Should have put today's date in headline. May 30. UGH. That's all I can say. The flight was first delayed by late incoming aircraft. Then the FAs heard a noise from the baggage compartment. The crew and maintenance in IST decided there was nothing wrong--everything appeared to be OK. But UA operations wanted to cancel. Then someone in maintenance in SFO said to check some sort of redundant system. When that was turned off, the noise disappeared. Then about half way into the flight, the announcement was made that some of the toilets weren't working (the four in economy seemed to be OK, but I could be wrong about that) and that they didn't want to fly over the ocean with nonworking toilets.

So the first officer (I think) made the announcement that someone would meet us to let us know what was happening. But we would need to pick up our bags and go through immigration. No one was there anywhere along the line.

So we went upstairs to a closed UA office. Finally a Heathrow employee came by and said that there were buses waiting to take us to two hotels.

This, of course took forever. Passengers were given a number to call to find out what they were booked on. (I had called UA earlier and had gotten on a flight.)

The UA rep who finally showed up told everyone that they would know what flight they were on by breakfast. (I don't think they know whether they will get in another plane of have this one fixed.) When I called to rebook, the agent said that UA was showing the flight as continuing.

At any rate, nothing seems to have been handled smoothly. I'm in a smoky, ratty hotel room. If I'd had the number of the Hilton, I would have called, but I didn't and I didn't want to incur the expense of data roaming.

Now for a couple of hours of sleep.