Originally Posted by
WineCountryUA
But the key point is UA was not operating rescue flights to DR.
However, we don't know where UA was operating rescue flights and it there was some agreement with the State Department or other airlines where airlines took on specific countries.
Regardless there seems to have been a communications issue although the OP has never really detailed their efforts to reach UA (seems they were unwilling to wait on the phone and only looked at online information) but UA probably could have done better reaching out -- likely the traditional rescue flight protocols were designed for needing to handle a few countries, not the entire world.
yes, UA seems to have screwed up here. We were actually scheduled to go to DR this week - we knew a couple of weeks ago or more we were going to cancel - this kind of thing being one of a few reasons why. It wasn’t hard to predict that there would be at least some countries enacting travel restrictions. Unfortunately, OP was out of the country at the wrong time - and luckily, despite the fact UA wasn’t doing what it should have, got out relatively easily.
just on semantics - I doubt UA can set up agreements with other carriers on which airlines would send rescue flights where. In the scheme of today’s situation, it does sound like a reasonable action, but probably illegal due to anti-collusion laws (unless there was some sort of exception given by the competition bureau). It would be in general.