US Airlines meltdown too.

[Anonymous]

http://www.comcast.net/News/DOMESTIC//XML/1110_AP_Online_Regional___National__US_/96996011-8ffb-4b7e-b8c5-814e9e0148bd.html

I wonder if UP is gonna force them to license the term? [8]

[jchnhtfd]

my sources suggest that it may be weeks -- literally -- before US Air gets the mess unscrambled -- assuming they don't liquidate first. They are in really big trouble.

If you've time to spare, go by air...

For what it's worth, around our way (Albany/Rennselaer) Amtrak was running pretty well the couple of times I went up to meet folks on the train (I have relatives who come in on the Maple Leaf or the Adirondack from the frozen north) -- except for the Lake Shore from Chicago, but that, thanks to the host railroad (which shall remain unnamed) is almost always late anyway.

[Anonymous]

...was watching the airline mess on the news the other day.

That's the big problem with the way they schedule these things is that generally, the plane's are scheduled to stop at an airport, unload, load then take off and away they go, as little dwel time as possible.

Understandably, so, as if the planes aren't moving they aren't making money.

Problem is, if a plane is an hour late out of an airport, then you get an entire trickle down effect from one trip to the next to the next, until the airplane has some scheduled down time so all the delays can be caught up.

A small delay here or there can really add up.

[tree68]

Drop a two hour delay on a major airport (and I saw several of those mentioned on TWC in the past week) and the ripple effects can literally run from coast to coast. Just like a power-short railroad, a flight can't leave until the airplane is available. If it's hung up at O'Hare, its follow-on can't leave out of Newark until an appropriate plane can be found. Been there. Been hung up on available crews, too. The airlines suffer a near-meltdown everytime a big weather front comes through...