Saturday, 29 April 2001, 10am:
After 7 hours of sleep, I felt compelled to write about one of the worst United flight experiences I have had since I began flying on this fine airline. Before going into details, I want to take a brief moment, like any worthy Oscar-winning performer, to say thanks to everyone who has had a hand in making my flight experiences relatively painless before this flight, and count my blessings that have gotten me this far in my travels.

This weekend was to be no different than many others this year and last year - a short trip up to the Bay Area. I depart from ONT and connect through LAX to SFO. The first hint of problems emerged as I arrived at Sunrise parking - there were no spaces available. I've never seen a lot fill to capacity, but then, this was a relatively small lot. I use the airport lot instead, and check in for my flights. The agent hands me the tickets and tells me the United Express flight is in its final boarding process, even though I can clearly see there is no airplane there. I get to the security checkpoint, and three people ahead of me beeped, one at a time, unloading all the things that are triggering the metal detector. I wait for them to clear before sending my bag through X-ray, having heard all about opportunistic thieves that wait at the other end. My laptop bag gets flagged for the chemical test, so I wait some more. I head towards the gate, and the EMB-120 arrives and offload its passengers. As I reach the gate, they begin boarding. The flight attendant on this flight is young and very cute, but doesn't pay any attention to me. I head to my favorite seat and settle in as another passenger looks on with envy at the extra legroom I have. A heard of rather rowdy thirty-something passengers board and take up rows in front of me. There's not a single volume control knob in the whole bunch. Upon landing, the attractive flight attendant had to stop her announcement to ask the group to quiet down, which they did not hear. The flight went without a hitch, but I get a page of things to come; UA1008 LAX-SFO is delayed 20 minutes.

I get to LAX and stop at the 1K room. The agent checks my flight, which is now 40 minutes delayed, and gives me the update. I thought I'd go to the Red Carpet Room for a drink, so she calls them to request a drink coupon for me. I thank her and have a beer at the club. Another page reaches me, now 1008 is delayed 1 hour 17 minutes. I decide to stroll around the gates noting airplane numbers for my database. 30 minutes of watching other planes leave on time I reach gate 83. My plane isn't there yet, but 2070 is just pushing back. Flight paging stopped updating me, but the monitors keep showing further delays, now scheduled for 10:50pm. 20 minutes to the scheduled time, there is still no aircraft, and the gate agent makes an announcement that 2428 is the next scheduled flight using a larger aircraft. I head to the standby center with many others, and secure a first class seat on the 757. Upon reaching gate 66 for the new flight, and filling my walking quota for the day, I find an empty gate - not a good sign. The gate shows the flight departing 11pm. With my primitive engineering background and my dinosaur of a scientific calculator, I couldn't figure how that is earlier than 1008 at 10:50pm. At this point, however, I take my chances and wait it out, since I've already exceeded my daily walking quota, and 10 minutes is almost negligible - ALMOST.

Terminal 6 is abuzz with activity this evening. A flight to San Salvador boards at the next gate at a rate that almost span the entire time I waited for my flight. People all around complaining about late arrivals, late departures, LAX traffic, SFO flights, weekend traveling, and other assorted gripes. The inbound flight finally arrives at 11:15pm and our departure now shows 11:18pm. Passengers trickle out in a nonchalant way that made the scheduled 3 minutes seen more like 15. With the aircraft now empty, I slowly make my way toward the gate. Minutes pass and we do not board. It is now 11:30 and one of the gate agents announces that a mechanic is investigating a mechanical problem, with decision in 10 minutes. At the appointed time, she announces there may be a pressurization problem, and the mechanics will run tests with results in another 10 minutes time. Grumpy moans sound in a chorus. A supervisor arrives, then other agents, and they all huddle into discussion. At midnight I get a call from the friend that's picking me up to tell me flight 1008 has left the ground. The agent finally makes another announcement, informing us that they still have not found the problem, and are awaiting decision. She also says that another flight, 2078, is available in case this one cancels, and they are waiting for our decision.

At this point I approach the gate agent to ask about my options. While this is going on, the other agent announces boarding for first class. Great! I give her my boarding pass, call my friend, and trot down the jetway to find a gaggle of flight crew by the door of the aircraft. "What are you doing? They haven't boarded yet?" inquired one of them. "The gate agent just started boarding," was our reply. They call the gate, they're not ready for boarding. The 10 or so of us in the jetway decide to hang around and wait, we're closer to the airplane here. Now the news is that, pressurization may still be a problem, the captain wants to fly at a lower altitude, and we are awaiting flight plan changes and other paperwork. We wait some more at the jetway, looking like protesters in a peace rally. Finally, at 12:45am, we board. The jetway is connected to the first door on this 757, but I turned left instinctively and found myself at the door to the ****pit. I listen to ATC on channel 9 hoping to get some information, but all I hear are occasional calls to clearance delivery for late night departures. The captain decides to switch channel 9 to "top pops" some time during our wait. Paperwork is still not complete, so we wait in the cabin until 1am when pushback finally takes place. Once airborne, the flight was smooth and we land just before 2am. Flight attendants gave each passenger a $50 discount coupon (CS50) and thanked us for choosing United Shuttle.

In review, the 1 hour 20 minute flight took a whopping 5 hours and change. The gate agents did try to provide information, but far too infrequently to make it useful. Nobody offered to book me on 2070, the flight that left as I reached gate 83 for my flight (it may have been full, but I didn't even know it was there). The captain did not make a single announcement while on the ground, and only gave an update AFTER all was done and we're on our way. He took away ATC on channel 9, further limiting my information sources. The combination of lack of information and minor misinformation limited my options to reduce the delay. This was by far the most disappointing flight I have ever experienced with United Airlines.

On a positive note, the one thing they did do right was they got me to my destination in one piece.

Sunday, 30 April 2001, 9pm:
The return trip went well, despite one UX flight cancelling on me. I was able to take the earlier flight which had a delayed departure after I arrived. I took refuge at the secret LAX 1K room (you know, the one opposite the room that some here have poked fun at), and the "angel" went out of her way to right the wrongs a coule of nights ago. All is well again, and United is once again saved by its employees.

Your story sounds remarkably similar to my last flight on Shuttle LAX-LAS. I arrived early from the Far East, tried to get an earlier flight out of terminal one from 6:30 P.M. onwards, finally conceded defeat and took the 10:20 p.m. UA flight that I had been booked on all along. Trouble was it didn't rotate until midnight. Reached Las Vegas at 1 a.m., no discount coupons.

On the return, went to the airport and rented a car from Hertz. Took all of 1 minute. Drove straight through to LAX in under 4 1/2 hours, arriving 2 1/2 hours before scheduled departure. Cost? Exactly the same as a shuttle flight and my nerves stayed intact.

Sorry to hear the story.

It won't make you feel any better, but here's an interesting story from the SF Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...6/MN176244.DTL

Pretty amusing story. I doubt that most people could drive from Oakland to downtown LA in under 5 1/2 hours though!

I once tried something similar to this with a colleague. We were both going to our Fresno office, which is 210 miles from my home in the San Fernando Valley. She lived in Santa Monica and was going to drive to LAX and park, fly from LAX to FAT, rent a car, and meet me at the office.

The race was won by me, with 13 minutes to spare. 3hr:12min vs. 3hr:25min. Neither of us had any delays worth mentioning.

To be fair, this weekend's trip (exact same flights) went quite smoothly. The only exception is the ONT-LAX segment was canceled, but it didn't really affect me as I ran late at work and headed to SNA instead of ONT to begin my journey. SNA-LAX-SFO were all on time, as were the return flights.

The drive vs. fly test in the paper is a bit stacked against the flyer who has to get from OAK to SFO first. I bet the flyer would win if he flew from OAK, or if the competition began from the pennisula, skipping the dreaded Bay Bridge. I drove once, didn't save any money, and had a bad back ache half way through the drive with no relief in sight.