I see no reason why I can't sympathize with your feelings of frustration, since doing so does not require me to agree that you were not responsible for your plight.

Regarding your situation, some thoughts to consider:

As stressful as it is to have to awaken early in the morning, your alarm clock setting is one of the few things about flying that you can control. Never pass up a chance to control what you can.

What you can also control are your assumptions: make sure you don't confuse them with fact. Wishing unverified assumptions were fact, will not make them so.

Assumption number 1: an airline is primarily obliged to process passengers through security in a maximum amount of time.
Reality: It is far more likely that their first priority is to ensure that a security clearance is conducted, period. To use systems analysis jargon, the system is event driven, not time driven. Their first responsibility is to board you if and only if security status = cleared, not when your time in line = x minutes or fewer.

I do appreciate that the security clearance system is somewhat at odds with the aircraft departure system, which as a rule IS time driven: again using systems jargon, the usual rule is that the aircraft leaves when time t = x. It's true that the system occasionally becomes event driven, i.e., the aircraft doors are re-opened and departure commences once board status = all passengers accounted for. However, that is the exception, not the norm. One is generally owed compensation only when the airline departs from the norm, not when it doesn't execute deviations from the norm. In other words, the airline is primarily obliged to get the majority of their passengers to point Y at the time they promised.

Assumption number 2: if someone speaks in a thick accent, that means they have never dealt with an unhappy passenger who has missed their flight before.
Reality: It is quite possible that even if you didn't understand him/her, he or she understood your problem quite well. Accents aren't necessarily a clue to experience. Meanwhile, your problem was that you had to get to point Y and you missed your original flight to point Y. The desk agent undertook to offer you the best alternative available, and the best available was independent of the reason for your missing your original flight. Therefore, I can't agree that the staff let you down in this area.

Again, I'm sorry for your frustration, but since you asked my opinion as to whether you were owed compensation above and beyond what you got, I must this time say, you weren't.

Well said, [simpleflyer]. IMHO, anyone who flies much should be able to empathize about missing a scheduled flight... and I think that many who have posted here have expressed a bit of sympathy for the OP's plight. But, that still doesn't mean it's the airline's fault that this happened.

Not at MCI, Arthurrs, not at MCI . . . still do this all the time.

I Agree With The Op!
 

I never arrive at the airport 2 hours early, unless I want to do something in particular at the terminal or sometimes if I want to get bumped. I often take a 3PM flight, and leave my office at 230PM and arrive at the terminal at 240-245PM. I love that mad run to the gate! Will you make it?

Normally at IAD, given how distantly things are spaced, I would arrive about 30-45 minutes prior to departure without bags to check and particularly if I had an online boarding pass.

Having to arrive 2 hours before a domestic flight is total BS. It is hysteria created by the media and airlines to exculpate the system for having inadequate staff and resources.

It sounds like at the ticket counter UA could have rule 120.20 this pax on to a different carrier one that perhaps was not sold out.

Also customer relations sounded less than helpful. The least they could do is revalidate the ops ticket for a future trip waiving all change fees and add collects.

I am always amazed at how harshly people interpret these rules. If the op was a friend of the gate agent, believe me, they would be taken care of.

The op is a preferred or premier member with United, and they should have done all they possibly could to accommodate the op and make their travel sseemless and comfortable.


At the very least they should have validated the ticket for future date travel, or given a travel voucher close to the amount of the ticket or provided reroute on another carrier.

I have even asked for reroute on another carrier if I arrived late due to "my fault" and probably 50% of the time get it if I ask.

In the future you would have been better off to get this straightened out in person at the airport, perhaps going to a different counter or trying to find a more sympathetic agent. On the phone, as you see, they usually will throw the book at you.

I suppose it would not hurt to dig around and write directly to some UA executive. Or go to your home airport, is it IAD, and ask for the station mgr. Tell them you'll sit and wait until they have time to talk :). Or go to the local office of the TSA, and ask them to contact United on your behalf. I'm sure you could make some noise. Go to the port authority, the media, the TSA, WHQ, etc. Eventually it will be cheaper for UA to compensate you than to put up with the "noise."

I don't know how much your ticket was, but $50 seems like a slap in the face, its even less than their rediculous change fee. Maybe if you write to Joe B Joe Sent Me he can publish your story.

There is also a saying I read somewhere on this board that people should take note of. It is something like:
If you don't miss at least one flight a year, you are waisting too much time in the airport.
This was told to some FT member I think by their boss. I would adjust the number up for people that fly a lot. I would say if you are 1K if you don't miss one flight a quarter at least, you are hanging out more than you should at the airport. I'm always amazed people are willing to go 2 hours early.

Must be family blood, my sister was always infamous for missing family dinners etc. due to making mad dashes through JFK with no ticket 25 minutes before her flight. She once bought a tix that was supposed to be like $90 roundtrip, but the agt sold her a one-way for the same price, and then she was SOL when she again late got to the airport for her return......eventually I got TW to give her some travel vouchers..

y,