FlyerTalk Forums - This is 'United Airlines'

We spent most of July in Southern Africa. It did not take long to learn one of the local's favorite phrases is 'This is Africa' to explain that things can and will go wrong every day. And to not take it too seriously.

Our flight from JNB to CPT was delayed for nearly 2 hours. We boarded on time, then we couldn't leave the gate because ground equipment used to service the plane had frozen in place and couldn't be moved AND after fixing that problem, we had to return to the gate because to repair a broken system in the cockpit. No sweat, "This is Africa".

On Tuesday, I ended up on United Airlines in Ohare. We boarded on time, but 20 minutes past departure, the captain pipes up that there was a problem moving a fuel truck out of the way. A few minutes later he says that problem is fixed and we will be leaving shortly. 30 minutes later he comes back on to tell us that we were now late because United ground crew didn't service the plane's toilets. 20 minutes later we leave the gate and start taxiing. Of course it's O'hare so we spend another 45 minutes waiting in line to take off. Stuff like this always happens to me when I fly United. The story was so similar to my experience in South Africa -- I've coined a new phrase -- 'This is United Airlines'.