Well yesterday, the wx was just fine, the plane came in on time, and we were boarding for a 3:33 PM CDT departure to SFO. From seat 2F I heard the F/A's saying that the flight deck was empty. Sho'nuff a couple of minutes later, I and someone in 3E got texted with the new departure time of 5:15, so we told the F/A's who, in a friendly manner, laughed at/with us. Eventually a G/A came on and told us that "Operations" had decided that we should deplane. The good news was that we had already been served our cocktails of choice, so i had the rare opportunity to take one off the plane.

5:15 turned into 5:45, and when the pilot came on the horn to welcome us, he told us it was due to a "crew rest issue" and "a mechanical" -- he did, to his credit, say it was completely unacceptable and comp'ed TV for E+/-. Taxi out was unusually quick (10 minutes, maybe a record) and we were given a more direct routing so came in "only" 1:49 late.

I won't even ask why they would board us without bodies to fly the aircraft -- the incompetence of UA has reached such a level that it doesn't matter anymore.


I can't wait until the point where the pilots decide they've had enough -- I was chatting with a sCO pilot who was dead-heading on the way down last Monday (before the vote) -- even he knew about the Summer of 2000, and didn't sound very optimistic about the prospects for the negotiations.