danleo

My flight from Wash Dulles to EWR on one of those small commuter jet planes, which I hate, was delayed and canceled. What an absolute nightmare. The flight is only 40 mins or so and I could have drove the darn trip. It was the final leg of my trip so I was stuck.

I get to the gate and it shows delayed 1 hour. Great. Then after 1 hr, delayed 2 hrs. Great. Finally we board and plane taxis. Something didn't seem right as we were taxing forever and went way out to the no mans land part of the runways. The pilot comes on the speaker and tells us that we are delayed again for 45 mins! After 1 hour goes by the pilot comes on the speaker again and we hear this bs "I don't know what they told you at the terminal, but we just got word from operations that this flight has been canceled, we are returning to the terminal".

The passengers on board almost rioted. They were yelling and pounding their fists on the ceiling.

Totally ridiculous and no communication from the airline.

Redhead

And? Yep it sucks and it happens all the time

Dodge DeBoulet

What's remarkable is how common this is. Seriously, a 3 hour delay followed by a cancellation? If you find that intolerable, you'd better take the train from now on . . .

6P&E

Major delays and cancellations are not at all unusual with UAEX. It's a good reason to avoid them when possible, but UA has turned over so many routes to UAEX that it's hard to do when booking UA.

braffy

You make it sound like it's the first time this has happened to you. if you're any sort of frequent flyer, you should feel fortunate that it hasn't happened before now!

gobluetwo

Not fair to assume OP is a frequent flyer, and even less fair to give him a hard time or be dismissive about the reaction.

To be honest, this (delay, delay, delay, cancellation) does happen frequently on any airline. Happened to me on AA, US, and UA in the past year, and one of those was ORD-LHR! It's too bad, particularly when it disrupts your personal/business plans, but such is life and you have learn to roll with it. You can't blame the crew, so no use yelling at them. Same with the gate agents. They don't control whether or not the flight is allowed to take off.

pinniped

*shrug* Sounds like a pretty normal day for United Express.

I'm flying them tonight...last flight out of Denver (although possibly a different actual operator than your IAD-EWR flight). I always check hotel availability and know what my backup plan will be if they cancel.

I've had multiple UX flights in my life where I've rerouted myself to Hertz.

Not the most reliable bunch, and mainline UA really could care less how UX treats you. At least you got bit on a short flight where a rental car or a train is a feasible option.

For whatever reason (perhaps pure luck), my US Express and American Eagle experiences have been more fortunate.

Duke787

This should teach you to never fly UA from DC to NYC unless you absolutely have to. Either take the US or DL shuttles or take AA or B6 to JFK or better yet take the Acela.

At least with the shuttles they run every hour and with the Acela well it and the NE regional run constantly

Jerseyguy

Express flights (UA or otherwise) are the first ones to go as the cancelation effects less people. Try to avoid them

Ber2dca

I knew UA and EWR would be involved before I clicked on this.

Often1

The WAS-NYC microhauls are the first to be delayed and then the first to be cancelled. As nothing to do with UAX and everything to do with airspace and flow control. Either the IAD-PEK or the IAD-EWR goes. Guess which one?

And to be fair, getting to EWR is a heck of a lot easier service recovery than PEK !

closetasfan

if you would have flown you could have crashed and died in bad weather, so........would you rather risk people's lives or just deal with a cancel?

GadgetFreak

Exactly. The train. Take the train on this route.

Annalisa12

I'm with you on this one. I hate people whining about a cancellation. What would you rather - a few hours delay or crashing due to unsafe conditions or aircraft.

Adam1222

to those who are stating the OP might be a novice traveler, the outrage justifies people explaining that this happens all the time. [Off-topic and unduly personalized text edited by Moderator.]