Originally Posted by
Imoretti
Our son is on UA 804 out of HND to IAD, to return home with a school group, originally scheduled to depart at 0340 this morning.
When I awoke, they showed as already taxiing for nearly 2 hours. The United app’s flight status map showed them departing the gate, but getting only a bit further than push back. Shortly thereafter, a message appeared in the flight status regarding a cargo imbalance. Then, after nearly 3 hours of delay, he tells us that passengers have been informed that they’ll route through SFO, as it would be ‘illegal’ for the crew to now go direct to IAD.
Now, nearly four hours delayed, the status is showing as departing any minute (which keeps moving back 10 minutes more at a time…). The flight is appearing now as diverted, HND > SFO, then SFO > IAD, on the same aircraft. (The current times show they’ll arrive SFO five minutes AFTER they are scheduled to continue haha) No maps are available in the United app (Flight 804 cannot be found), but the split does appear. FlightAware actually shows the diverted route on their map, but the times are not currently.
Here’s what is currently showing on the United app for the status. Hopefully, they’ll get in the air soon… a dozen high school kids must be going loco by now. We bought the ticket as part of a trip on our United Club card, but compensation is limited to delays over 12 hours. Hopefully, UA will at least feed our children.
Your flight is departing late because we have to adjust weight on the plane to meet balance and safety standards. Your safety is our priority and we're sorry for the inconvenience.
Update: The flight has departed.
Your flight departed late because we had to adjust weight on the plane to meet balance and safety standards. Your safety is our priority and we're sorry for the inconvenience. (Departed Gate 3 Hours 58 Minutes Late, taxiing to runway - Diverted to SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA (SFO))
I was on the same flight as your son. Hopefully your son is back home safe, it was certainly a long day. I assume he's given you the details, but if he hasn't or if others are curious, here is the full story.
We boarded fine and were slated to depart on time, if not a little early, and arrive into IAD about 30 minutes early. After the jet bridge pulled away, we sat there for about 30 minutes not moving before the pilot came on and told us that the winds had changed and we had to depart to the north now. Weight restrictions are much greater taking off to the north than the south at Haneda, so due to that they had to remove a lot of cargo. After a little while longer, the pilot told us that an incoming UA flight (I think it was from LAX) needed our gate so we had to be towed to a cargo loading apron to unload the cargo. By this point, still no cargo had been unloaded at all and we were about an hour or 90 minutes late by now. My family member and I looked at each other and knew that crew timeout was a risk at this point and started looking into details for the T3 hotel.
The cargo took a while to get unloaded and the crew told us that they would be unable to continue to IAD so we would be making a stop in SFO for a new crew and would stay on the plane the entire time. This took up more time due to the new flight planning and then the need to take off even more cargo due to us being overweight fuel wise for the shorter trip to SFO. Thus, would land above max landing weight. This was about 3 hours in at this point and I got worried we would not even be able to make SFO with this crew. We finally got the go ahead about 3.5 hours in and took off about 4 hours late. We seemingly hauled it taxiing out, so I presume we were getting close for the crew to even make SFO by that point.
We were on the ground in SF for about 60 minutes. The new crew was on immediately but the catering, fueling, and lavatory work took the bulk of the time to wait. No one was allowed off the plane. We landed at Dulles about 6 hours late. Both crews were great, the pilots especially were very communicative and apologetic for the circumstances. It seems to me UA had a bit of a screw up here. I get cargo can be very important to move overseas, but the winds had been changing throughout the day at Haneda; I even saw them change from N ops to S ops while sitting in the ANA lounge. It should have occurred to dispatch it was very possible they would need to consider the winds changing again. The EWR flight, which left about the same original time we were supposed to, took off with no issue so must've been some special cargo bound for DC.
All in all, 6 hours late wasn't fun but beats getting stranded at Haneda airport for an extra day. Who knows if we would have even been allowed to leave the airport for a full day.