QBK

839 is currently delayed 50 minutes and counting (last official figure was 40) for maintenance. They just turned off the APU to check/fix something else (according to the first officer). Here's hoping they get it fixed soon...

Moderator Note: For Reference, the 2013 Consolidated UA SYD/MEL Delay/Cancellation thread is here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...ad-2013-a.html

ozflier

Thank you for that.
I'm flying out tomorrow SYD to SFO on UA 870 so fingers crossed but it does give me a sinking feeling.

QBK

Me too (sinking feeling). If we go MX, I just hope they shift the whole (full) plane to an additional flight tomorrow -- since I don't think my GPU will do me much good if they rebook us on existing flights.

75 minutes and counting. The ground agent just told people that they could get off and walk up and down the jetway if they wanted to stretch their legs. That doesn't strike me as a good sign. Plus, she said, "I hope that pretty soon here we'll be able to deplane -- I mean depart." Hope that's not a Freudian slip...

docbert

From what I've seen of the seat maps in the past, the make-up flight (ie, 17xx) normally seems to go out with less passengers than the normally scheduled flight, although not by a big difference so it could probably depend as much as anything on the (original) day-of-week of the flights.

Up to 80 minutes now...

Update: And now Cancelled

ozflier

Now 80 minutes late and canx .

Is there a way of telling which flight will be canx tomorrow SYD to LAX or SFO ?

I would hope that knowing canx info early may mean I can be booked onto a flight with Qantas out of BNE but it would be to LAX. ( I was flying BNE-SYD to connect with 870 ).

350 or so pax is a lot the rebook at once out of SYD.

The sad part is that I used a GPU to upgrade to BF thru to the USA.
Has anyone had the experience of being rebooked on another carrier and put into the originally upgraded class rather than ticketed one - ie business rather than QF economy?

jswong

I was bumped from UA earlier this year to QF Y. In the past i have also been bumped from QF to EK but my upgraded class was preserved

Jeff

On the mobile app tomorrows UA840 has been cancelled

Jeff

QBK

Well, thanks to my Flyertalk reflexes, I was on the phone with the 1K desk and rebooked on the UD before the cancellation was even announced on board.

Now I get to find out what the Custom Hotel (UA's choice) is like, and what they consider appropriate compensation. Any opinions here (on the latter question)? I'll read myself to sleep tonight on the customer compensation thread...

ozflier

So, I still going SYD- SFO tomoorow.

Sorry for all the pax at both ends who will end up not travelling on the same day.

Interesting to see that there are still plenty of seats on other carriers to LAX. Maybe UA haven't started making the calls yet.

I wonder why the SYD- SFO one has been preserved vs SYD- LAX. Perhaps because there are no direct flights out of SYD to SFO ( ie easier to accomodate SYD-LAX pax ) or maybe the later departing UA 870 fits in better with preserving the SYD-MEL connection.

I live in BNE and note that there are plenty of seats on the direct Qantas flight out of there tomorrow to LAX. I am toying with the idea of ringing the 1K desk and offering to fly out of BNE instead of SYD but only if I was confirmed in QF business ( am on an upgraded W fare ). Surprisingly enough there is R space from LAX to my final destination ( at the moment anyway). Perhaps UA would take the opportunity to free up a BF seat on 870 but from my point of view ,they would have to pay QF for a J seat. I doubt it though.

docbert

UA1763 is scheduled to leave LAX tonight at 8:30pm, arriving SYD at 6:08am on Tuesday. The seat map is fairly full (3F, 1C and a scattering of Y free) so I'm guessing very few people got re-routed onto other flights - not surprising as the last flights to Australia on other airlines left LAX only minutes after this flight was canceled.

debracey

Happened to me just a few weeks ago. The compensation will be roughly 20K miles or a $350 domestic travel voucher.

This is actually the second cancellation of SYD/MEL this year. There was one Jan 4 or so that weas mentioned in another thread. I wonder if we'll see 1 MX related cancellation a week -- that was more or less the track record in 2013.

Those 777s cant come fast enough.

-- Dan

QBK

Dan,

Thanks for the info! $350 strikes me as awfully chintzy as compensation for missing a day of business in Sydney (before anybody flames me for not planning ahead, I did -- my original booking put me in SYD 24 hours before my urgent business, which I'll still make as long as the replacement flight doesn't cancel... but I was going to make use of that 24 hours). Anyway, I'll see what they offer. Annoyingly, after 45 minutes of trying every possible combination of my personal info and 20 minutes on the phone with .bomb support, I still can't get the system to recognize me.

What makes me especially nervous is the posts from last year from people who got MXed two days in a row (because then I will be critically late). If the MX rate is 1/week, and there are 28 flights/week, then there's about a 4% chance for any given flight... which suggests about 0.15% chance of a double MX. Or about two per year. Which is consistent with last year's thread.

That's almost exactly what 839 looked like last night before they cleared standby. Moreover, I was watching the standby list last night out of academic interest, and tonight's standby list looks mostly identical. (I feel for the one non-rev who actually cleared into GF last night... and will presumably be sweating it again tonight).

Now, here's an interesting fact. There are seats for sale on both 839 and 1763 tonight. But whereas 839 has a fairly normal last-minute bucket distribution (R=2, in case anybody wants to jump on it!), I think revenue management screwed up 1763. There's nothing in discount buckets, but it's showing F9/J9/Y9/B9. Since there are definitely not 9 seats available in F or J, this looks like an opportunity for somebody with deep pockets, a large family, and high risk tolerance to engineer a lot of IDB compensation...

debracey

Well, $350 is what they offered me on a deep discount econ ticket. They do offer more for the other fare buckets. You are correct about double MX cancellations. I flew back in Jan 2013 and several of my fellow passengers were double MX. That flight went out 100% full in all classes and the passengers were *very* upset.

If you absolutely must get there, buy a fully refundable ticket on the 839 flight and cancel as soon as you know you're gonna go. If 1739 goes MX, hop off and get on 839. Of course, that might not even help, there have been many occasions where the flight turns round and comes back after various issues... (cabin pressure, fuel readings, etc.) If UA doesnt get you there in time for your meeting, you may be able to get a refund for "trip in vain" -- at the very least you can dispute their credit card charges and let Visa and United hash it out. If you have a good relationship with your CC vendor you should have no trouble.

The good news is that you are in LAX, as a UA 1K you may be able to engineer some alternates on other carriers. The LAX staff are UA's best (in my opinion) and will do what they can so long as you're nice.

Good luck!

-- Dan

EDIT: It is surprising to me that UA didn't ferry a 747 down from SFO and send you off during the day. Instead they delayed you for almost 24 hours which seems quite irresponsible. When I faced a similar situation in SFO back in Dec, they sent us out during the day and we arrived 12 hours late. Maybe your compensation will be higher since your delay is twice as long?

QBK

Hmm, interesting. I'm on an H fare, upgraded with a GPU, so... well, I'll see what happens! Fortunately, I'm still in the "hey, this is entertaining" mode -- unlike the older guy in GF who threw an absolute temper tantrum in the UC last night during the mass rebooking/vouchering.

Fortunately, I don't have anything that important going on Tuesday morning (because, unfortunately, my employer is not going to foot the bill for a Y fare on 839!) Like I said above, I'm still willing to be entertained by the circus.

IME, LAX is indeed pretty good. They did a darn good job last night getting 350 pax rebooked and accomodated at midnight. Though the cynic in me says, "Yeah -- they have a lot of practice".

I wonder if part of the reason why they schedule the replacement flight earlier (8:30pm) is that, if the replacement goes MX, they have more options for rebooking (including the regularly scheduled 839)? And they also have the option of canceling the regularly scheduled flight and using the airplane for the already-delayed passengers. Presumably in some circumstances it's better to have 700 passengers delayed by 24 hours instead of 350 passengers delayed for 48 hours.

RobOnLI

What's different about this thread that it needs to be separate from all other international flights that are delayed/cancelled?
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/unite...ts-2014-a.html

-RM

Mwenenzi

This thread is specific to United SYD/MEL flights. This thread has been in existence for several years. It gets many posts

It may get less posts if it was about the United SYD/MEL flights being on time