Kacee

The long-haul flights are least likely to be delayed, especially international. It's the RJ's that are getting killed.

But UA is horribly unreliable these days separate and apart from SFO runway issues. Today: SFO-ANC, on time departure. ANC-SFO, delayed 4+ hours because inbound flight from ORD was "delayed due to flight crew availability."

ERtraveler

Been monitoring flt 903 SFO-FRA and it was 1 hr 53 min late yesterday due to aircraft maintenance. Taking this flt in .sept. On the way to AMS and after watching this flt and seeing so many seriously late departures I am rethinking my hr and 45 FRA layover. I called UA to see if we could move our connecting flt later and they recommended calling one week out to avoid fees. Is this typical? Should I escalate now?

LarryU

I'm on the same flight/itinerary at the end of the month. If I misconnect, I fully expect LH to reaccommodate me on the next flight to AMS at 12:55. And there are several other flights to AMS leaving later that day. So, I would suggest leaving your flight as is, assuming everything has been booked in a single itinerary.

alwaysflyingunited

I bought a flight and upgrade in April - waitlisted (Platinum status). I am connecting to another European city from FRA. Flight 903 has been late every day for the last month. Even cancelled once or twice. I want the upgrade to business which is of course an unknown because they want to sell the remaining 6 seats or whatever. Any tricks to moving to the A380 that departs an hour later out of SFO? I am willing to fly the day before, so I could come to the airport and standby to see what happens. I don't see any R inventory and frankly I'm not going to just call the Premiere line over and over and bug those people for the upgrade. It's my fault for not booking the flight earlier I guess for the confirmed upgrade.

Palal

The A380 flight is operated by Lufthansa, and you can't standby for it.

docbert

Technically if you mis-connect due to late arrival it's UA that needs to re-accommodate you.

Realistically LH will probably do it, but given that there are UA desks that will be staffed at the time they may simply point you to UA.

minhaoxue

Sounds like issues with their ancient 744 and not so much with the runway issues. If they go tech they may miss their flow time and need to wait for their new window.

The runways are scheduled to be finished mid September but I heard the other day that they are ahead of schedule by a couple of weeks.

swixo

A 45 minute conn at FRA usually means 'no bags'. At least this is my
experience...

s

ERtraveler

I currently have an 1 hr and 45 min layover but the incoming 903 is quite late most days. I don't usually check luggage but I was thinking about doing so for this month long trip.

ERtraveler

Changed my connecting flight in FRA and only had to pay $6.00 for the fare diff. I feel much better about the longer layover but I'll bet flt. 903 will be exactly on time that day!

FullFare

This quote sums it up. I have been a fool and not watched FT lately. I booked a SFO -RDM flight scheduled to leave at 12:28 PM. Got notified 3 hrs ahead of time it was "running late". 2 more messages that were garbage, then, finally, the coup de grace as I got to the airport at 11AM---FLIGHT CANCELLED---SEE AGENT. United called it "cancelled for weather". Come on now. Skies were clear at SFO with visibility > 12 miles! There was no problem with the incoming flight from ACV (and they often get weather).

When I got to the United Club to get help, the agent next to the one working with me said it was definitely the runway problem and they always sacrifice the small plane (mine was a UAX with only 30 seats). This certainly had me convinced.

It ruined my day. Had a business mtg for 2 days and I was the keynote speaker for 6PM that night. No hope to make it. The poorly versed UA club lady thought she had "protected" me to OTH (she said, "Hey great, I can get you to North Bend---you will be able to get to Bend). I said, "Did you pass geography as a student---that place is a 6 hr drive away".

At any rate, I got in my car and drove 8.5 hrs, getting in at 10 PM and salvaged the next day of the symposium. I looked like a fool to the meeting that I had called though.

I complained to UA customer service and they blew me off. I told them it was ridiculous, if not a total lie, to tell me that this thing was due to weather.
Aside from that, my big complaint is that I could of, and should of, gotten pro-active help from UA to get where I wanted to go, given that they knew they were going to cancel. Even though I'm 1K 2mm (not great status at SFO, but have been for 15 yrs) I've been EXP with AA for longer and AA, if it knew it had a mechanical or crew time-out, would have protected me on a much earlier flight---even out of AA's pitiful SFO.

No, UA is handling the runway thing very poorly and has not been honest with most of its loyal customers that it has lied to. Using "weather" as a cover is shameless. They probably figure they can get away with it because of their 50%+ market dominance at SFO. I did what little I could and pulled out 2 refundable SFO-Hawaii flights and went on AS from SJC to OGG.

That's about it. UA does not cater to business flyers, IMHO. I have expected better from UA, but this dishonesty has dismayed me.

channa

This has nothing to do with SFO. This is how CO rolls. They always blame "weather."

This was a problem with CO pre-merger. It's a problem with UA now.

In your situation, what did you want them to do? SFO-SEA-RDM on AS may have been available. It's a small market with not a lot of service.

But honestly, if I were keynoting at 6pm, I would have not cut it this close with UA. SFO is a delay-prone airport, that flight has a 56% on time rating, United has the worst on time performance of the 3 network carriers, and Express usually does worse than its parent.

You didn't really do anything wrong, but I would have built in more cushion to the plan.

FullFare

I didn't plan to do the speech until 8PM, given the dinner stuff that typically prevails beforehand. I figured 5hrs would work. Obviously wrong, and burned. I'm not sure this is a legacy of Continental Airlines, but will defer to your experience.

Regardless, this is a tough lesson about flying from SFO. I have 5 more flights from now until end of Sept on UA. Thankfully, they're to HNL (x2), ORD (x2) and JFK. Hopefully I won't get scratched on these, but one never knows.

I should have known better to do a regional jet out of SFO. Rookie mistake. Even an LAX - SFO can be a crap shoot (well, anything after 9AM on that route). I'm looking to go back to SJC on a case-by-case basis.

Thanks for the comments. Still wish UA would stop lying.

frankmu

I'm surprised they didn't route you through EUG, only 2 1/2 hours away over the Cascades. It's a good 5-6 hour drive from our little airport (OTH). We've seen way more out right cancellations this summer than in previous years.

The RDM/OTH confusion was quite common when Horizon serviced OTH (North Bend/Coos Bay verses Bend).

TennisNoob

Because CO's flight delay %'s were much better than pmUA and today's UA.

Blaming the weather was such a low %, so they got away with it.