Clay_C.

Let me preface this by saying I don't regard the following as anything like the worst experience to be had flying in this day and age. I am not after sympathy, rather I am taking a few minutes to both vent and gauge from the United experts here if what I experienced was fairly typical.

I was booked on UA 4501 this past Sunday, May 19. This was meant to depart MCI at 6:20PM for ORD. At about 3:15PM I received a text telling me this flight had been cancelled. No explanation was given, but I believe the aircraft was stuck in ELP and unable to make its route from there to STL to ORD and then on to MCI due to the wall of bad weather across the southern plaines that day. The text message I got included a link to the United website that was of no help whatsoever. A quick look showed there was not another flight that night (keep in mind the weather was perfectly fine at both MCI and ORD at this point) AND there was not a single seat available for purchase online for the following day Monday, May 20.

My first instinct was to see if AA or SWA could get me to Chicago on one of their flights later that night. Neither of their websites showed a seat, but I thought I would get them on the phone to check as I was anxious to get home that night if at all possible, even at significant expense. I talked to an AA representative, only to have confirmed that there was not a single seat for sale on their flight that night in the 7PM hour. At the same time, a family member was nice enough to call SWA and learned there was not a seat for sale on their flight to MDW that night in the 7PM hour. Now it was time to call United.

Unlike AA, United offered me the option to receive a callback instead of waiting on hold. I felt like I was off to a good start. Unfortunately it took almost exactly 40 minutes to receive this (twice as long as it took to get someone at AA on the phone, 4 times longer than it took at SWA...and of course both were also dealing with weather issues that day!) but ok. The agent who took my call was clearly overseas. Now I don't have a problem with this in principle, and as a linguist I literally have decades of experience communicating with people who have all kinds of accents. The problem was my phone agent had to ask me the current time in my location. It seems like I should be able to take for granted that someone attempting to provide service to passengers in the US would be aware of this, but obviously not in this case. My agent also kept referring to the airport I was trying to depart from as "Kansas". This is neither the name of the airport nor the state in which it is located, so I was feeling less confident by the minute. I was asked to wait, and I did this for the best part of half an hour, only checking in every 5-10 minutes to insure we were still connected. My agent told me there was not a single seat available to me the following day and that he would attempt to get me within 300 miles of ORD. As I was then sitting 410 miles from ORD, I let him know this would not represent significant improvement in my situation. Finally my agent conceded that there was nothing he could do toward getting me home within 24 hours of my scheduled arrival.

I was flabbergasted. Not knowing what else to do, I asked to speak to a supervisor. I was warned that this might take 15 minutes, but it actually took 25. Once I finally did get on the phone with a supervisor, I explained my situation. She also insisted upon calling my intended departure airport "Kansas" but within another 15 minutes or so she had magically booked the VERY LAST seat available on UA 692 at 3:20PM the following day. By this point the idea of getting home ONLY 21 hours late (and not having to contemplate renting a car and driving 9 hours) had me in improved spirits, but I had to ask the supervisor why my initial phone agent hadn't been capable of doing this for me the best part of a hour ago. She naturally had no answer.

When I arrived at MCI the following day, I was shocked to see upon check-in that there were actually a small handful of seats open on this flight! They were mostly Economy Plus middle seats, but still...I had clearly NOT received the very last seat on this flight as I had been told.

Obviously the cancellation of a flight is a rare occurrence that is unavoidably problematic for all involved. Even so, it does happen. In this case, it seems to me the ideal is to be rebooked on the next available seat out instantly. Failing that, the ideal would be the ability to rebook myself online. Failing that, the ideal would be to reach a competent phone agent within 30 minutes or so who is ready, willing and able to get me to my destination as soon as possible. This past Sunday United was not able to provide ANY of the above.

Since I moved to Chicagoland almost 10 years ago, I have been flying United regularly...but I am nothing like a "frequent flyer", especially compared to many of you here. Therefore, I would really like to know if United regulars regard my experience as par for the course when dealing with IRROPS situations in 2019. I would also be curious what anyone reading this thinks the response from United was when I explained this experience via their online feedback form.