cur

bag is damaged. it's one of those 4 wheeled samsonite hardshell. the bottom of the aluminum covering of the retractable handle part is snapped off. baggage agent in yyc said "we don't cover handles" and refused to initiate a claim. apart from the fact it's not a handle that's broken, let alone a protruding part, i don't see anywhere in the conditions of carriage that handles are not covered, which is moot anyways. golly ua is getting annoying.

just got an email of apology and $150 etc for the baggage throw-in delay. i asked for 0, expected maybe $20. so very impressed and tbh i look forward to encountering more of these issues.

but also they gave me a $175 etc for a four (4) day baggage delay, during christmas (before the new-new united), as a platinum on an overseas flight, at a domestic station with 20+ daily ua flights......so, yeah..

now if only they'll spend $20 to fix my bag.

good point.

simmang

That is pretty generous. On a recent flight I was on that was 2.5 hours delayed I only got $125. And that's the flight itself being delayed, and longer than your baggage delay.

Plane-is-home

Ever since they outsourced YYC it's pretty much SOP to wait for marshalling, jet bridge, bags forever. Then add the winter favorite of delivering green tag bags to baggage claim instead of the jet bridge.

cur

well be sure to complain on the website and ye shall get etc. i understand irrops and that things don't always work the way we want. but this is due to consistent short staffing.

Plane-is-home

I fly DEN-YYC and return 30-40 times a year and have mentioned it in every post flight survey. Nobody cares.
Same as catering the morning flight out of YYC not to standard, or having permanently new staff that can't drive a jet bridge.

In The 216

If you're looking forward to these types of issues because it's landing you some ETC's then why come here and complain about it?

Your posts are almost unreadable. Capitalization and full sentences are your friend.

COSPILOT

OGG is horrible, so much so that I head for the rental car while my wife waits for the luggage.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

That's actually a good strategy anywhere luggage takes time to show up. You beat the people who wait for their bags together and then head to the rental counter.

cur

because the etc came after the op

the etc was above and beyond what i expected (i expected $0)

so if 70+min waits at carousel on a clear summer night is the norm

and i get etc at the value of the flight for this inconvenience

who would not look forward to more of these incidents?

gcashin

Being YYC based, I feel your pain here. UA's ground services at YYC are abysmal. Baggage delivery times seem to have degraded significantly since the new terminal opened. UA seems to be among the worst of the bunch, especially with the late evening flights when IAH, DEN, ORD, and sometimes SFO arrive within an hour. 60-70 minutes is definitely long for a narrowbody, but at YYC 30-50 mins is generally the norm. Most similar sized airports can deliver bags from a narrowbody in under 20 minutes, even for international flights.

On a recent UA flight, the Captain referred to this being "Canadian time" as the ground crew were MIA. I'd encourage you to write in about the poor services at YYC when you travel through, as it is really pathetic to have such poor ground services at a brand new terminal.

The airport authority also needs to get their act together in working better with their partners, so feel free to send your thoughts their way via a Facebook or Google review too.

Yes, yes, yes, all of these things!!! YYC ground services are terrible. They manage to cater a passable breakfast for YYC-IAH and YYC-ORD, but for some reason, can't seem to cater breakfast for a ~3 hour block time flight to DEN.

I'm also amazed at how long it takes them to line up the jet bridge - the new terminal has been open for 8 months now, and the staff still don't seem to know how to work a jet bridge.

I've wrote in before about the poor experiences before. Maybe they'll listen to a GS if you keep writing in? I don't have a lot of faith in the surveys, but I think they at least read the comments when you write in specifically to 1KVoice/Global Services desk.

SunLover

Underlining mine.

If you are flying international and cutting it close you are asking for trouble given they myriad of issues that can pop up. And a client meeting 'round about midnight? No wonder you were so anxious to get moving...


SL

Plane-is-home

I wrote to GS a few times about the meals. As well when App lists dinner but a snack is served. (I am sure it will happen tomorrow again) but only got BS answers.

cur

i used to work ramp for a major star alliance mainline carrier in yyc. and i will say the terminal layout and all of that has nothing to do with any of this. cia are a bunch of idiots who cannot hire good enough architects but that still doesn't make this their fault. staffing (with a ground handler that pays money to cia to lease property from them) does. i mean during the ccaa days when we were strugging (ie 3 man crews on a 320 or 737), we got it done within an hour. offlading a full 320 or 737 with 3 guys will not take more than 50 mins even when you're deliberately going slow to piss off mgmt. the ua handlers are either inundated or short staffed and a 3 man crew will just work one plane at a time even if 2-3 arrive during their scheduled time at the same time. they are that half assed. this is why i started the thread. it's not like they had an irrop and 4 planes arrived at the same time when they responsibly blocked for 2 crews, they knew this was coming. and again i can wait but we waited above an hour. it's an exercise in typical canadian mediocrity, and i guarantee ua is getting such a sweet deal they couldn't care less. when i arrive into yyc each time, i see from that walkway ats (ground handling) crews--let alone their gse--nowhere to be found except for one guy struggling to plug in the gpu, something we'd have done instantly on arrival. not trying to say we better than no one but yeah when you walk off a plane and see no cargo doors cracked and one guy struggling to service the plane you know you're in for a long wait. complaining to the cia is pointless (it isn't their job) but 'the new' ua has been receptive

this is not the calgary airport's issue. i mean yeah they're barely capable of providing a gate and functional terminal space but the whole bridging and boarding stuff is the airline's problem, and ua outsourced that a few eyars ago. united used to have outsourced ramp to air canada (which screwed that up so the switched to lowest bidder), outsourced catering (typical for a non hub), but insourced customer service, which smisek shut down in 2011 and outsourced to the lowest bidder. most the staff dedicated but most have no idea what they are doing so it makes it frustrating. but it's not the airport's problem. if a canadian airport ran this operation we'd be even worse off. i mean, look how a non-welfare government operation is run in that country.

rufflesinc

wow. I'm going to have to try that next time in DEN with the ski equipment on the special racks. ^