nigos

Ua cancelled UA 14 HNL to EWR 14 hours before flt time. Reason "crew availability". No offer to help with rooms which were very hard to find in Honolulu for tonight. (paid F booking) rebooked via IAH Monday night. Ultimate destination is BOS but another storm is predicted for Boston on Tuesday.

axl

I've never done this... I'd be surprised if they paid without a fight -- given the fact that I have to resubmit expense reports 2 or more times for easy, inexpensive items.

Jay00848

Been sitting on plane for 1 hour, we were deiced 30 minutes ago, pilot just comes on radio to say we are waiting to be deiced, sorry for delay. How can he not realize we have already been sprayed down???

CALMSP

well, possibly your plane was sprayed with type 1 and now need to go back for type 4.

Jay00848

I guess so... They just showed up again. I have never seen that much time between sprays or two different crews do it. Seems very inefficient!

In The 216

I agree that swaps happen but I think the frequency of such depends very much on where you're at. Yes, at DEN it's going to be much more likely than a non-hub but to say that the where is this plane function is not a reliable indicator of anything is disingenuous and an exaggeration.

Bioguy

Good day everyone from Berlin! So, as a postscript to my ua 606 experience, we did make it to the gate at EWR at 530pm, giving my hope of making my connection which left at 6PM... Except that THE JETWAY WAS NON FUNCTIONING. So, we waited for about 30 minutes.... There were six of us on the flight who needed to connect to UA 124 to Berlin. When the jetway connection was finally made, we rushed to our fate, only to find the doors closed just minutes ago, and the plane ready to back away. Our case was lost... So we thought.

The six of us decided to stand out ground until the plane moved away, contrary to the GA's request for us to go to the service counter. A miracle then occurred.... UA 124 opened the door for us! The captain and crew decided to give us a break.

The long and short: on my flight to Berlin, I was trying to figure out why I keep flying united. It's not really because of loyalty, or destinations, or anything business related. I figured out that it's the people on the crews, the FAs, GAs, and pilots who go above and beyond, in spite of a broken system, to make sure the customer is satisfied. The company itself has terrible delays and super lean systems, the May be hyper-efficient, but collapse in the presence of any problem. It is ultimately the PEOPLE who face the customers who face the brunt of these system issues, and it is THEY who go above and beyond to get us where we need.

I want to thank those crew and support folks from UA 606 and 124 who, in spite of the complete Charlie-Foxtrot that was yesterday's logistical and maintenance nightmare, got me to where I needed to be, and look at us as fellow humans rather than an ROI to be exploited.

Aspen

I am only now just hearing why my friend did not arrive as scheduled last night.
Tuesday's (2/17/15) UA 3689 took off from DTW bound for DEN. The landing gear would not retract so the aeroplane (CR7) circled for a little while before safely landing back at DTW.

Does anyone have any further details?

cruisr

Though the flight I was on at 3:05 pm today had a mechanical delay it finally departed 4.5 hours late. It was a mechanical and the Captain was great keeping us as informed as he could. At one point, after returning to the gate and about to deplane he said there are other flights we may want to consider as he could not promise if/when we would depart. There were UA employees in uniform, commuting including some captains. One I spoke to said he was going to try to get the other flights. So, that was good enough for me and so I figured I should also try.

So, I was able to get myself rebooked on another flight and after we took off and were climbing the cabin pressurization had a problem. Wow, was that painful. I never had anything like that ever in my 2 MM total miles I have flown. The FAs came on the PA and told people what do to relieve some of the discomfort. Then the captain came on and said what we all knew, a pressurization issue and we are being diverted to IAD.

Now we are waiting for another bird and are standing around. The snow is now piling up. It's not been a fun over 7 hours since I boarded the first flight.

So two mx in a row and I am no where near getting to my destination. Should I ask for compensation? Best case scenario I will be arriving over 6 hours later then scheduled.

I have to say nobody is yelling at anybody so that's nice to see.

TennisNoob

You should ask for a compensation. Twice UA failed, Not WX

satman40

We were 4.5 hours late out if IAD, then UA lost our bags for 3 days...

Good luck...

econprof

Original dep 12:10 from SFO, delayed because of ATC (weather at EWR?). Boarded around 12:30. Pushback at 13:10. Wait for some period. Taxi to near runway. Pilot comes on, says we are waiting for slot in EWR. 30 minutes later pilot comes on, says there are 30 passengers going to Tel Aviv that may miss their flight, gives them them 2 minutes to decide on the option of returning to the gate (?!)... says they need to hustle off plane so we keep our slot at EWR. Return to gate, now around 14:10. Some passengers deplane. Door stays open. Door closes, jetway retracts. We wait longer. Jetway returns, door opens. Some more passengers deplane. Pilot says we've lost our slot at EWR and have to wait longer, citing "Federal Regulations". Is decidedly snippy, but also apologizes for "professional embarrassment." All in all, door is open and closed 3 times.

Finally depart at 15:37, more than 3 hours late, arrive at sloshy EWR at 23:06 (local time). In the meantime, internet connection does not work on the entire duration of the flight.

We then wait *another hour* for gate to be free and then for snow to be cleared, finally deplaning at 00:06.

I won't go into the hell that EWR was then trying to get to the AirRail Terminal, or the trains that NJ Transit cancelled, resulting in my getting home (in Manhattan) at 03:30.

Question: The pilot seemed to think he had a legal obligation to let people off the plane. But when he made the decision to return to the gate, we'd only be on the plane about 1.25 hours. His (wrong, in my opinion) decision to return to the gate cost us another nearly 2.25 hours. a) was he wrong, and b) am I entitled to compensation?

daylitecinema

Last night checking into my flight via the UA app for my 10:45am departure for MCO, saw that our flight was on time. I then looked to see where the aircraft was coming from as I always do to check for possible weather issues. Inbound aircraft coming from SFO UA2107 On Schedule to depart 6am and arrive 11:46am CST. Also said it was on time.

So how can an aircraft land at 11:46am and while it's supposed to depart at 10:45am? Both flights said on schedule. I assumed it was a system glitch and ignored it. Silly me.

15 mins away from arriving to the airport and I get an alert that my flight has been delayed 1:45hrs.

So if this flight from SFO would be on-time, why wouldn't they just reschedule the IAH-MCO flight or say its delayed the day before, when they well know it will be delayed, when I can just stay at home an extra hour to be with my family?

jjmoore

I had similar occurrences in DEN when an inbound aircraft was showing arrival 2 hours after the scheduled departure of my flight. The phone agents insisted that my flight was good to go, just to find out after arriving at the airport (1.5 hours prior to departure) that the flight posted a 3 hour delay.

Do they do this to try to prevent $$ pax from switching airlines? In my case, the aircraft went out for MX first thing in the morning, and had been behind schedule all day. Very frustrating. I do not have high regard for most phone agents (only when I'm lucky enough to get a good GS phone agent am I able to accomplish what I need quickly).

wto605

It sounds like a swap due to the original AC getting canceled (probably MX but who knows). At that point it's a no-win situation for ops. Post the delays all the way down the line and people show up to the airport late etc. and if they secure a new AC (and suddenly the flight is on time/delayed only a bit) people miss it (and complain). They usually post a delay as soon as they know all hope is lost*, unfortunately that isn't exactly a convenient time for fliers.

I would agree with you that posing a significant, known delay inside 3 hours is annoying (and a decision to post the delay should only be put off if there's a very good chance of a better switch) but I just can't make the jump to malice. Occasionally I have leveraged this uncertainty into slight rule-bending when it comes to free SDC (getting onto flights that don't have my bucket etc.) but aside from that I take it as the cost of flying (commercially, at least).

*This doesn't apply to regional carriers who's operations (and many other facets of their business) are the bare minimum. There are a lot few swaps yet delays are only posted a few flights in advance for the aircraft (and with short flights this could mean delays don't post until a couple hours before). Thankfully agents I've dealt with tend to have as little faith in RJs as we do and will do anything short of OAL without a posted delay.