As part of monitoring airline activity, I go through each airline’s schedule from Charlotte every month. This usually means looking at their PDF timetables. Now PDF timetables do have a disadvantage: they aren’t always 100 percent accurate. Sometimes airlines leave some of their own flights out. US Airways does this sometimes, though it’s rare. Delta, meanwhile, had a problem awhile back with their flights between Cincinnati and Charlotte — about half just weren’t included, though they showed up if you searched for them online.
I have never seen any airline with such an utter and complete failure of an attempt at a PDF timetable as United’s latest downloadable schedule though. Or even see any other airline come close to the level of ineptitude United has achieved. United’s three biggest hubs are at Newark, Houston, and Chicago O’Hare.
The latest PDF timetable (September 29, 2012 to October 27, 2012, Updated Weekly) does not include any departures from Newark, be they to Charlotte or anyplace else, after 2:59pm. And the airlines actually operates hundreds of such flights.
Oh, and it gets worse. No departures from Houston after 1:17pm are included. Again, there are literally hundreds of such flights.
And it doesn’t list any flights from Chicago at all, where United is the largest airline.
Nice job guys.
