Originally Posted by
Aventine
There's an enormous symbolic value to sticking around. The optics of leaving and staying in a hotel looks like the PR disaster that has unfolded.
Originally Posted by
houserulz77
2) That the entire crew separated themselves from all but two pax is inexcusable.
Wow, what a story. It will be hard to not think of this the next time I board a flight on UA. While nothing this dramatic, I have been bit by UA MX issues and communication in these matters has always been less than desirable.
I think there's one comment on the "crew stayed at hotel" issue that hasn't yet been made. Hindsight being 20/20, it looks pretty bad now for UA that the crew stayed in better accommodations than the passengers, but it matters at the time what was being planned. If the plan, or one of the possible plans, was to repair that plane and fly it from Canada to LHR, if the crew had not rested legally, they would not have been able to continue the journey. Can you imagine the outcry if UA had failed to plan for this, the plane had been repaired (or checked out ok) and there was no crew available to fly the plane?
I'm not arguing that UA handled this situation well, only pointing out that what's known and not known at the time affects decisions being made. Would be nice for someone at UA to provide some explanation of the events - and an apology - but as time passes....