BearX220

Numerous UA pax, status ranging from GS to dirt, missed flights or timely rebooks at DCA Friday owing to short staffing on the landside check-in desks.

I was booked DCA-EWR-SEA and got off the Metro one hour before my 245p flight time to see my first leg, a Q400 hop, posted 90+ minutes late owing to NYC-area storms. My connection blown up, I went upstairs to the check-in area to see about alternatives and found a queue of 50 to 75 in the general line, 20+ in the Premier zone... and exactly two GAs behind the counter, one for each queue.

I joined the line and got on the phone to the Premier desk. I waited on hold for more than 20 minutes, during which each GA processed about four people each. When I finally reached an agent on the phone she tapped away for about ten minutes, then offered me DCA-ORD-SEA -- if I could get through security and down to gate 31 for a 230p on-time departure. It was 215p. I said I'd never make it. (Though I could have, obviously, had the phone been answered faster.)

Back on hold for ten more minutes, and the next best I could get was IAD-LAX-SEA departing at 500p. During this time I inched two or three people closer to the front of the line; at one point our agent just disappeared for a full five minutes. By this time people in both queues were complaining that they were missing on-time flights because they'd been standing there 45+ minutes just to check bags.

In the end all it cost me was a $77 taxi ride to IAD and arrival at SEA four hours later than intended. A lot of folks around me did much worse. Some on that Q400 to EWR to connect to a TATL weren't going to make it across the pond until Saturday. Most of the trouble was not because of storms / ATC in the NYC area, but because of understaffing at the desks and on the phones leading to tardy service recovery, with a side helping of SHARES slowness perhaps. Really bad show.

During this whole hour, as the UA line swelled and more and more pax had their days go sideways, the DL desks right next door to UA were staffed with 5 or 6 fast-moving agents and there were never more than a handful of people waiting for service.

Out at Dulles there was more chaos as another LAX flight went mech and ours was held up as rebooked infants and toddlers had been distributed into middle seats around the cabin, but that's another story.

It was another bad day in a series of bad days with United.

mh3265a

Sorry for your experience but it sounds like you should have gone thru security first and you could have made the DCA-ORD-SEA connection. It's always better, in my estimation, to make changes with gate agents post-security not at the main check-in area.

That said, there is no excuse for the short staffing...

boolean64

The entire business model is built for everything to operate normally. It all falls apart at the whiff of IRROPS.

If what you saw today happens 20 days a year, then smisek and rainey would walk through DCA the other 345 days and wonder why they are paying for so many agents at the counter. So long as nothing is wrong, it doesn't take any time to say "you can use the kiosk for that"

The problem is with SFO, EWR, and ORD as hubs there's way too much weather for IRROPS to only be a problem 20 days out of the year...

unavaca

+1

Make it through security and start re-arranging flights. It's a lot faster to get out of the secure area (to head to IAD, for example) than to head in.

Dr_Adventure

Blame it on SHARES - The staffing is based on Fastair data - that took 2 min to deal with IPROPS - under SHARES the same move takes 10+ min. (be it in person or on the phone - so hence the system gets QUICKLY clogged.

In the future go through security and then call or go to UA club - standing in line and calling means you are taking two spots and if everyone does this - the system is artificially slow!

highflier1979

...or if you are been at the gate when these flights were offered.

You need to work proactively when this stuff happens...not add to the problem by removing yourself from the proximity of a solution.

lixiaojuventus

But I guess the OP needed to check luggage? If that's true, then he/she has no way to go though security any earlier. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think he/she stood there just to print a BP?

Vunder31

I see nothing in the OP's post to indicate that he/she had bags to check.
It seems like he/she wasn't initially planning on going to the check-in area, and went there only "to see about alternatives" after finding out about the delay of the original flight.

unavaca

It's possible. The benefit of waiting for a phone agent while waiting in line is that if the phone agent finishes before you get to the front, you can print a BP at a machine and go to the gate. At the same time, you can use the machines to check baggage, too.

BearX220

Nonsense. I'm not impeding anyone's access to UA by standing in line while calling. Whichever channel comes through first, that's what I'll use.

I don't really require that sort of lecture, having been at this for a long time -- and been in too many situations where it's impossible to get anyone's attention in a timely way airside, especially in out stations. (My original EWR BP would not have gained me admission into the concourse from which the ORD flight was departing anyway.) Anyway, how about urging the damn airline to "work proactively when this stuff happens"? A few months ago I was on US when a flight cancelled and they called me to offer options -- even confirming me on an overbooked flight. From UA, total silence.

Precisely. It almost worked, too, except that the system wouldn't let me print BPs at DCA for an IAD departure.

unavaca

Yeah, that's understandable. I guess if the phone agent had managed to find you an ex-DCA option, the chickens would have let you print a local BP so you could skip the agent line.

I didn't know the RJ and mainline flights were in different concourses at DCA. All in all, I think you did the right thing and made the best of a bad situation.

Often1

Be aware that TSA has changed its policy. So long as you hold a valid BP for any checkpoint, you can enter through another checkpoint. If your DCA-EWR was out of Concourse A, you still could have got through secuiryt at B and thus to the ORD gate.

An Officer may occasionally tell you that you are at the wrong checkpoint, but won't actually prohibit access.

thezipper

I was at DCA a week ago when a DCA-ORD plane went mech @20 min before boarding... talk about a cluster... the rebooking line was almost to the AA gates on the other side! And it was taking no less than 5-10 min per pax to get it done. There looked to be several ppl in line w passports, so I'm guessing they missed their flights to asia... I didn't believe it was as bad as ppl were saying, until I actually saw it happen!

gradsflyer

I think what happened is that PMCO (who ran the RJs to EWR) used to operate out of one concourse and PMUA out of another and they are still using two seperate sets of gates now. It's not that RJs alone are in a seperate area just that PMUA was located differently from PMCO. It's easy to downsize to one check in area but it may be there are no neighboring gates available in either the PMUA or PMCO areas to expand out into so they are maintaining two separate sectors of gates.

JFKSFOLAX_friend

Completely agree. You are correct in this instance. Had you said you: 1) just waited in line or 2) you just called, there would have been people in this forum telling you that you should have called while in line.

In this forum, you'll see quite a few apologists. Rest assured that most of us understood your main point (i.e., there should have been far more staffing at the ticket counters).