United's bumpy start could cause losses, but not crippling
Chicago-based UAL Corp.'s United Airlines could face millions of dollars in losses as it recovers from Thursday's computer glitch that canceled about 100 flights and delayed others.
While final numbers won't be available for some time, analysts like Mike Boyd, principal with The Boyd Group aviation consulting company in Evergreen, Colo., believe the delayed or canceled flights, any overtime pay for crews, and possible lost or diverted luggage could ring up losses.
"All the systems are integrated, so it doesn't take much to knock it all down," said Boyd. "You can blame the world we live in, but not United Airlines."
United, which has operations in Elk Grove Township, has been struggling with rising costs such as jet fuel, continued streamlining, furloughs for union workers and other woes. If that's not enough, a computer problem at O'Hare International Airport on Thursday forced passengers to wait hours to get checked in for various flights.
Neither the Federal Aviation Administration, O'Hare nor even the Air Transport Association tracks technology problems at the airlines, so there are no local or national numbers to compare regarding frequency of computer problems or the losses they cause.
United spokesmen also didn't respond to questions related to the number of passengers affected, financial losses from the situation or exactly how the problem occurred.
"About 100 flights canceled (Thursday) from the check-in system issue that occurred between approximately 3 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Central Time at Chicago O'Hare," United spokeswoman Robin Urbanski said via e-mail.
While the computer problems were eventually resolved, the overall situation wasn't as grim as some reports at first suggested.
Robert J. Gordon, economics professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, checked United's flight status on all scheduled flights on four routes on Thursday.
He found that the O'Hare-to-Washington Reagan route had two flights canceled of 15 scheduled for the day. O'Hare to New York's LaGuardia had three of 15 flights canceled. Other routes from O'Hare to Los Angeles and O'Hare to Portland, Ore., had no cancellations out of a total of 13 scheduled flights.
"This event was sufficiently small and limited to a single airport that it will have no bearing on United's reputation or on its future profitability or lack thereof," said Gordon.
The Association of Flight Attendants took the computer-generated delays in stride, said union spokesman Chris Clarke.
"It's more like a bump in the road, like dealing with a snowstorm," Clarke said.
United handled the situation well, but having that many canceled flights during a peak travel season could have been worse, said Joe Schwieterman, director of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul University.
"Customers are less patient with problems in-house at the airline compared to an act of God," he said.
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