Apologies in advance if this is long and rambling. Feel free to skip if there are too many items listed. Just trying to compose my thougts.

Wow. Typing this from my hotel room at ORD and can't decide whether to laugh, cry or be upset about the situation with flight 940 which was scheduled to take off from ORD yesterday (1/5) at 6:48 PM CST.

Issue One: Late aircraft to gate
Around 5:30 PM, the status went from on time to a 7:10 PM departure. So far so good. I leave the RCC to go to gate at 6:10 PM, and there is no plane at the gate. I inquire at the gate about when the plane will arrive and the answer is "We don't know". I ask where the plane is coming from and they mention "Terminal 5" and they have no idea when it will arrive but it "Should be within the hour". Yikes. Not sounding good, as I had a tight connection in FRA, but you have to roll with it. The plane eventually rolls into the gate around 6:35 and boarding begins around 6:55. Plane is fully loaded (one empty seat) and ready to push back around 7:30 PM.

Issue Two: Long Wait on Plane
Then we sit and wait. And wait. And wait. No push back. No announcements. Nothing. Around 8:00 PM, the pilot comes on and announces a maintenance issue that they are working on and should be done in 15 - 20 minutes. Again more waiting and radio silence from the cockpit. I'm monitoring on unitedcargo.com and the dreaded DCSN keeps changing from 8:30 to 9:00 to 9:36. Amazingly, during that time, there were no further announcements from the cockpit. Finally, at 9:45 PM the pilot comes on with the dreaded news that they couldn't fix it and a new plane will come in to a different gate. Everyone needs to leave and new departure time is 11:05 PM. Some people had been sitting on plane for almost three hours.

Issue Three: Waiting for new aircraft and crew
Luckily, a couple food places were open so some people could eat. Again, departure time kept changing 11:05 to 11:15 to 11:25. No new plane was at the gate. Finally, around 10:50 PM, the new plane arrives but now the crew is not there. The GA makes an announcement that "We have to board and push back by 11:30 PM or the crew will go illegal and we will postpone the flight. We are just waiting for the crew to arrive." Crew shows up around 11:00 PM (ten minutes after plane arrived at gate) and goes in to prep plane. Boarding commences at 11:11 PM (remember, we all had to board and ready to push back by 11:30) and it was an absolute miracle how quick that airplane boarded. It was a 777 that was mostly full and everyone was in their seat and ready to takeoff in time.

Issue Four: Crew walks out
So now we're in our seat at 11:30 and no push back. 11:40 no push back. Lots of movement going on by the FAs but no announcements. I see two FAs put in their coat and leave and new that was it. Announcement came around 11:50 that the crew has walked out and the flight will be postponed until Tuesday at 4 PM (22 hours after original takeoff time).

Issue Five: Chaos at the ticket counter
I'm sure many of you have seen simlar scenes before but imagine 250 people who have been moved back and forth waiting for a long TATL suddenly being told the flight isn't going until tomorrow. And not because of weather but mechanical and time issues. Ouch. I won't bore the details but UA was definitely understaffed to handle this occurance and also provided conflicting information in regards to baggage, hotels, food, etc. Not sure what could have been done better, but UA was not prepared for it. Finally got to my hotel around 1 AM and slept a bit before working today.

So now I am pondering how to best digest every thing and have come up with the following things that could have been handled better:

* Why were pax kept on the plane (never pushed back from gate) for three hours before deciding to switch aircraft? I know UA wants to be optimistic about getting the flight off, but at some point in working on the issue they had to know it didn't look good. If we had either never boarded or been let out earlier, we might have had other opportunities for connections or flights (or more sleep!).

* Where was the crew while waiting for the second aircraft? They should have been ready to prep as soon as it came to the gate. Again, we still might not have taken off but it might have helped.

* Provide more information during delays. I found out more on unitedcargo.com than from the crew.

* The FA did at least put the audio/video on and, for the most part, pax were resigned to their fate.

Oh, well. If you read this far, thanks. Wanted to get some of my thoughts off my chest and share a frustrating experience.