My wife and kids are finally back after 6 months in Taiwan visiting family and going to school in person. They flew back Tuesday, made it Chicago, and have been stuck since. Delayed her until 2AM last night, got on and off the plane 3 times, then sent to a hotel for the night with my 3 and 7 year old. Had the flight rescheduled for 2PM, almost instantly delayed this morning to 5:45PM, and now we find out they canceled that one too. Need some prayers that they can get home soon. Sitting on the phone right now trying to work out a flight remotely close so I can drive and get them. I loathe ORD.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: SIG4EVA,

Why airlines are allowed to overbook flights hoping some cancel or no show is beyond me.

Personally I’m a Southwest fan but I realize it’s not always possible to pick your airline depending on destinations.

Driving is my first preference as I enjoy the journey.

They're allowed to overbook because there are a bunch of people who book several flights, then cancel all but one so the airline can end up with a huge number of vacant seats, thus dropping their profits substantially.

I used to fly a lot on business and still fly around 5 or 6 times a year and have only been on 2 flights that bumped people, one going to Honolulu and one going to D.C. I got on both of them though as enough people volunteered to be bumped that the problem went away.

I went through ORD once on the way back to Phoenix from Newark New Jersey. In 3 hours time, they changed my departure gate 5 times and getting from gate to gate at ORD can be a challenge unless you're really paying attention.

quote:

airlines are allowed to overbook flights hoping some cancel

They do this because people cancel or no show, not in hopes of.

An empty seat cuts profit margin. Margins are thin as it is, and every delay, missed connection, maintenance issue affecting take off time/arrival time eats away at that margin. (and the inconvenience at leas, and the literal damaging effect on some people's lives at most, is a greater loss to some operators, like Spirit)

Not making excuses, there are a lot of things that could be done to make operations more efficient, and less loss due to piss poor planning and execution of operations.

Unfortunately, the human element is a larger factor in all of this, and the "math and science" people in management and those driving the operations, are ill equipped to understand the myriad of variables outside the cells of the spreadsheets, and perpetuate the loss of effectiveness, economy, efficiency in the operation that results in the loss of excellence.

There is a lot of art mixed in with all the science of any system that involves man.

Sadly, too often, too much "left brain" and not enough right brain, and the thing circles the drain.

“Perpetually Canceled Flights”. I’m sorry your loved ones can’t get home as originally scheduled, but seeing a line of weather to the east of ORD right now that ASSUREDLY affected operations in/out of the airport over the past day or so, I’d say that’s the culprit.

As a pilot with over 20 years under my belt, my job is the SAFETY of my passengers, crew, and plane. I don’t feel obligated to violate that top priority by flying into Level 6 thunderstorms or through a line of such just for the convenience of those that don’t understand our responsibility or operation.

I hope they get home soon SAFELY! Just thank your lucky stars they aren’t on American or Spirit. I think you’ll find United is doing a HELLUVA good job in the midst of this cluster-phukk Covid IDIOCY. Might want to pay heed to your own signature line??...

I've never had a smooth flight in/out of ORD, good lord that place just sucks in flights and never lets them go. I try to avoid that airport.

I feel for you.

I hope your family is able to get out tonight. That's miserable with two small kids too.

I haven't flown much on United, but did run into problems on a connection in ORD while returning from gay Paris.

I'm a Southwest guy, through and through. Over 600 roundtrips with them and they've rarely screwed me over, and it's not because I'm A-list preferred. They seem to treat all passengers like they'd like to be treated.

Good luck. BTW, what's the drive like from NC to ORD?

Like Corsair, I avoid ORD as much as possible.

I hope you are reunited with your family soon.

I avoid ORD at almost any cost

United sucks, Continental was a good Houston airline, too bad they merged, nothing good happened from that.

One might think, given the realities of the marketplace, that, perhaps, a non-refundable ticket, that assures passage might be available? The current ticketing/pricing structure is entirely up to the airlines, they can offer any kind of carriage contract they want.

Aircraft aren't cars. There are tens of thousands of delay points in the system; every person, every cloud, every aircraft, every airport, every approach, can be a contributing factor, and it only takes one change to cause ripples throughout the industry. One aircraft gets diverted when Ricky Redneck can't keep his mask on and has to punch a flight attendant. Everyone pays the price. Now it's not just hime, but 180 other people that need a spare seat. That aircraft won't be available at the destination because of the divert, so the passengers taking it on the next leg now need seats. There's 360 seats needed. The diverted aircraft was at a gate at the diversion airport, and the arriving airplane was delayed getting to a gate. The passengers missed their connections. They were booked, collectively on 35 other flights, all of which were impacted, and so on, until hundreds of flights are affected by one guy.

Now add thunderstorms, mechanical issues, crew duty times, gate delays, air traffic control system delays, diversions, and so on, and it's a fluid, dynamic problem. Toss in tens of thousands of pilots who have been out of currency or furloughed or not getting scheduled due to decreased air volume in Covid, aircraft which require several hundred thousand man-hours of maintenance inspections and work to return to service, having been put in storage, and all the other components of waking an industry back up that was wrapped and set aside, and this is what happens.

I routinely get booked on a flight, and get sent somewhere else, so my booking falls through. Seats are picked up and sold by brokers, there are delays in communicating by agents, brokers, and various systems, and numerous connection between airlines booked as code sharing flights; one airline may be operating a flight for several other airlines, which adds numerous layers of complexity.

No good answers.

I wouldn't travel, if I didn't absolutely have to, or if my employment didn't require it. No way.

Looks like nasty weather is the main reason, Tuesday eve.

ARCHIVED METAR OF: 20210811 // FROM: 0 TO: 2 UTC
AIRPORTS REQUESTED: KORD
KORD 110003Z 22010KT 10SM VCTS BKN031 BKN080 BKN100 OVC250 31/26 A2983 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT W AND NW TSE02E03 T03060261
KORD 110022Z 23008KT 10SM -TSRA BKN030CB BKN050 OVC250 31/26 A2983 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT ALQDS RAB21 TSE02E03B21 OCNL LTGICCG SW-NW TS SW-NW MOV NE P0000 T03060261 KORD 110051Z 26020G40KT 1 1/4SM TSRA BR FEW010 BKN028CB OVC060 22/21 A2991 RMK AO2 PK WND 29050/0036 WSHFT 0030 LTG DSNT ALQDS RAB21 TSE02E03B21 SLP125 CONS LTGICCCCG OHD TS OHD MOV NE P0012 T02170206
KORD 110106Z VRB06G21KT 5SM TSRA BR FEW012 BKN032CB OVC075 22/20 A2990 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT ALQDS CONS LTGICCCCG OHD TS OHD MOV NE P0021 T02170200
KORD 110151Z 11005KT 10SM -TSRA FEW035CB FEW060 BKN110 OVC150 22/21 A2986 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT NE-SE SLP107 FRQ LTGICCC OHD-NE-SE TS OHD-NE-SE MOV E P0022 T02170206
KORD 110204Z 00000KT 10SM -RA FEW009 FEW060 BKN110 OVC150 22/21 A2988 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT E AND SE TSE03 FRQ LTGICCC DSNT NE-SE CB DSNT NE-SE MOV E P0000 T02220206
KORD 110251Z 20006KT 10SM FEW009 FEW110 BKN150 OVC250 22/21 A2988 RMK AO2 RAE25 TSE03 SLP114 OCNL LTGIC DSNT NE-E CB DSNT NE-E P0000 60034 T02220206 51018

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
REALLY?

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

REALLY?

What, you can't read a METAR? Basic stuff. It's on the written test ("Knowledge Exam") for just about every type of pilot certificate.

The one shown says that there is some bad weather vicinity of O'Hare.

Folks I know speak English.

I never have any luck out of ORD. So much so, I never fly through there any more. Weather, mechanical issues, etc. Same seems to happen to all of my instructors.

My rule of thumb is that if I have to go to Chicago, I'm going to be there a while.

quote:

Originally posted by sourdough44:

ARCHIVED METAR OF: 20210811 // FROM: 0 TO: 2 UTC
AIRPORTS REQUESTED: KORD
KORD 110003Z 22010KT 10SM VCTS BKN031 BKN080 BKN100 OVC250 31/26 A2983 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT W AND NW TSE02E03 T03060261

11th, 0003z (10th 10:00 PM): wind southwest at ten knots, showers in the vicinity. Clouds are few at 3,100', ceiling broken clouds at 8,000', broken clouds at 10,000', overcast at 25,000'. Temperature 31 C, dewpoint (temp to which air must be cooled to become 100% humidity) 26 C, local barometric pressure, adjusted to sea level, 29.83" of mercury. Lightning distant west and northwest.

And so on. Airport weather.

I’m not trying to run cover for any schedule disruptions, just sowing some weather.

Just across the WI border, another indicator.

https://www.wisn.com/article/w...ry-underway/37284434

quote:

Originally posted by sns3guppy:

quote:

Originally posted by sourdough44:

ARCHIVED METAR OF: 20210811 // FROM: 0 TO: 2 UTC
AIRPORTS REQUESTED: KORD
KORD 110003Z 22010KT 10SM VCTS BKN031 BKN080 BKN100 OVC250 31/26 A2983 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT W AND NW TSE02E03 T03060261

11th, 0003z (10th 10:00 PM): wind southwest at ten knots, showers in the vicinity. Clouds are few at 3,100', ceiling broken clouds at 8,000', broken clouds at 10,000', overcast at 25,000'. Temperature 31 C, dewpoint (temp to which air must be cooled to become 100% humidity) 26 C, local barometric pressure, adjusted to sea level, 29.83" of mercury. Lightning distant west and northwest.

Visibility ten

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

Folks I know speak English.

METARs speak aviation weather language.