If you’ve ever been delayed after landing while the pilot announces you are “waiting for a gate to open up,” remember— it’s us on the other end of the announcement. And we’re just as frustrated as you. In fact, sometimes we can see open gates at the terminal, even as we make the announcement. We just aren’t allowed to park at them, because United’s management has no system to dynamically reroute the people and equipment needed. Most times, it doesn’t have to be this way.

A small investment would result in a dynamic gate assignment system, one which would assign landing flights to available gates, and direct ground support services to the appropriate place. The cost would be amortized in little time by the savings of on-time arrivals and downline on-time departures, not to mention fuel savings in this ultra-high-cost environment.

And in the Department of Simple Ideas, here’s one: We often take delays getting to the gate at the end of a flight because another plane is blocking our route to the gate. This could often be cured, and save time and fuel, by pushing back departing flights out of the way of the path other planes need to use to get to the gate. Pilots have to start engines and run two or three checklists after the plane is pushed back. This takes five minutes or more. If these planes are out of the way while the pilots do it, other planes can get in.  Experienced senior management would know that, or at least know enough to listen to those who do.

As pilots, we’ve seen this repeatedly fail, as catering errors where food is loaded for only one direction (not uncommonly, Hawaii flights) can’t be rectified at the intermediate destination, since we no longer cater from those stations. More than once, we and the Customer Service/Stations Operations staff have wound up “catering for passengers” from vending machines in the concourse.

We’re all in favor of saving money when service isn’t affected, but these repeated errors call for either better quality control, or a return to catering at all stations.

 Here’s the scene: A generator goes inoperative, or a cockpit seat is broken, or any one of thousands of other mechanical items break, often at a non-hub airport.  We used to be able to call a mechanic and have them fix it, usually before you even board the plane. But now, all too often, we’re told that these same small breakdowns will cause a delay or a cancellation, because most parts aren’t stocked outside our hubs. So if we need a generator in Tampa, or a cockpit seat in Portland, we’re all grounded together until one can be flown in. Believe it or not, this nonsense goes on at our primary hubs, too!

There’s a difference between smart savings and dumb savings. This one falls on the wrong side of the ledger.