It’s the airport equivalent of road rage: You race to your gate on a tight connection to see the door shut and your plane inching backwards. One reason gate agents are so strict about that closed door is an airline metric called “D-0” (D-zero), which designates a flight that departs at exactly the scheduled time. The industry—and government regulators—rigorously monitor this metric to see which carriers operate reliably and which don’t. Aiming to alleviate at least some of this pain, United Continental Holdings Inc. is testing a program called “Dynamic D-0” at its Denver hub to empower gate agents to delay a departure to accommodate customers and employees rushing to a connecting flight. The system “tells an employee, tells customers, ‘Hey, here’s five or six customers that are coming to this connection; they’re going to be five minutes late, but we know we can make up the time in flight on this particular flight,’” United President Scott Kirby said Tuesday at an investor conference. “Sometimes we can’t, and we don’t hold the airplane.” Typically, about a quarter of United’s flights arrive 10 or more minutes early, meaning they can make up a slight departure delay in transit. The new software examines flights in this group and coordinates the data with United’s connecting passenger roster as a way to decide which departures can be allowed to slip. United’s operations center then identifies the flights to hold and alerts gate agents. The testing has saved thousands of connecting passengers from missing a flight, Kirby said. Story has more detail.<br/>
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United will unveil an updated livery that chief executive Oscar Munoz calls an "evolution" in the next few months. "It's an evolution not a revolution," he said. "I think it's pretty cool." The Chicago-based carrier will unveil the livery update in the "April-ish" timeframe, adds Munoz. United uses an adapted version of the former Continental Airlines "globe" logo and livery that was designed by Lippincott and unveiled in 1991. Continental and United merged in 2010. The current design features the "United" name in a blue sans-serif font on a largely white fuselage. A blue and gold globe adorns the tail. Munoz says the update will incorporate some of the colours United has recently added to its branding palette that, for example, include the purple used for its new premium economy product and a new shade of blue dubbed "Rhapsody Blue". One colour that is likely to feature less prominently is gold, which is currently used as a cheatline between the white upper fuselage and grey belly, and in the globe on the tail. The design guidelines for United's "Her Art Here" contest, where it invites female artists to submit designs for a Boeing 757, could include a clue to the evolved look. The "United" name is shown in a bold sans-serif font stretching from the top of the fuselage to below the window line, whereas currently it is limited to above the windows. United will introduce its new look "in the course of normal business" as it takes delivery of new aircraft, and brings existing ones in for modifications and maintenance, said Munoz.<br/>
Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr believes that lobby group Airlines for Europe (A4E) would have more impact with European regulators if unions were involved with the body. Speaking at the A4E Aviation Summit in Brussels on Wednesday, Spohr said that A4E lacks the resources of its US counterpart Airlines for America (A4A). However, he added that A4E could mirror some of the A4A techniques, like union involvement, to have more impact. "They are much closer to their unions which is a huge element of why they are perceived positively. We have no union representatives here. I think that is a weakness that we have to correct,” Spohr said. “That’s a big weakness.” He said the A4A airline CEOs take union representatives with them to Capitol Hill when lobbying for aviation issues.<br/>