Here is a case study – Yesterday Friday, United had 3 flights to Frankfurt from SFO. 1:50pm flight was cancelled at 4:50pm (crew timeout?). 2:45pm flight operated by partner Lufthansa departed at 4:30pm. 6:45pm flight departed at 7:15pm — including a handful of passengers from the cancelled flight.
Today Saturday, the SFO-FRA flights are on time (so far) and packed full, no empty seats.
Every Saturday morning connection to Houston, Chicago, or Washington Dulles was cancelled (due to no aircraft or no crew?). So no good way to connect through to FRA today.
Bottom line – two and one-quarter flights worth of originally scheduled passengers got to Frankfurt on yesterday’s two flights. Perhaps a handful more from yesterday got onto today’s flights. International carriers were able to get out more or less on time yesterday.
In my view, the airlines have done an amazing job of handling chaos and desnarling a thicket of misplaced crew, planes, and passengers.
