third party software packages automate this and make it much easier, for a price. Employees traveling PS are not shown in a separate category on Weblist, only the total number of Booked (PS travelers included with customers) and NRSA are displayed.

We can check in online starting 24 hours prior as well, and if you're PS you can view seats and make a change if you see an available seat you'd rather have. We have the smartphone boarding pass option also, I have not used it yet.

When you get to the gate for your flight, the standby list with number of open seats remaining will be displayed on the monitors, if that gate has them. But the list can include revenue standbys as well as NRSA and does not ID who's what, of course the revenues will be ahead of NRSAs on the list. If that gate is not equipped with monitors, you won't know where you stand on the list unless you've gone into Apollo or the CSR is in a good mood and tells you you're #X and there are Y seats available.

EWRflyr, from your description it sounds like your system gives you more info than Skynet gives us. It's already been said here that UAL has a lot of room for improvement in the IT department, but it's worth repeating. The merger presents a great opportunity to upgrade our systems.

Skynet?

Has it become self-aware yet? :eek:

I guess with all the "Reform" in AZ.....CUN & MEX are soon to be considered "Domestic" Ops:eek:

Couldn't resist;)

Based on what you guys say about your system, maybe they will go with our EmployeeRES system and all the TV screens at the gates. We are starting to add those TVs to the gates already. I think ours is pretty easy to use and detailed. Yes, revenue standby names are not listed but it will show you if there are any and the number. They will obviously have priority over NRSA. Our system also allows pilots and FAs to make jumpseat listings so commuters can get an idea of where they would fall on the list for those seats if the passenger seats fill up.

We fly RNAV approaches all the time on the A320/319 fleet.

RNAV Approaches vs RNAV RNP Approaches.....Not to be confused, two different Approaches per criteria.

RNAV: Direct Point-to-Point Routing via the approach course, Radar Monitoring during the Approach needed.

RNAV/RNP: More "Complex Routes" ie "RF" segments on the Approach, Tighter Performance Req. (More restrictive TERPS), No Radar Requirements, Seamless Vertical Path/Routing....RNP mins vary per Ops Certificate IE CAL .15, or SWA .30

UA flys em. Crimeny.

........................

Judgement Day
 

Yes! And it created a genocidal cyborg to destroy all humanity!

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...w=1270&bih=699

The T2003

The question was "does UA fly RNAV approaches?"....... Yes. Radar not req. GPS req. The software upgrade to fly RNP approaches (RNP in the approach title) will be installed starting in mid OCT.

Next question
 

Do CAL pilots have to physically "sign in" in the computer at the start of a trip?