kettle1

I sure hope the Canadian Air Force bills UA for the dorms, transportation and the food provided to the PAX.

As for how UA should/could hand things like this. Do like the Cruise Lines. Have an agent in "ports" that handle things. This sounds like a "port" to me if UA is sending a flt there 150 times a year (mainly for fuel).

If UA does not want to have a "local" handle things - give the crew a credit card and handle it. Call the local pizza shop and order 100 pizzas and some sodas and beer. (This was mentioned up-thread).

I am sure when the plane diverted to YYR - the entire town knew about it.

The fine folks at Goose Bay took care of these PX, not UA. UA needs a contingency plan.

Indelaware

There is an assumption there: that the local pizza joint could produce that many pizzas and that pizza makes a good breakfast.

So some in the town may have heard it. How many could tell from the noise that it was an aircraft in distress and full of passengers rather than a cargo aircraft, a military aircraft, a routing fueling stop of a corporate jet or a chartered passenger aircraft, or a widebody aircraft being ferried through YYR on delivery?

No problem with being critical of UA, but one ought be realistic when doing so.

kettle1

Forget about breakfast at 12 am, or what ever they serve for lunch and dinner. It took UA 20 + hours to take these PAX back to the USA, when they were traveling to LONDON, ENGLAND.


It is called a telephone and UA's contact with their own crew or Air Canada - their partner. Think outside the box.

UA screwed these PAX. Period.

KRSW

No, it's not silly. Planes are mechanical devices and will occasionally break. I understand this. The issue here isn't the aircraft breaking, although UA seems to have a rather high IRROPS due to mx issues rate lately.

The real issue is UA's lack of preparedness AND UA staff's hateful attitude towards pax. I understand Goose Bay isn't a tourist mecca and doesn't have proper facilities to handle this large of a number of visitors. Fine with that. The crew should have stayed with the pax on the military base. It would have completely changed pax perception of what was happening. At the very least, it would build a spirit of camaraderie, that they're all going through the same thing and will get through it. The lack of communication, then MIScommunication when it did happen and crappy attitude by UA staff (gotta love that Twitter response) was inexcusable. It's been a week and still no real word from UA about the incident. No press conference, no higher-ups at UA making a public appearance or even a public statement about it.

It points to deeper problems with the company. Why couldn't UA have recovered better from this? I know for a fact both DL and B6 keep flight crews and spare equipment ready at certain hubs in case something doesn't work out. I've experienced diversions with B6 and equipment failures with both. BOTH were excellent in the communications department both in-air and on the ground and explained exactly why they were making the choices they were.

Case in point: I was scheduled for a B6 flight out of RSW a few years back. Major wx delays all up & down the East coast had pretty well fouled the schedule for many airlines. Updates were announced every 15-20 minutes from the podium. After about 30-40 minutes past the departure time the captain approached the podium, grabbed the mic, and explained the situation in detail. He and a few FAs hung around the podium for a few minutes and took questions. After that, the captain, FO, and FAs hung around the gate area, eventually sitting among the pax and started socializing. They didn't go hide in a back room. Instead, they were out there with the unwashed masses, scoring big PR points with the pax. Pax saw that the flight crew was in the same position as us and that kept just about everyone happy. As time dragged on the captain eventually ordered Papa Johns for everyone since the airport food services had closed earlier. Even more PR points scored with the pax. I even wrote to B6 praising the actions of the crew.

I still stand by my decision -- our company will no longer use UA. I feel bad for the UA staff who give a damn, but there's plenty of UA staff whose attitude shows they're in it to benefit themselves, not the self loading cargo.

toomanybooks

Now we are just getting flailing excuses.

They could have AT LEAST designated one crew member (purser, whatever) to stay with the pax as a contact and flown in one replacement for that person, on a Cessna if need be. Trivial. Would at least have shown some care and consideration for paying customers.

If they gave a crap. And it was probably not allowed by the unions, I imagine.

fly18725

It is actually a good explanation. The original intent was likely to have the original crew fly a new aircraft, requiring rest. The crew was also required to operate a return flight from LHR and certain rest is required for that.

It's easy to make a judgement without considering far reaching implications.

United should have done better, but it's important to understand the full picture.

JBord

Agreed. United did a really bad job here, but there are two things that the media has played up which are irrelevant, really just keeping the focus off the operations and communication issues.

Those two things are the crew accommodations and meals (or lack thereof). If you want to blame the crew, blame the crew. But that's likely not a UA decision, due to union contracts. If a crew member volunteered to stay at the barracks, that's fine. But it's a personal decision, not one the company can enforce. Also, meals were provided at the base. We have a first hand account in this thread who has stated there was a bus to the mess hall every 15 minutes. When in an emergency situation, you do triage. UA knew food was available, so there was no priority to order pizzas as some here have suggested.

The real issues are why couldn't UA get a rescue plane from their 3rd biggest hub sooner, and why did it return to EWR, and why did they not communicate with passengers as they realized the additional ops issues? Every other problem being discussed here stems from those two.

BearX220

When you look at the total recent performance / reliability picture I think it is perfectly sound to book away from UA right now... unless it doesn't matter to you when or how you arrive. Goose Bay is an extreme example of the company's unpreparedness and indifference, but there are many more smaller outrages daily -- cancellations and insane delays. Check out the discussion in the consolidated international trouble thread of the EWR-LHR flight that departed 13 hours late. Life is too short to risk getting mixed up with this mess when you can choose differently and fly with more confidence, and hopefully Goose Bay will alert more people to the state of UA.

whereiswaldo

I am wondering whether some passengers simply abandoned the trip after they had arrived in Newark. Would that be a trip in vain? Would United have the obligation to fly such passengers to their initial departure airport free of charge?

Long-time lurker. First post on Flyertalk, yeah.

restlessinRNO

whereiswaldo - Welcome to FlyerTalk.

JBord

Welcome to FT!

I'm sure some didn't continue to LHR, and yes that's a trip in vain. I'm not sure what UA's obligation is, but I've had a few of these mid-trip for work and never had a problem just returning home.

Last time I was in OMA and was stuck for about 36 hours due to weather damage at the airport. I was trying to get to PHL for a weekend family event, but UA flew me home to ORD upon my request.

halls120

My next two TATLs are business, and I can't risk a delay on either, so I'm flying AA on both.

blueman2

Actually, the main issue I see was lack of communication. If you listen to what people actually on the fight complain about, it was no communication. A lot can be forgiven if companies are willing to communicate and listen. And communication is the ONE thing UA had COMPLETE control over. Yes, even in this remote area, they could have set up some chain of communication. They did not. Instead, they left the passengers guessing and fuming.

JBord

I agree. I didn't list the problems in order of importance.

Unfortunately, poor communication has been a hallmark of the company since the merger, dating back to the days when it took 30-60 days to get an email reply from 1k voice.

There are a amazing case studies on how successful companies can be when they treat their customers like people instead of annoyances.

anc-ord772

Agree completely.