Topic of the Week: United Grounds 757s

February 18, 2011 CF 17 comments

United had to ground its fleet of 757s this week because of a check that it failed to complete on a computer a few years back. Any thoughts on this?

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Written by DGS on February 18, 2011. Reply

The CO 757s probably laughed. They may be fatties, but they’re not as dumb as the United birds.
- Written by Nicholas Barnard on February 18, 2011. Reply
  
  I wonder if there were any instances of CO 757s subbing in, or United swapping in some A321s or something along those lines..
  
  I remember reading once where CO had to take a 757-300 out and replaced it with a 767-200 and a C200 from XJet….
Written by Ted on February 18, 2011. Reply

Geek Squad must have been real busy for a couple of days.
Written by MeanMeosh on February 18, 2011. Reply

Oops?
Written by Dave on February 18, 2011. Reply

If it wasn’t for this little merger thing, who knows if they would’ve caught this problem. I just imagine them going down the checklist comparing the UA and CO 757s and then they realized – they forgot to run the Windows Update.
Written by Hermann on February 18, 2011. Reply

Shoudn´t there be a process that keeps track of requirements and deadlines to plan maintenance accordingly? Makes people think like if they miss this, what else do they miss?
- Written by David SF eastbay on February 18, 2011. Reply
  
  Hermann, yes a computer keeps track of all that. Oh wait, hmmmm…….lol
  - Written by Sanjeev M on February 18, 2011. Reply
    
    Well, Watson was too tired to keep track after three days of INTENSE Jeopardy with Ken Jennings and Rutter.
    
    LOL have a great weekend everyone!
Written by David SF eastbay on February 18, 2011. Reply

I saw one new item that UA said not many flights were canceled due to the grounding. Sounds hard to believe that grounding 96 airplanes caused only 15 flights to be canceled, I think that was the number I read.
- Written by Harry on February 18, 2011. Reply
  
  overnight checks
Written by Dal Steve on February 18, 2011. Reply

…and the fine is? I mean American and Southwest were both fined after mx lapses and received multi-million dollar fines, I wonder what Uniteds will be since these have been flying like this for 5+ years. How many revenue flights have these 96 planes flown?
- Written by Harry on February 18, 2011. Reply
  
  Generally, no fine if you catch and report yourself
  - Written by Dave on February 18, 2011. Reply
    
    Not necessarily. Self disclosure can mitigate a fine, but in the past few years, these fines have not been entirely dismissed.
Written by malbarda on February 18, 2011. Reply

And apparently the grounding of these planes did not adversely affect UA’s schedule. That would indicate to me that UA has a few planes too many…
- Written by Hunter on February 18, 2011. Reply
  
  The checks were done overnight. Most of the 757s in UA’s fleet don’t fly first flights of the morning. The check takes about 90 minutes per plan (in some cases, they said it takes 45 minutes). So, impact to the fleet was minimal.
Written by Jon on February 18, 2011. Reply

Typical United. Cover up the problem or cut corners to save money. Took a merger with a better managed company to make United more honest.
Written by Tour on July 2, 2011. Reply

Not necessarily. Self disclosure can mitigate a fine, but in the past few years, these fines have not been entirely dismissed.