IAH-OIL-TRASH

Keep it simple - multiple UA self-induced mess-ups on single itiniery. I will mail winner box of chocolate covered macadamia nuts and 12 oz bag of 100% Kona Cofffee

I think I have winner, but it's only 1/3 thru summer...

6/28 OGG-SFO departs 2 hours late because of crew shortage. 1 FA flying in from SFO on delayed flight.

6/29 UA replaces intl 3-class w domestic 2-class SFO-IAD, displacing 8 lie-flat pax to coach and rest to domestic F seats. Leaves 45 minutes? late

6/29 IAD-FCO uneventful

7/7 ground crew loads dry ice and dogs into hold FCO-EWR. 1:45 spend removing dry ice and awaiting new take off data sheet from Chicago (who fail to respond to several request for same). Miss connection and overnight in EWR.

7/8 EWR-DEN pushes back on time, but then proceeds to take 35 minutes to take off, causing 6 off-boardings of 6 connecting to DEN-OGG flight. World-class sprinter runs length of DEN B concourse and pleads case. GA relents. Sprinter needed because originally-assigned gate next door was occupied by plane experiencing (ding! ding! ding!) mechanical problem and had not left gate.

7/8 DEN-OGG pushes back 20 minutes late, returning 40 minutes later because of fan light in equipment bay. Currently a gate sipping 312 wheat ale ( a fine addition to the on-board liquids selection)

UTex09

Impressive. At this point, though, something going 100% to plan is more shocking to me than other way around on UA.

bruceba

Sounds like a normal UA week to me. Nothing unusual.

mherdeg

How much total compensation did UA issue proactively / at your request? How much does that compare to the cost of your P fare OGG-FCO?

This would have been a "great" journey under pre-merger UA in the sense that the bad experience insurance baked into their generous customer service policy would have paid for a lot of the inconvenience caused.

Delta3MM

I remember the "summer of he!!" and my May/June have been worse that what I remember that to be like. I've had so many cancellations and delayed flights (like >5 hours) to the point where I don't want to fly any more UA flights until they can get their UX operations under control.

I remember Delta, the summer after they merged with Northwest had tons of problems because they were not set up for maintenance of the different types of aircraft that were now flying to different cities/hubs. But Delta fixed this quickly and learned from their mistake.

UA seems to just have its collective head in the sand and seems to be saying "what problems?" Everything's fine. Let's just keep reducing flights as fewer people fly. Seems like they are only concerned about mainline, yet so many of trips either begin or end with a regional. We customers think of it as one airline - I certainly don't accept the fact that I have to take a regional out of my home airport (and sometimes my destination as well) as an excuse for poor operational performance, poor customer service and the all too typical "We're UA - we don't care."

Billy

Kacee

Only a single overnight so far? I'm guessing that won't even make the top fifty

If you want to talk about totally unbelievable, consider this:

I did SFO-SEA-ORD-AMS-ORD-SEA-SFO this weekend. All flights were on time. The crews were all pleasant and efficient. I even CPU'ed the SFO-SEA connectors on an L fare.

kb1992

I got the feeling that this is going to be a tough summer for UA.

TWA Fan 1

Summer From Hell Part II?

Aren't sequels always worse than the original?

In this case that could be truly painful...

channa

Only 1 misconnect?

I'm at 3 misconnects, 1 diversion to Gander, and 2 OAL reroutes in the past 2 weeks.

Delta3MM

OK, didn't mention it earlier but I even had a Trip in Vain, and I have never, ever had one of those in my entire flying experience. And I have flown a lot.
I even got my money back! I hated to do it, but they just were not able to get be where I needed to be before I already had to head back! Crazy. And it was a regional delay that started the whole thing. Figures.

Billy

limey1K

Since April 30, I've had two Trips In Vain (one of which returned to the airport TWICE in one day. Is that three Trips in Vain??), two cancelations and my on-time success rate is 7 of 21

kb1992

Did you get a refund?

Will UA issue refund automatically or you had to call?

uber1K_Flyer

In decades of travel with TWA then DL and now UA, I've never head a cancelled trip in vain until this summer - and I've had 2: ORD-LGA (mainline) and ORD-DCA (mainline). Its pretty awful - as one poster has said, I've definitely scaled back my travel this summer because of the pathetic poor performance. The lack of accurate information is pathetic too (today on ORD-DCA, we had a nearly an hour delay because of air traffic control delays even though the FAA website at all times today have shown green for both airports).

FLYDCA

Only one unplanned flight diversion to South Dakota for me. Thus far that is....

spin88

You guys (or gals) are all slackers. No one is going to vote for your story unless you post the details.

In a few weeks we can put a poll at the top, let us peons decide.

[since I will not fly UA on a connection anymore, I am sure I will not top any of you. Sitting pretty at 3 delays, 1 MX (with equipment change) in 4 legs, and that is it for UA for this summer. ]