Kevo171

Was flying SIN-NRT-DEN on Thursday 6/27 on NH and UA. I made it to NRT no problem on NH, but at least two inbound United flights diverted to HND because of wind.

Not sure why UA couldn't bring the planes from HND to NRT (I presume the crews timed out), but flights including a DEN and SFO flight were canceled. United refused to book hotels for pax, and it took 4 hours for pax to be rebooked and sent through immigration. With so many displaced passengers, there were no available hotel rooms in Narita and I ended up needing to train to Tokyo to find a hotel room.

United decided to have two flights to DEN on 7/28- the originally scheduled flight and also a second flight because of all the stranded pax. I was booked onto the second flight to Denver, scheduled to leave at 5:30 PM 15 minutes after the regularly scheduled 5:15 PM flight.

I arrived back at NRT at 2:40 PM on 6/27 and tried to check in, but the computer terminal displayed a message saying "talk to agent". After waiting in line at the premier access counter for 20 minutes, I was told that I was too late to check in for my flight, which was now leaving at 3:30. My boarding pass showed a 4:45 boarding time, my United app showed a 5:30 departure time, and United made no effort to call or email updated information to myself or anyone else on the flight saying the flight was leaving early. Ground staff seemed completely defeated. They blamed a computer error for the failure to update passengers on the change in flight time. They made no effort to even sort out which pax in the line were waiting for the now imminently departing Denver flight.

After briefly raising hell at the check-in counter, I was allowed to attempt to join the flight and I made it to the flight with a minute to spare after cutting the immigration line and running to the gate. I assume dozens of passengers missed the flight.

Perhaps the only thing United did correctly during this whole ordeal was to radio ahead to the gate and tell them not to give away my J seat to standby passengers. NRT groundstaff seem to be seriously lacking leadership. On a day with 500+ additional passengers departing NRT, only two agents were working the premier access check-in counter. How hard would it be to call in extra employees and to have signage or a person greeting passengers and figuring out who is on a flight that is departing earlier than scheduled?