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UA having a spare 737-900 available at IAH
Forgive me, I'm a novice when it comes to this topic but I am curious how this works. I had a flight from IAH to MCO a few days ago scheduled on a 737-900 with United. Before we could board, the gate agents announced that there was a technical issue with the aircraft but there happened to be a spare aircraft in the hanger at IAH that could be swapped out. Sure enough, about 30 minutes later, a big, red tug showed up towing a different aircraft. What are the chance that United would have a spare aircraft sitting around (that happens to be the same type as the one assigned to this flight) available at a moment's notice? This seems pretty inefficient but I was glad it was available to us.
Re: UA having a spare 737-900 available at IAH
I mean it's a hub airport for them with a lot of MX done there. Shouldn't be much of a surprise IMO
Re: UA having a spare 737-900 available at IAH
At a hub, I wouldn't be too surprised. Even elsewhere, like MCO, if they have a maintenance station there, it wouldn't be unheard of. It's entirely possible that the plane that was brought in was there for maintenance that was minor enough for it to be deferred.
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Re: UA having a spare 737-900 available at IAH
Or, the plane they rolled out was a later departure and the original plane will sub for it in a couple of hours
Re: UA having a spare 737-900 available at IAH
United frequently has the ability to sub aircraft at hubs. They don't even necessarily do this with a "spare," but instead start swapping aircraft from other flights. This allows them to then avoid significantly delaying and canceling.
Re: UA having a spare 737-900 available at IAH
All airlines plan to have operational spares when able. I'm an aircraft router for a major US airline and it's one of my priorities to make some available in key stations.
Re: UA having a spare 737-900 available at IAH
TWA772LR wrote:All airlines plan to have operational spares when able. I'm an aircraft router for a major US airline and it's one of my priorities to make some available in key stations.
I hope your job hasn't been too difficult over the last few days with Ian coming into Florida. I bet that as someone who routes aircraft around for an airline; something like a natural disaster (even with a warning) is not a "typical day at the office". Is there anything you could share about how something like this has impacted your operations? What things do you have to take into consideration when routing aircraft during a disruption to the network? Do you exchange what size of aircraft are available in key stations for the recovery efforts; ie swap out a narrow for a wide? I am fascinated by thinking of all the pieces you need to keep track of just to move aircraft around...then doing that while "life" happens and ensuring most passengers get moved around without issue.
Re: UA having a spare 737-900 available at IAH
A lot of 8-10 hour ground time mtc is done in hubs. A lot of times it doesn't take the entire allotted ground time to do the scheduled task. Once the work is complete, Mtc releases the plane back to Operations and it becomes a spare since it was not planned to be available.
Re: UA having a spare 737-900 available at IAH
FlyBoy747 wrote:TWA772LR wrote:All airlines plan to have operational spares when able. I'm an aircraft router for a major US airline and it's one of my priorities to make some available in key stations.
I hope your job hasn't been too difficult over the last few days with Ian coming into Florida. I bet that as someone who routes aircraft around for an airline; something like a natural disaster (even with a warning) is not a "typical day at the office". Is there anything you could share about how something like this has impacted your operations? What things do you have to take into consideration when routing aircraft during a disruption to the network? Do you exchange what size of aircraft are available in key stations for the recovery efforts; ie swap out a narrow for a wide? I am fascinated by thinking of all the pieces you need to keep track of just to move aircraft around...then doing that while "life" happens and ensuring most passengers get moved around without issue.
having worked in Maintenance control right next to the fleet routers and dispatch, they get a system breifing right after shift change snd they make their contingency plans then. the Weather group forecasts well in advance f storms which areas will be affected and which stations and unless there's some overriding reason that an aircraft cannot be relocated the try to find a way to move them out of harm's way unless it's something that cannot BE predicted like an earthquake which I have lived and worked through at SFO like the Loma-Prietta earthquake that hit the Bay Area.
Re: UA having a spare 737-900 available at IAH
Just came across this thread- at the Part 135 (charter) airline I worked at, we always had an aircraft on standby while getting the aircraft we were going to use ready.
So, if the aircraft were to go tech (aviation word for breaking down) while we were fueling it or getting it ready. We would always have another aircraft on standby fueled up and ready to go if something went wrong.
Just wanted to add this on, and I’m not sure if the 121’s (the major airlines) do it the same way, is that we would choose the same aircraft type being used, If we had an LJ35 (learjet35) go tech, we’d sub in a 35. If no 35 was available, we’d probably end up delaying/cancelling the flight, because the customer paid for a certain amount of cargo space and fuel, and we don’t want to sub in an aircraft that we may need for a bigger load later that day.
So, if the aircraft were to go tech (aviation word for breaking down) while we were fueling it or getting it ready. We would always have another aircraft on standby fueled up and ready to go if something went wrong.
Just wanted to add this on, and I’m not sure if the 121’s (the major airlines) do it the same way, is that we would choose the same aircraft type being used, If we had an LJ35 (learjet35) go tech, we’d sub in a 35. If no 35 was available, we’d probably end up delaying/cancelling the flight, because the customer paid for a certain amount of cargo space and fuel, and we don’t want to sub in an aircraft that we may need for a bigger load later that day.
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