I would like to find a way to see WHY a specific flight is delayed

[joxer1014]

Ok, this is just a pet peeve of mine but maybe some of you smart Disboarders out there can help me.

I am flying on a different day than the rest of my family. They are flying down a day later than me and on SW. I am flying on USair the day before. I have a friend who works for them and got me a free flight. Shhhhhhh!

We usually fly together and on SW. I know that USair is not the best when it comes to on time flights so I am a little apprehensive about flying with them. I have been watching the same flight online for the past few weeks and it has not been performing very well so you can understand why I getting a little paranoid.

I have been watching the flight on flightstats.com and flightaware.coim. They are very good sites but when a flight is delayed and I check on the details as to why it is delayed, the reason is sooooooo vague it isn't even worth reading.

So my question: is there a web site out there besides the ones I have named that will give the reason why the flight was delayed in plain English? Was it weather, mechanical, the pilot was sick or WHATTTTTTT?

This is just to satisify my curiosity and hopefully the day my flight rolls around it will be on time.

Thank you

 

[kaytieeldr]

Don't know of any site, but depending on the time of day... Probably rippling delays. The early morning flights leave on time, but delays throughout the day - crowded runways, a late connection with some of your crew on it or a large number of connecting passengers, no open gates at an earlier stop... lots of different things could delay your flight, although if one specific flight is so regularly late, it's surprising the airline doesn't permanently reschedule it.

 

[jlewisinsyr]

My guess is ground stops is the main reason you are seeing a consistent pattern which could be a result of either an inbound or outbound airport issue, it's probably less likely it has anything to do with US Airways in particular.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

I do know that for United, if you check their cargo website rather than the regular united.com site, you can often get a more detailed or real reason for delays. I don't know of any central website which lists reasons for airline delays.

Does it really matter why your flight was delayed? You'll be late no matter the reason.

 

[txo1474]

Maybe ask your friend at UsAir????

 

[DebbieB]

I notice you are from Philadelphia. Philadelphia gets affected alot by weather and air traffic control slow downs, along with Newark, LGA, JFK. When I was flying alot on business, I always avoided PHL as a connection. Many delays are out of the airlines control. One time I flew MSP-PHL-PIT. We were ready to go from MSP on time but then we were held up because of low clouds at PHL and air traffic control slowdowns. We ended up being delayed 3 hours. Totally out of US's control. SW probably runs into the same problems out of PHL.