FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - How does UA prioritize flights at SFO (or any airport) under ATC flow restrictions?
Old Jan 7, 2019 | 2:46 pm
  #23  
bocastephen
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Originally Posted by simmang
All I know is they didn't prioritize my IAH-SFO flight in November, causing me to miss my once-daily international flight ;-)

After periodically watching IAH-SFO mid-morning flights over the past 3 months and seeing how often they are delayed to the point of being "connection-busters," I made the decision to never willingly book a flight through SFO ever again. I know weather is not United's fault, but they did choose to set up a big shop there. After my experience and many other horror stories I've heard from close friends and strangers on these boards, SFO is a no-go for me as a connection point.
I agree - I was hosed last week at SNA-DEN because my SNA-DEN aircraft was coming from SFO - then they swapped aircraft and cabin crews, but left us stuck with the pilots from SFO so we left almost 3hrs late, and I missed my DEN connection.

When I am flying international through SFO, I always leave at least 6hrs connection time nowadays. I can either relax in the Polaris Lounge, or take a quick uber to the city for brunch. We have a ONT-SFO-TPE trip coming up and I made sure segment 1 was the 6am ONT-SFO, and my own trip was routed via IAH just to avoid a 90 min connection at SFO, even though it cost me a Polaris seat for a PMCO 772. The risk just isn't worth it - SFO/IAD/EWR/ORD are all risky connections for different reasons at different times of the year.
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