DHL Integration Day - How did it go?

[Jurassic Jet]

Just wondering if anyone knows how the integration went. How bad were the delays if any?

 

[Clipperskip]

I was wondering too! I left ILN Friday morning and the sorters were saying they were told to expected 2-3 hour delays on Saturday morning. That seems a bit excessive especially for a Saturday morning sort. I guess a lot of the success this weekend depends on Astars' and DHL 's ability to successively move all the CVG equipment to ILN in the planned amount of time.

 

[hvydriver]

From what I heard, it was a total abortion. Load delays for everyone. Crews timing out all over the place. The horror!! The horror!! Supposedly the main sort broke down a couple of times. I went by to pick up a buddy at 7am and there were jets on the ramp everywhere. Being as it was the first day of my off week, I left most rickey tick! (after picking up my bud) You'd have to expect some bumps in the road for a major integration like this, but not that bad. I think Mon/Tues will tell the tale more than today did. The rest of the month could be a steep learning curve for the hub folk.

 

[LarryinTN]

This is why I bid west coast shuttles all month. I haven't been to ILN since August 25th and I won't be back until Sept 29th.

I checked a few flights on flightview.com and they were about two hours late. One ER flight I saw was over three hours late. It was ER573, one of the last scheduled departures. Don't know if it had any issues that were not sort/loading related. ER505, scheduled out just a couple of minutes early, was just two hours late.

I guess it was a smart idea to do this on a Saturday morning. You have very little freight that has to be delivered that day, you have less volume, and you have the weekend to work on the problems that are sure to develop.

Was this also the first night to use the new sort building? Seems like they should have had that up and running for a few weeks before bringing in the extra airplanes and volume.

How long did it take to work out the kinks when the new (old?) CVG sort opened?

 

[Jurassic Jet]

I went by to pick up a buddy at 7am and there were jets on the ramp everywhere.

I live right under the departure path of the MXQ305 and I heard jets going over at 9:00 AM.

 

[flyinyourShorts]

How long did it take to work out the kinks when the new (old?) CVG sort opened?

I don't think they ever got the kinks out!! I'm saying that HONESTLY without any sarcasm.............

 

[goastar]

delay, delay and more delay

We took a 2 hr delay. Not to bad. A main sort belt broke and that proceeded to screw up anything that was going right.

I must say the folks we met up at ILN were nice and when the frieght showed they were johnny on the spot to make it happen.

I personally will miss the time checks from the ramp tower (not). We are not use to the professionalism and effiecncy in airport operations that was displayed by the ABX folks running the airpark.

Nice job. Me thinks the move was pretty good.

 

[hvydriver]

Hey,

Where did all our chat go? I was enjoying the resturant discussion.

 

[Jurassic Jet]

Hey,

Where did all our chat go? I was enjoying the resturant discussion.

Hmmm. Where did it go indeed. Don't think it was anything that needed censoring. It was a little off topic, but who knows.

 

[Dangerkitty]

Hmmm. Where did it go indeed. Don't think it was anything that needed censoring. It was a little off topic, but who knows.

http://forums.flightinfo.com/announcement.php?f=27&announcementid=44

This explains it.

 

[Jurassic Jet]

Ahhh. Yes it does.

 

[SDF2BUF2MCO]

Last Saturday morning I was finishing up some paperwork at my place of work and a "lost" long haul truck driver pulled up looking for ABX (he didn't realize he needed to be looking for DHL). He had drove from ILN. Don't know if it was related to any of the aformentioned issues.

 

[hvydriver]

Ahhh... so it does. So LJ, have you been to Damon's? Is it worth the trip?

 

[ABX9av8or]

The sort is getting better. We were 50 minutes late Tuesday morning and 20 minutes late Wednesday morning.

 

[Jurassic Jet]

The sort is getting better. We were 50 minutes late Tuesday morning and 20 minutes late Wednesday morning.

Good news. I hope it continues to improve.

Still glad I had the first half of the month off!

 

[hvydriver]

FWIW (I'm off right now as well.) I'm still hearing of 2+ hour delays for our birds. If the delays keep getting smaller, we may experience an on time departure along about this weekend. Hey, that's when I go back! Buhahahaha!! Lucky me!!

 

[LarryinTN]

Ahhh... so it does. So LJ, have you been to Damon's? Is it worth the trip?

Damon's is okay. Just like any other Damon's anywhere else in the country. Better than fast food. Haven't been there in a number of years, though.

There's a Donato's pizza right in front of (behind?) Damon's. I'll go there occasionally as their thin crust is quite different from what you get from the other chains. If you like pizza it's worth a try.

I was on reserve in ILN for much of 1997. It didn't take long to get burned out on ALL of the food options. The town might be fine for someone who grew up there and knows a lot of people but I certainly did not like it. I was quite happy the day I moved out of my crash pad!

 

[LarryinTN]

I pulled up some random ILN-XYZ city pairs and some flights were on time and others late. Seems like the ER flights took a bigger hit than the GB flights. Did anyone else notice this or did I just happen to hit the wrong flights?

 

[hvydriver]

Nah LJ. You didn't hit the wrong button. The loaders are apparently on a learning curve dealing with our very complex A container system. Our load delays since Saturday have been starting with 6+ hrs, then 5 for Sunday, 4 for Monday, 3 for Tuesday, 2 For Wednesday. That's why I figure if the progress keeps moving linearly, then we'll be on time either Friday or Saturday. Kinda hard to figure out though. They've been loading us for 2 months now with no problems. I did hear one of our guys say that a load lead said that they were really short on manpower for the sort and ramp ops. Maybe they got that fixed?

 

[LarryinTN]

That's strange... We've been running nightly flights with A containers for two or three years now. Shouldn't be any mystery how they work. Maybe the portions of the sort which deal with the A containers has been having more trouble than the rest?

Labor is always a problem in ILN. There just aren't enough people. They have to bus them in from surrounding cities. Wait until we get a nice snow/ice night. They pay bonuses to the sorters/loaders who do come in on the weather nights because so many just call in sick.