I'm Not Sure Why I'm Surprised
I had more airline fun today. When I checked-in in the morning, instead of getting a ticket from Columbus to Toronto, I got one from Columbus to DC to Toronto. Looking at the times they gave me this actually makes more sense than what I was told last night. The flight from Columbus to Toronto is hardly an hour but they originally said I left at 10am and got in at 2pm. There must have just been something wrong with the records they gave me last night. But I was getting to Toronto on time so no problem right?
Well, it wouldn't have been if United didn't run the crappiest fleet of airplanes in American. Just like with my last flight from Seattle to Columbus (also heavily delayed), the plane that was supposed to arrive and take us to DC (which was just coming from DC) was stuck at Dulles with mechanical troubles. In fact, it hadn't even left the airport yet. They apparently did the same song and dance of pretending things were okay, trying to taxi away from the gate and then having to go back and unload passengers; at least that is the description of what happened as told by the gate agent here. Is it weird that I am reminded of the "Cheese Shop" by Monty Python?
You Used To Be Cool, United
I've flown United a lot in my life. I used to live in Chicago - United's hub in the US - and traveled a lot for work during those years; almost all of those flights were on United. During that entire time, I experienced fewer "mechanical issues" than I can count on one hand. However, in the last few years, every single United flight I have taken has had some kind of delay or interruption that was blamed on physical problems with the plane. Anecdotes mean little outside of the personal experience but it's hard for me not to think that the amount of resources spent on plane maintenance has decreased a lot in the last 6-7 years. The change is significant enough to make me reconsider ever flying United again.
To create even more goodwill between themselves and their passengers, the gate agents decided to wait until about 20 minutes before the plane in Columbus was supposed to board before saying our flight would be delayed. They did this despite knowing that the plane they would be loading was still in a city that was 1.5 hours away. I'm not sure if it is the gate agents that decide to do this sort of thing or if it is some official procedure they are following but either way...
Stay classy, United.
Cui Bono?
The utter lack of risk mitigation/management this kind of behavior shows makes me wonder why any airline would operate like this though. From my experience, this isn't a behavior unique to United but rather something that is endemic to air travel. Winter travel in the US shows this problem clearly. A major airport - for example, O'Hare - shuts down due to weather and suddenly you start having growing lines of affected travelers at airports all of the world. Those people all have to deal with a human agent to figure out what alternate travel plans they can make. Those agents have to hunt through decades-old computer systems to manually build new routes. How is it cost effective for airlines/airports to operate like this? Why is there no system that is able to automatically reroute passengers? Why isn't there a system that is trying to predict and be prepared for these kinds of failures?
I understand just how difficult pathfinding is for a massive, weighted graph like the world-wide airport/flight network; a reasonable portion of my advanced education was dedicated to the math and theory that relates to those kinds of problems. It is not, however, an impossible or even computationally unrealistic problem to solve these days. Especially given the small subset of that graph that would need to be considered to solve this particular problem. At least, that is how it feels to me when I think about it a bit. When I get a little free time I'll see if I can put together a PoC of how I imagine that working.
Next Stop, Istanbul
Luckily - as you probably guessed based on where I am writing this from - I managed to squeak on to another flight up to Toronto so I don't have to lose another day and reschedule my whole trip, again. I'm there now but haven't yet confirmed that my bags made it on the new plane. There is a very good chance they did - I heard the gate agent specifically call the bag handler and confirm he was in the process of retrieving my bags - but I'd like to confirm that.
If they didn't, I will just wait for them in Istanbul. I was going to have to retrieve them there anyway (or so I have been told). There is apparently something particular about flying directly to Nepal which means that I have to get my bags at the last stop before Nepal and then check them back in to the flight which lands in Nepal; I'm dubious about this being true but I don't know why the gate agent would have misinformed me about that. It's no real problem though. The airport I fly into in Istanbul has a check/storage service (like most large airports) so I will be checking my carry-ons with them and wandering around the city for 9-10 hours. I'm definitely going to hit the Grand Bazaar and I hope to see a museum or art gallery as well. But I might just pass the time sitting in a tea house, drinking coffee, and eating shish kabob. Should be fun! :-)