Originally Posted by jsloan

I think you'll find the same level of disrespect from most major airlines, then. Delays are only posted well in advance when they're entirely unavoidable (e.g., at an international outstation -- if the flight into Chengdu is late, the return is going to be late also). You'd likely see the same treatment flying between domestic hubs on Delta or American.

Originally Posted by DiscountBusinessFlyer

Here are my circumstances - a learning experience, no doubt, even for the more experienced flyers among us:

In the early afternoon of our travel date, I checked on the status of our first leg - UA 5751. It showed 'On Schedule'. I also looked at 'Where is this aircraft coming from', and discovered that it was posted at an estimated 1 hour and 41 minutes late.
With this finding, I called the 1K desk to ask if our flights could be rescheduled anticipating the delay, and to avoid getting stranded overnight in transit with my elderly mother. The agent looked into our flight's status and advised us that it would likely be on time. When I asked him to enquire if the delay to the inbound aircraft would impact our flight, he very kindly agreed to put me on hold while he checked. He came back 5 minutes later and said that there is no cause for us to worry – the explanation he provided was that they were probably going to switch aircraft. At that point in time, if the agent had seen that there was a delay posted, he would have rebooked us on the earlier connection, which is what I was requesting. Given that the status was showing On Schedule, he did not feel the need to do so.
We proceeded to the airport a few hours early anyway. At the airport, the agent told us that our flight was definitely going to be delayed to the point that we would miss our connection at LAX. As I had imagined, there was no other aircraft, and the inbound was still posted as Delayed, even though our flight continued to show 'On Schedule'. Again, there was not much she could do since the system was still showing our flight as 'On Time'. Even the departure monitor right above the United counter was showing our flight as 'On Schedule', although there was no aircraft on the way!
The airport agent advised us our best bet was to travel by road to SFO and attempt to make the flight to Newark from there, which was our final destination. At that point, there were no other flights out of MRY that we could switch to – the earlier flight to LAX had just left. She tried to get hold of someone to authorize all this but told us the problem was the system is still not recognizing our flight to be delayed. We were losing time, and at the agent's suggestion, got in touch with Hertz to get a car large enough to transport the five of us with all our bags to SFO. It took the cooperation of Hertz, but we were lucky to get a vehicle in a sold-out situation. The road trip, grueling for my elderly mother, did get us to SFO in time to make the flight from there.
So, as far as I'm concerned, the root-cause of our predicament was not the ATC-related delay, but United's failure to post the correct status even when it was known so far in advance that the inbound flight is delayed. If the status was correctly posted I have no doubt that United would have done a good job in helping us plan a convenient alternative for our travel especially when the delay was known so far in advance. Regrettably, United has dropped the ball on this occasion.

I communicated with 1kVoice at United, and requested a reimbursement of my car rental charges. They denied my claim and brushed this aside as an uncontrollable ATC-related issue - which, of course, I consider grossly unfair and falls well below my expectations from the airline that I almost always feel at home with.

Here is the response from 1K Customer Care - they denied my reimbursement claim and finally said this:
"During weather conditions, we try to operate as many flights as possible, often swapping out aircraft in order to maintain our schedule. I have tried to rephrase this several times, but it appears I am not making myself clear. Your flight was on schedule, until it became impossible to remain on schedule at which time it was delayed. This can happen at any time during weather situations. Mr. xx, again, please accept our apologies for your delay. At this point, I hope I have finally clarified your concerns, as we are going to consider this matter concluded."

Moral of the story; pay attention to the posted status of the inbound flight as the status of your flight may not reflect the correct situation.

Originally Posted by Seby12

Come on United. What were you thinking?

Originally Posted by drowelf

I've seen this multiple times over the years, at times when the inbound flight either arrives within minutes or after the outbound is scheduled. At some point they either do an equipment swap or the outbound gets a delay posted. Generally if the time is hours away, I realize that UA Ops is still trying to figure out exactly what the service recovery is going to be. Once we get close to boarding time, they have to do something, which is probably going to end up as a delay.

Originally Posted by JimInOhio

The worst part is they usually blame these late departures on a late inbound flight which is lying to be blunt. I've had many late departures where the inbound aircraft actually arrived early but after my scheduled departure time. The honest explanation for flight status would read something like "We're sorry, but we stole the aircraft that was to be used for your flight so we could accommodate some other flight. We're now waiting for another one to come in so we can get you on your way."

Originally Posted by Seby12

Originally Posted by porciuscato

I see this all the time. And it usually isn't the result of last minute changes. They just schedule it that way.

Originally Posted by JimInOhio

The worst part is they usually blame these late departures on a late inbound flight which is lying to be blunt.

Originally Posted by jsloan

It wasn't scheduled that way. They had another delay or a plane out of service or something, and this was their solution to minimize the overall impact.