This is my first trip report.....so go easy on me (I've read a few).

As anyone who regularly flys into or through ORD knows, weather and traffic delays are the norm, so when I booked on UA 500 (15:41pm departure) for a weekend biz trip to the Windy City, I knew to expect a late arrival at ORD. What I didn't expect was the UA runaround -- and to be honest, I have had good experiences with UA, especially since 9/11. Perhaps light loads contributed to this, and as we once again return to pre 9/11 traffic levels the "bad old behaviors" are returning.

My office is about 20 minutes from the airport, and I knew that T-storms had caused ripple effect delays at ORD, so I called UA at 1400 to see if my flight was on time. The computerized voice assured me it was, so I headed off to OMA to catch the flight.

Arrived at OMA, cleared security, and went to the gate. UA 1072, the 1330 departure, hadn't boarded yet, and while UA 500 was on the board, no departure time was listed. A huge line of UA 500 check ins had already formed at the desk, and the two attendants were already overwhelemed and understaffed. Got on the list to move up to UA 1072, assuming that that flight would go first. Missed the cutoff by 2 people. Bummer. Gate Agents have no news.

Honestly, I'm a bit miffed. (I'm being polite...its a family board....I was slightly MORE than miffed). Not at the delays. I've been traveling to and through ORD enough to know that weather is a roll of the dice. I'm miffed that a multi-million dollar system can't/won't get information to me....so instead of catching up at the office, I'm killing time in the terminal. I could have gone home and had dinnner with the family......and come in to catch the flight.

UA 1072 loads at about 1530, and pushes back. Meanwhile the plane that will be UA 500 has arrived and unloaded.

1600 UA 1072 is brought back to the gate and unloaded. Now there is competition for seats in the terminal area. I'm debating going out to my car and driving to ORD....I can be there in 7 hours. It might be quicker. Instead, I opt to leave the secure area and get something to eat. Not much available in the terminal area, and its all overpriced. Funny, not much available outside of the secure area either. I settle for a day old bagle and a bottle of water. $5.45. Ka-Ching!

Return to the terminal at about 1645. UA 1072 is boarding. They push back. No word yet on when we will board/leave, but rumor has it that it will be 1820 hours.

1845 hours. We board and push back, taxi out to 14.

1920 hours airborne! YEAH!

2110 hours. We've been doing circles over north central Illinois for an hour now. Captian comes on and says we're probably going to divert to our alternate....Indy.....if we havne't gotten clearance to land at ORD by 2125. Mentally, I calculate the driving time from Indy to ORD...its only about 265 miles, and at this time of night, traffic won't be much of a problem......

2125 hours. Caption comes back on and says we are diverting to an alternate, but it won't be Indy. Its going to be Rockford. We don't have enough fuel to get to Indy. Comforting at 24000 feet. Stomach is beginning to rumble.....FA's have nothing but one round of soft drinks and a few boxes of UA snack mix. Maybe they'll offer us free drinks.....

2145 hours. We're on the ground in Rockford. We won't be getting off the plane. Several pax who's final destination is near Rockford want off...can you blame them? They begin berating the FA's. Finally the Captian comes out of the cockpit and announces: "You aren't getting off the plane. Get over it. Ease up on the FA's." Well, he was a bit more eloquent than that, but you get the idea.

2215 hours. The announcement is made we're going to be here at least another hour.

2245 hours. We taxi out to the runway and power down to wait for clearance. We're hot, hungry, thirsty, late (a lot of pax had connecting flights that were already history). And we're not going anywhere. We're No. 3 for takeoff...so now we're stuck in traffic to boot.

I should mention that the ones I feel most for are the FA's. They started out in LAX that morning...and were supposed to have continued onto DC....they too were stuck. And they weren't able to exit the plane in OMA....they spent 2 - 3 hours in a powered down aircraft with no AC looking in at us. Did I mention that they too were subsiding on UA Snack mix and airplane water?

2345 hours. We're aloft! A t-storm is moving in...we get off the ground just in time (I'm sure some pax had a differing viewpoint on this than me.....based on the bumps)

0010 hours on May 22. We land (runway 27R, I think...too tired to care). We taxi. We taxi. We taxi. And we finally, after passing a multitude of empty gates.....arrive at C-5. You would think that after making us as late as we were, they could have at least dropped us off at B terminal......but nooooo, we've got the walk of the entire concourse to the center, then down and under to B.

I notice that C terminal smells like a gym. Its trashed. And people are sleeping everywhere. I remember my last ORD experience where I spent 9 hours waiting here to get out of ORD on a Friday.....at least the food selection is better than at OMA.

Cabstands are FULL. No cabs. Traffic is backed up getting into the terminal area.

0115 hours. Hertz is still holding my car. Glad I paid the extra $$ for the reservation. Hertz Gold rocks. Too bad I don't have it. But so many do the line is non-existant. I get the car and head to my destination.

0145 Grabbed a bite at Wendy's. Fast food has never tasted so good. Found the hotel They too had held my room (I've had experiences that were different........). I'm going to make my 0830 meeting....but wait.... Planes, Trains and Automobiles is not yet over!

0820 I awake. No wake up call. Alarm clock not working. S**T!!!!!! Slam into some clothes and arrive 5 minutes late (offices next door to the hotel).

Rest of the weekend.......including the flight back.....comparatively uneventful. Got out of ORD on Sunday just as storms were rolling in. A bumpy climbout.....my seatmate had some white knuckles.....but I think roller coasters got nothing on decent turbulence for fun.......I just hate it when we hit rollers the minute I get my drink....(Murphy's law).

Thats my trip report! I survived. Next time I go to ORD for a quickie, I'm either taking the early morning flight.....or Buick Airlines...flying very low.

Bill

Too funny. I have had the exact same experience from delays to departure to diversion (mine was DesMoines) and finally landing some 12h later at ORD. Only I had to catch a connection and was placed in some Park Inn with a day old donut for dinner. The next day UA could not fly me to FRA and asked that I waited for another day!!!! After much complaing I was eventually rerouted on NWA.

Been there and done that.

As for UA and information, I honestly don't think UA's trying to snow the passengers.

I was caught out in that huge storm that rumbled through ORD late Sunday morning. I was on the noon LGA-ORD flight and they started boarding at 11:30. About 11:35 they noted that ORD had just instituted a two-hour ground hold. The Captain noted he has seen the weather radar at Flight Ops before boarding the plane and said it looked evil. It was decided that due to staffing issues in LGA, they would unload the plane (which was nice they did it five minutes in, so most were not even on yet).

At 12:00, they said it would be 90 minutes, at least, before we could depart, based on the weather.

At 12:10, they reported the weather at ORD had suddenly lifted and operations were re-starting.

At 12:15 they noted we looked good and should begin boarding shortly.

At 12:30 they started boarding us.

At 1:00 with the loading complete, the Captain noted UA was still trying to synch their schedules (and I would imagine scores of flights were affected, if not over a hundred - then add all the other ORD traffic) and expected us to be sitting on the ground for about an hour. He did not want to offload us because things change moment by moment and if we're ready to go, we get to go.

Sure enough, at 1:15 I hear over Channel 9 we have push-back clearance.

We're wheels-up around 1:30 for a two-hour flight time.

About 1:45 we hear that the huge storm that wasted the midwest is now moving East and all traffic is being kicked-up north of the Great Lakes so that will add about an hour to our flight time. We do the "grand tour" including Niagara, every Great Lake, northern MI, WI, and then down towards ORD.

As we touch down, I hear from Ground our gate (B19) is not ready so we're going to the Penalty Box. Two minutes later, UA Ground Ops gets us an open gate in C (C11) and we can proceed direct to gate.

Ah ORD in the Summer...

And this is your first report? You ought to be writing for a magazine

Can't tell you how many times this has happened to me - wish I could articulate it as well as you did!!! ^ ^

Ah ORD in the Spring
Ah ORD in the Fall
Ah ORD in the Winter

Compared to PHL, ORD is ^ ^ ^ ^

Indeed -- people at ORD are just indifferent to other human beings, not overtly hostile as at PHL