Flying Machine

I see your point and answer as if this was a quiz about the contract of carriage. However at T 15 , The gate agent could of looked in the system and see that they had a runner. I don’t believe the flight was held just for my friend, it was the last flight of the evening to Los Angeles and he could’ve walked slow, had UA give him a hotel, food vouchers etc. and took the first flight out in the morning in first. He went through these scenarios with the 1K desk when he was in Panama. They protected him on the last flight of the day and the first one in the morning. When he got off his flight from Panama he still had a business class ticket. Anyway, I see your point I hope you see mine

econ

But how would the GA know that they had a "runner". If I knew that I wouldn't get to the gate until T-5 min, even after racing across terminals to get there, I might not even bother.

In either case, your friend would likely be given some miles/ETC for the inconvenience caused by the delay if they ask 1KVoice, but not formal downgrade compensation.

jsloan

When a question starts talking about being "entitled to downgrade compensation," it is, essentially, a quiz about the contract.

I'm inferring from your 40-minute timeframe that he didn't check a bag, so at no point between arriving from PTY and getting to the gate did your friend interact with a UA employee. There would be nothing in the agent's system to indicate his progress through the airport. If I were a gate agent, and I saw that someone's inbound international flight had arrived at T-40, I'd have offloaded him too. Getting to the gate in 35 minutes was a Herculean task.

Keep in mind, the gate agent had to process an upgrade for the next person on the list. If they'd waited for your friend, and he hadn't shown, either that step gets skipped -- and someone writes into FT about how the agent didn't bother to upgrade them, despite an empty seat -- or the flight gets an extra delay.

You're right -- I'm sure it wasn't held just for him, because I doubt the computer system imagined he could make it. And, yes, he could have spent the night in Houston on UA's dime, but he obviously valued getting home early more.

Wait, so your friend got protected on two separate flights, in business class?? It sounds like the 1K phone agent went above and beyond for him. For the past several years, protection has very much been a YMMV situation, and it's almost always limited to just one flight. Especially in J, where that seat is particularly valuable... if anyone notices what the agent did, they're likely to get a lecture. This is how UA ends up with agents who don't seem to care: if excellent service results in customer complaints and lectures, why bother?

I understand your point, but I don't consider it reasonable,. By any standard, your friend received absolutely superb service, including being put onto a flight five minutes after the door was scheduled to close.

He can write in for a refund of the fare difference between Y and J fort the IAH-LAX segment. It's not likely to be very much.

The current standard for an inconvenience ETC is a six-hour delay at the final destination. That's not to say it's impossible, but it's no guarantee either.

Flying Machine

In the day when I would solicit Bumps, I’ve seen the gate agents look into their system and sometimes say something like this oh those people are coming in on XXX, I see they cleared customs, etc. I believe they were doing this to see how many people could actually make the flight who are connecting or miss connecting and to determine how many volunteers they would need.


Other times for myself over the years when I ran to a gate the agent would say I saw you were coming that your flight just arrived at gate XXX. So there are proactive agents that can and will look into the system.

To answer the one question presented above by jsloan , yes while running my friend saw a united agent and asked if they can call ahead to the gate to let them know he’s running. I believe he was just passing someone in the hall perhaps they didn’t have a radio, the woman just shrugged her head and my friend continued running. I too agree it was a great effort on his part, however we’re in different camps regarding how UA handled the issue

RobOnLI

The OP's friend was CPU'd on IAH-LAX. He can't write in and ask for the fare difference because he didn't PAY for J.

-RM

jsloan

If they told you that any individual has cleared customs, they lied to you. The most they can do is to know whether or not the last bag has been delivered to the baggage claim.

Yes, I agree, but they were making some informed guesses. And if they saw someone had arrived on an international flight that had arrived 40 minutes prior to departure, they would have assumed he was a no-show immediately.

Yes, agreed. But there's no additional signal besides "the plane arrived at XX:YY."

I think that works better in movies than it does in real life.



OK, so this person got protected in J, on two flights, based on a CPU?!?

I have been protected in J after a CPU. I didn't ask for it; in fact, I was embarrassed by it when I saw that I wouldn't have cleared on my replacement flight. I certainly wouldn't have complained afterwards if I had gotten exactly what I paid for. Most of the time after IRROPS, that's exactly what happens: I end up flying in Y.

OP: I'm sorry, but we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. In my book, your friend got absolutely top-notch service here.

findark

While this is absolutely fair (and the rules), it does give rise to an interesting pickle. From a booking strategy perspective, I will treat basically certain CPUs like instrument upgrades, even when I shouldn't because of exactly this IRROPS concern. I once had a Sunday-after-Thanksgiving flight canceled and with the CPU rug swept out from under me, I was stuck refunding the ticket and having to pay walk-up rates for DL F (thankfully there were seats left). Never even occurred to me to ask for positive-space J on UA

Obviously a known risk, but something I can overlook when originally booking.

PTahCha

Maybe it's a new feature on the United app, where it calculates the velocity between geo locations?

lincolnjkc

That would be interesting and perhaps welcome. Complete with automated pages "Passenger Jones, Passenger Bob Jones you really need to pick up the pace if you intend to be on flight...."

I have held multiple protection before, and I have had a GA call my destination gate to warn of a runner twice -- both in ORD actually... The first time I was just out of an unexpected hospital stay on a business trip -- heading home to an appointment with a specialist at home the next morning. My wife and I got to a completely empty gate and we're met by an agent coming up the jetway "You made it!" And closed the door behind us... I made it to my seat coughing up a lung from the marathon and I'm sure more than a few people were worried about that combined with my hospital ID wristband...)

Second time I got to the gate literally as the agent slammed it in my face... You win some you lose some, I guess. My exasperated muttering combined with the agent confirming that they had received a call but didn't think I would possibly make it got a supervisor to spontaneously offer an low-value ETC (given that the delay was UA-controllable and the door closed at D-12).

canadiancow

Do they not have any tie-in to TSA scanners?

In Canada, AC can see if passengers have scanned their BP at security. Yes, different airline, different agency, but it's certainly possible, in theory, and it seems like something that would really help the airlines.

TomMM

Could a GA see if a bag has been rechecked after customs?

lincolnjkc

Conceivably but unless Aero has changed in the past couple years it's not easy for agents, likewise if they don't have the bag tag # -- which they probably wouldn't in this scenario -- at least pre-aero an agent has to dig through the check-in history on the PNR, note the bag tag #, and then reference a different system to actually see the status of the bag (this was the case with pmCO and early postmUA, at least) in other words it takes a really motivated or bored and educated agent to do this...

(Side observation: CO used to print the bag tag #s on the BP... Wonder why that stopped?)

It's slowly changing with introduction of new technologies (like automated DL scanners) but in most cases TSA don't even know that TSA has scanned a boarding pass. Most of the desko scanners are decentralized barcode validators more than anything else. I suspect there may be Privacy Act concerns about storing/retaining/sharing that data that the TSA doesn't feel would be worth dealing with.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

Not exactly sure what he was expecting a 1K phone agent to do

jsloan

Not as far as I know. In fact, I don't think the scanners are even networked. They certainly don't validate the flight status -- you can use a boarding pass for a flight that you've already changed to get through TSA.

TomMM

If that's the case how is it that TSA can scan my passport in lieu of BP and let me through the security checkpoint?