rhawke

i just sent this to customer care and wanted to share my frustration here as well:

I'm seriously upset by how United deliberately lies to their customers:

Sitting here at the airport I just got an announcement that flight 46 is now delayed due to "awaiting inbound aircraft". Well that may be a secondary reason but not the primary reason:

Fact is that flight 47 (the airplane we are waiting on) would NEVER be scheduled for flight 46 as it is scheduled to come in at 6:00 pm and boarding for flight 46 is scheduled for 5:40. So something must have happened to the aircraft that was originally scheduled for this flight (many times it is from incoming flight 59).

Why can't United just be honest and tell customers why the original airplane was not used? Was there a mechanical problem? Was it more important to use that plane as backup for another flight that had problems? I can only assume the reason is to avoid having to pay for compensation for hotels, etc. should customers lose their connection, etc.

Anyway, declaring this delay as awaiting inbound aircraft is definitely not the truth.

PS: I'm not outraged by the delay itself, delays happen and I'd rather wait an hour if there is a mechanical problem. It is the information policy that is not tolerable.

buckeyefanflyer

Waiting inbound aircraft does not mean they were lying as you are waiting for inbound aircraft. They just do not go into specific details. I see tomorrow
flight 46 uses inbound 59 which comes in early afternoon.

rhawke

Hi buckeyefanflyer. That is NOT the primary reason though. Of course it is correct, but as I stated it is not the primary reason. if the plane broke down, and we have to wait for another aircraft to come in the official reason should be "plane broke down" ;-) and not "awaiting inbound aircraft".

further annoying is that they now play the "push it out by 20 minute steps."

Anybody know how long it realistically takes to deplane a 767-400 and get it ready for the next flight?. Their first announcement was 7:00pm departure, with the inbound aircraft arriving at the gate at 5:55pm. Is 65 minutes even possible? (I guess not because they just rescheduled which gives them 95 minutes).

oh maybe i should mention that when I checked before I left for the airport the "where is this aircraft coming from" showed that the plane had already landed. So for whatever reason they switched planes ...

Sykes

They're not lying--it is the reason for the delay. There isn't a field in the status screen for "reason for aircraft swap". United gains nothing in this case by fibbing about the reason for the delay--they're still responsible for the delay and consequently liable for accommodating misconnects.

dh01

Well if they switched planes it was for either a mechanical or they needed the plane for another route, I highly doubt they switch just for the hell of it, to make life interesting.....

rhawke

well for statistics they may gain a better image. Instead of mechanical problem, it will count as awaiting inbound aircraft which many times is the result of air traffic control / weather.

and what do you think about the pushing it in 30 minute increments? now it is 7:30 and they just changed the departure to 8:30. I'm not an expert but assume that they could have known the second that they selected this plane that they would need about 2.5 hours to get everything ready?

sbm12

In what world?

For the DoT reports they have to include the actual reason. And those are the stats which actually matter.

Often1

+1 - An inane rant if there's ever been one.

The fact is that the aircraft is delayed and in 20 characters on a monitor, the carrier describes a reason for the delay.

The thread count in the hot towels is too low and the BP's print on shoddy paper too.

diburning

You think UA is the only one? I was on a DL flight from JFK to BOS. We pushed back and SAT there for an hour. DL's official word on the delay was weather. Real reason was that there were cascading delays at the airport.

I was waiting for a B6 flight from BOS to LAS. The incoming flight from IAD turns as the outbound flight to LAS. It was delayed due to the fact that it had to fly around storms, but what was B6's excuse for the three hour delay? Weather. (which is true)

It seems that most airlines will lie and say weather or airport condition, regardless of whether it's true, to avoid compensating pax.

WineCountryUA

and more innocently, if there becames multiple causes for the delay -- say a mx and then wx, most of the public system just report the last reason

WIRunner

so the plane broke. They may have found a replacement plane somewhere that could have been very easily subbed in that would have allowed for everything to be on time.
plane b was affected by some reason, say catering or cleaning. the first mx issue is now moot because the non functioning plane is not assigned to the flight and there is now a new reason.

cesco.g

I am looking at UA 935 for tomorrow 10/1 right now. It is delayed by 3h30, (3h30 pm instead of 12h noon). Reason given: "delayed inbound aircraft".
However the inbound plane ran UA 954 and arrived at 7h06 a.m.
Go figure .......

JC5280

I know you are being tongue in cheek here, but I seriously remember multiple threads filled with rants about these things up until about the merger time. Oh yeah, and how warm the nuts were. I could swear I remember someone saying they were leaving UA for AA and their hot nuts.

MSPGabe

The United website does indeed show the aircraft coming from UA954, but the internal aircraft routing shows the aircraft coming from UA930, which won't arrive into LHR until 14:11 local time.

UAAAPeter

This thread is a waste of time. Not the specifics on which others have commented. But the general situation. All airlines lie all the time about delays.It drives me nuts but I assume they do it to keep people at the gate, or to stop them from going postal or something like that. 30 mins late when there is no plane at the gate is my pet peeve. You know it is a lie, they know it is a lie. It's a game. I don't play the game - I look at when the plane is due in and add an hour. Even worse are mechanicals. Like the time I was at PDX and was told there was a 2 hour delay. Then I discovered that the part was being brought up from SFO and the flight had not left yet. Time to get a new routing.

Think of this differently. How many bonus miles can you get?