Entertaining situation at LGA
 

On UA 1126 right now and have been sitting on the plane for an hour and a half at the gate. Flight was originally scheduled to depart at 9:40 but was delayed to 10:10 due to a late arrival last night. At 10:10 FA comes on to inform is that as soon as we have pilots(!!!) we can leave. Nearly an hour of silence followed by the FA coming on again to inform us that the flight
attendants and the pilots were given two different departure times. FA's at 10:10 and pilots were told to only be in the airport at 11:10. Pretty impressive mess here.

On top of that a 7:00 am flight also to Denver on UA was delayed for 3 and a half hours. The two flights(UA 1126 and the other one) are at the same gate so those folks(who have a ready and waiting plane with pilots) are currently going into their 5th hour of delay. I realize that is probably LGA's problem because of gate availability but who's fault is the mess with the pilots and FA's?, I don't have a problem since I'm on vacation but many many many people are missing connections and are getting pretty steamed about the reason why. So far, the FA's have offered water to everyone.

Everything's probably delayed in part due to the cancellations & rescheduled flights from last night.

It has to to with duty times and minimum rest required from the late arrivals due to the thunderstorms last night.

The F/A's and pilots were on seperate flights last night thus different report times.

Hope that makes sense.

Update: pilots are here, and sounding audibly angry about the mix-up. They are saying they have no idea why there was this problem and they are just as confused as we are. Anyway, they have comped the direct tv on the plane which is nice. Just a huge miscommunication though which has frustrated and delayed lots of people.

Your comment is very interesting to me. I had a similar situation on a UA flight from ORD-SAN last month. We were all sitting on the plane for an extended period of time without pilots. The FA told us the pilots were delayed because Obama was in Chi and they had closed/restricted the airspace or something. Eventually, after well over an hour, the pilots made it. The main pilot got on the PA and said they were delayed three hours at EWR due to an MX. He was also audibly angry and extremely apologetic.

Based on his comments, your report, and the info I've read on this forum, it seems clear to me that UA has inexplicably and completely lost the ability to schedule flight crews properly.

This airline is a mess... I've never seen anything like it in my life.

Really?
 

While I agree with your last statement (at the least the first part of it anyhow), I think that your intial comments are little bit of a dive off the deep end. I've had my share (no pun intended) with the new UA over the last few months but taking one or two flight experiences and stating that they have "inexplicably and completely lost the ability to schedule flight crews properly" is an exaggeration. Stuff happens, as they say, and I think we've all been in situations where times were screwed up, etc. It doens't mean we have lost the ability to schedule ourselves. This is not a defensive of UA as I am relatively unhappy with them at the moment as well, but being unfair or unrealistic about our complaints and are opinions does no good either.

I hear ya but the true test is if the other carriers are having the same problems,if not then M60_to_LGA is correct. After all,all carriers ran into what UA did yesterday and if they were able to Bounce back then COdbaUA should have as well

Dealt with LGA and all the madness yesterday. Thankfully Delta was able to get me to Chicago on time this AM.

Jeff wants business travelers, but too bad his crew eliminated the 6am flight out that I and many others used to take.

I had a similar situation on Monday morning, GSO - ORD. 6:20am flight, flight got in on time the night before. The crew didn't show up until 6:50, took off at 7:15. No explanation given. Sounds like this may have been the same issue where flight crew had conflicting times. Miraculously, I made a 15minute connection at ORD...B1 to F1.

Nah, this airline's an absolute trainwreck.

It's not just people here reporting horror stories on FT...everybody I know who's taken a UA flight in the past 6 months has experienced some sort of delay or cancellation, or has had to deal with poor customer service. Upgrades and IRROPs are where it count for me, and United's decided to give the finger to people in that respect...no thanks.

Credit where it's due, though - the one United flight I've taken since the merge went off pretty well.

Hmmmm. I requalified for 1K a few weeks ago and have over 100K BIS miles on UA in the past 6 mos. I haven't had a single flight cancel. I've had delays but those were due to the Reagan-era PS757's breaking down.

+1 flew 94K and will go over late Dec (tkt already purchased). Had my reg amount of delays for all sorts of reasons like in any other yr with any Carrier. No CXs thus far

But Im far from being a Happy Camper due to all the IT problems that did have a bearing on things

Nothin' older than 1989 in the UA mainline fleet, dude. That's George Senior territory! There's nothing "Morning in America" about those those 752s :)

I stand corrected :D

None the less, I hate the fact that my last few posts on FT make me look like a UA cheerleader but it's become so tiresome. Flying EWR-LHR in C in a few weeks and I didn't even consider AA despite the EXP match and 8 certs. Guess it hasn't been as bad for me as it has for others or maybe I just whine less. Amazing to me that people actually take things so personally. It's an airline people- not a spouse.