Los Angeles: The take-off of a United Airlines flight from Chicago to Vancouver was delayed for a few minutes at the end of July not because of a mechanical problem or a staffing mishap but to ensure that passengers arriving late from another flight didn’t miss the connection to Vancouver.
Michael Jacobson, an executive for a hotel industry trade group, was on the flight that was briefly held on the tarmac, but he didn’t mind.
“Even though I was delayed as a result, it gave me comfort that waiting about 10 minutes for my fellow passengers helped prevent them from staying an extra night in Chicago,” he said. United Airlines hopes plenty of passengers are as accommodating as Jacobson. The Chicago-based carrier is expanding use of a new computer program that can automatically delay the take-off of some flights — if only briefly — to ensure that passengers on connecting flights don’t get stranded. The program will be deployed at all of United’s major airports by October.
United’s new software program, dubbed ConnectionSaver, looks at data from airline schedules, passenger itineraries, staff work schedules and other sources to automatically decide if a flight can be delayed and for precisely how long to reduce as many missed connections as possible without creating more headaches for other fliers.
“Where this tool makes a difference is in tight connections,” said David Kensick, managing director of United’s Network OperationCenter.
Other airlines also have access to the data and software needed to identify if passengers trying to make connecting flights are running late. But most other carriers leave it up to gate agents or staff in airport operations control centers to decide whether to delay a flight to help fliers make their connections. The United Airlines program gives that power to a computer, allowing only supervisors from United operation centers the authority to override the decision. — dpa
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