Canceled Flights Spawn Questions : United Insists Mechanical Problems, Not Economics, Caused Cancellations

Shortly after United Airlines began its service May 1 between O’Hare International Airport in Chicago and Burbank Airport, Bill Davidson, a Van Nuys accountant, presented himself at the United counter at O’Hare for a flight home.

The May 11 flight was canceled, the people behind the counter told him, for mechanical reasons. United put him on another of its flights departing at the same time for Long Beach. There he boarded a bus and, with others on the canceled flight, was ferried the 31 miles to Burbank.

But United apparently did not inform the Federal Aviation Administration of any mechanical problem resulting in the cancellation of Davidson’s flight, records received by the FAA show. FAA regulations require an airline to file a report any time a safety-related mechanical problem causes the cancellation, delay or substitution of an aircraft on a scheduled flight.

There is no law that prohibits cancellation of a scheduled commercial flight for economic reasons.

Passengers Bused Across Town

In some instances, United has been able to use the proximity of the two airports and the similarity of the schedules to protect passengers who might otherwise be stranded by offering them a cross-town bus trip to catch another flight.

But the airline’s use of that method has led some passengers to question whether United is simply consolidating two lightly filled flights into one for economic reasons.

United officials said that their primary concern is safety and that there has been a legitimate mechanical reason for every cancellation.

They said a mechanical repair that caused the cancellation of more than one flight would be reported only on the first of those flights. Also, they said, complex rescheduling of aircraft assignments after a breakdown could result in a cancellation on one flight being charged to another.

2 Dozen Cancellations

Figures supplied to The Times by United, the FAA and by Burbank and Long Beach airport officials show that, in the first two months of the Burbank route, United canceled at least two dozen flights on the two Burbank-to-Chicago and Long Beach-to-Chicago routes, a cancellation rate roughly twice the industry average.

In May alone, the first month of United’s 767 wide-body service to Chicago from Burbank Airport, the airline canceled 18 flights on that route and on the Long Beach-Chicago route with the same time schedule, according to United.

United spokesman Alan Wayne strongly denied that the airline would cancel a flight for economic reasons.

“When we’re developing a new service like Burbank, you want to develop as reliable and consistent a service as possible to attract passengers away from your competitors,” Wayne said. “The last thing we want to do is cancel when we’re trying to develop a marketing position.”

Some passengers whose flights were canceled said they had reason to doubt that explanation.

Marylou Brice-Safron of Santa Monica, an account executive for Whole Life Monthly magazine, said she was informed at O’Hare that mechanical problems had caused the cancellation of her May 11 flight to Burbank--the same flight as Davidson’s--but a stewardess on the plane later said she thought the flight was canceled for economic reasons because too few passengers were booked on it.

Walter Moe, executive vice president of a Camarillo hydraulic equipment manufacturing firm, said a United mechanic he met on a recent trip to Chicago predicted the next day’s flight to Burbank would be canceled for the same reason--too few passengers. Moe said that, at the gate, he was told “equipment problems” were at fault.

Discrepancy in Filings

The only mechanical interruption reports filed by United with the FAA for any flight on the Burbank-Chicago route that day shows a 12-minute delay on Flight 268, the afternoon plane to Chicago, which is United’s base city.

Wayne said he did not know why reports were not filed in many cases. United’s spokesman in Chicago said, however, that some of the cancellations were caused by mechanical problems on other routes affecting the Burbank and Long Beach routes.

However, in some instances, he could not explain the difference between United’s explanations for the cancellations and the airline reports to the FAA.

Some observers of the airline industry think United’s cancellations are part of a widespread practice among air carriers of reducing costs by canceling flights on which there are few passengers while citing other reasons for the cancellations.

‘Common Practice’

“What United is doing is common practice,” said Arlene Macchia of the National Passenger Travel Assn., a business-traveler oriented consumer organization.

Macchia said she draws that conclusion from complaints from the 750 businesses that belong to the association.

“I just believe that they do it because on certain runs there are not enough people,” Macchia said. “They take them off and put them on another flight. It seems to be an ongoing, constant procedure.”

After a flight is canceled, Macchia said, passengers are told “either that it is mechanical failure or they will come up with some kind of answer.”

Professionals in the air dispatching business see more complex reasons for cancellations that may appear to passengers as strictly economic.

Dan Smith, manager of consumer and industry affairs for the International Airline Passengers Assn., said that, while there is “always an economic reason,” sometimes cancellations occur when planes are shuffled in order to meet the greatest need.

“You may have a mechanical problem occurring in Austin,” said Smith, who formerly worked as a flight attendant scheduler for a major airline. “Equipment is supposed to come from Dallas and turn around to Los Angeles. If equipment doesn’t make it, you have to balance the equipment.

“It was my impression that those flights that had the fewest number of passengers on it would be canceled. The equipment would be put on another route that was more crucial to the system.”

Monitoring Reports

In the era of deregulation, there are virtually no outside controls over cancellation of scheduled flights for economic reasons, federal transportation officials said.

At one time, the Civil Aeronautics Board carefully monitored air carriers to ensure the integrity of scheduled routes.

When the CAB expired on Dec. 31, 1984, its functions were assumed by the U.S. Department of Transportation. For safety reasons, the FAA continues to require strict reporting of delays and cancellations caused by mechanical failures.

However, the Department of Transportation provides no more than passive monitoring of any other cause of flight cancellations, a spokesman said.

Federal regulations provide for sanctions against an airline only if its failure to deliver on a scheduled route is so consistent that it constitutes an “unfair and deceptive business practice,” said Hoyte Decker, chief of consumer affairs for the Department of Transportation.

No Violation Determined

Decker said that the percentage of cancellations that would constitute a violation has not, to his knowledge, been determined, and that no airline has ever been shown to engage in “a practice” of canceling flights for economic reasons.

“As a practical matter, carriers are probably canceling flights for economic reasons,” Decker said. “In spite of the fact that they would not admit it, they are probably doing it. The question then becomes: How frequently are they doing it? My reaction is, not very often.”

Wayne, United’s spokesman in Los Angeles, denied that the airline has had an unusual number of cancellations on the Burbank and Long Beach routes. However, in a series of interviews, Wayne gave different accounts of how many cancellations there were.

When first interviewed in May, Wayne confirmed the cancellation of only four Chicago-Burbank flights and one Chicago-Long Beach flight.

7.5% Cancellation Rate

In a second interview, when presented information about other cancellations in the same time period, Wayne added several other flights to the list, saying that, in all, 17 flights were canceled on both routes in May--United later confirmed an 18th cancellation--for a 7.5% rate, compared to the nationwide industry average of 2.8% for 1985 and 2.3% for the first quarter of 1986.

He said that the last May cancellation on the Chicago-Long Beach route was May 16 and that there had been only one cancellation since then, on June 24.

“After 25 days, we’re at 99% in the Long Beach-Chicago market,” Wayne said.

United apparently canceled only two flights at Burbank in June. However, though its rate at Long Beach improved, there were more cancellations there than Wayne stated.

Randy Berg, operations manager at Long Beach Airport, said noise monitoring data showed that United’s afternoon flight from Chicago on June 22 and the morning flight back on June 23 did not fly. United has since confirmed the cancellation of those two flights.

Causes Remain Obscure

Aside from questions over the exact number of cancellations, the causes of those cancellations remain obscure.

During May, United filed mechanical problem reports with the FAA covering numerous delays on the Long Beach and Burbank routes but only four reports of cancellations, a period in which 18 flights were actually canceled.

When asked about that discrepancy, Wayne referred all queries to United’s spokesman in Chicago, Charles Novak.

Novak gave the following explanations for some of those cancellations:

On May 6, the morning flight from Chicago to Burbank was canceled because the plane, a Boeing 767, developed a problem in Baltimore. Novak said the cancellation was charged to the Baltimore flight.

However, Hal Caccamise, the FAA official who monitors United Airlines in San Francisco, said United reported only one cancellation on its entire 767 fleet on May 6. That was the afternoon flight from Chicago to Burbank.

On May 8, Novak said, a 767 destined for Burbank was diverted to another route and replaced with a DC-10. He said the DC-10 was grounded for an engine replacement in Chicago but could not have completed its flight anyway because that plane is prohibited from landing in Burbank.

Novak cited a hydraulic leak in a plane at Burbank as the cause of cancellation of the morning flight from Burbank to Chicago on May 11. Because there was already a plane at Burbank, the morning flight from Chicago was canceled, Novak said.

However, a copy of United’s mechanical interruption report for that day showed that a hydraulic problem on the airplane Novak cited was reported as causing only a 12-minute delay on the flight to O’Hare.

“That may be,” Novak said. “It could have been that they didn’t have a traffic slot at O’Hare. You don’t leave an airport until you have your landing slot set at O’Hare.”

Novak said the May 16 morning flight to Long Beach was canceled because of an exhaust temperature problem at O’Hare, forcing cancellation of the afternoon return flight.

FAA files contain no report of that problem on either flight. Novak said he did not know why.

Passengers like Philadelphia business consultant Stew Dougherty say they find United’s explanations for canceling flights difficult to believe when an incident like the following happens:

Dougherty was booked on a flight from Burbank to Chicago on June 27. On that day the morning flight to Long Beach and the afternoon flight back were canceled because of engine trouble on a DC-8 in Chicago.

LAX Flight Canceled

Dougherty was standing in the concourse at Burbank Airport when several of the passengers getting off the arriving plane walked by unhappily on their way to two buses waiting outside the terminal. They said they had been booked on a United flight from Chicago to Los Angeles International Airport but it was canceled and they instead were flown to Burbank. They boarded buses that took them to LAX.

Meanwhile, Dougherty and the other outbound passengers boarded the plane and waited on the Tarmac about half an hour, when two busloads of Long Beach passengers arrived and got on the airplane.

“They told us the reason they were sitting on the Tarmac was that they weren’t cleared by the FAA in Chicago,” Dougherty said. “People were just incredibly irritated. They knew they were being bamboozled . . . especially when the buses came up. As soon as those people got off the buses, miraculously, the FAA said, ‘Yes, you can take off now.’ ”

A Different Problem

But there was one more problem. There weren’t enough seats for all the people arriving from Long Beach.

“They asked for volunteers to get off,” Dougherty said. Several of the volunteers took a later Western Airlines flight to Chicago through Salt Lake City, he said. Dougherty spent the night in Los Angeles.

He said United made the deal a little sweeter by giving him a free round-trip ticket to anywhere he wanted.