pushmyredbutton

IMO it would turn into regret if UA elected to fly without performing the needed maintenance when something likely malfunctioned.
How, after 900,000 miles, you never experienced this type of anomaly, is beyond lucky on your part.

laxmillenial

No one's forcing you to fly United If it's such a PIA then maybe you should've booked your daughter's flight elsewhere. It seems you have already known United is such a PIA based on your posting and 900k flying history.

Yes, there are delays. Do we want to be? No. Are they inconvenient, yes. But they happen. And some things are out of the airlines control (and some things aren't). While we get your sarcasm, stick to the facts. Unless you have proof that United "forgot to do that darn aircraft maintenance" don't say it.

There are good and bad moments for every airline. Sure, there's a negative thread, but there's also a positive thread. When you come to Flyertalk, post facts, give us information as to what happened, not some sarcastic tirade about how this airline sucks. Let us come to that decision based on your experience. We're here to provide feedback and give tips, for example as to how to minimize that delay. With you being an experienced traveler, why not reach out onto the forum during your daughter's delay to see what other option she had to reach her destination in a more timely fashion.

jjmoore

HAHA!!

My delay rate this year due to MX is around 5% .... 5 of my 100 actual flights have been delayed (average of 90 minutes) due to mx. I think that's not a bad rate given my experience in years past with UA. Gotta roll with the punches, folks. Things happen.... and I must say that my rates with US Air were more in the 10% range before they joined American. Doesn't matter who you fly... you will experience similar issues across the board... mx, wx, incompetence of gate agents, flight crews, etc. etc. etc........

ifitaintcomeoutadabay

Never experienced such an anomaly? On the contrary, it's the reason I was motivated to bring this incident up. It happens all the time. Such things are just part of the frictions of trying to squeeze every last penny out of every last passenger mile. Since the carriers are generally overbooked, who cares? Only the passengers.

It is evidently beyond the capacity of UA, the biggest airline in the world, to avoid being consistently rated at the very bottom of the barrel of major carriers. My point is they do nothing to improve because they really don't have to. They dominate traffic in SF, Houston, and Newark; and to a lesser but still important extent in Chi and Denver. Sometimes there really isn't much choice. UA is about sheer scale, not quality. But {as} you point out that no one forces me (or anyone else for that matter) to book United. What relevance does that comment have? Hint: none. Your other helpful idea was about looking for alternative flights in the middle of the night out of Newark bound for Spain. Of course I and many of the other hundreds of people actually stranded searched for alternatives on the off chance something might pop up. Guess what? There was nothing. So what exactly is the 'positive thread' you get from year after year of deteriorating service? shrinking seats and legroom? fewer employees per x number of passengers?

Quokka

Sitting on UA862 HKG-SFO 773, delay up to 105 minutes so far including around 10 minutes in the dark as power was cut in an attempt to "reset a computer". Didn't work. Guess they'll try reinstalling Windows next :-)

IAH-OIL-TRASH

OK - so you have all these bad experiences w/ United and you still book it? I'm sure Delta and American don't have flight cancellations that result in "hundreds of people actually stranded searching for alternatives". Seems like your international flying experiences are pretty limited if this is something to get hysterical over.

I've been pretty lucky w/United since the legitimately horrible summer/fall of 2012. Had one late departure 2014 ex-Europe that resulted in overnght at EWR because of missed connection. A bit frustrating, but not end of the world.

IWontRegretThis

On this flight as well. At 2:20 delay now, they are pushing us back to see if they can get "reception" or something for some communications system. I'm betting we get canceled out IMHO.

warrenw

UA app is still showing 2:30 but it's currently 3:45 there, what ended up happening? Isn't the crew going to time out if it takes much longer?

IWontRegretThis

We pulled out into a hard stand, I think they fixed the problem as they played the safety video, and I can see the push back agents on the tarmac, but as of 345 still no movement and the right engine at least has not been started yet. This is gonna give me a super tight connection in SFO, if we can get moving in the next 15 min. Crew said around 2pm they had 3hrs till timeout, so coming close on that as well.

Crew in J has been handling this really well, but the lack of communication from the pilot and UA (app still shows 230 as you said) does not leave me happy. Will be 3/4 last UA trips for me in last month with serious delays with 2 of them requiring me to be rerouted on other airlines.

warrenw

Eesh, hope you guys get out soon! Good luck on the connection!

IWontRegretThis

Looks like we are finally leaving, captain said we are just waiting for the aircraft behind us to move and we are good to go. So all in all, pretty much a 4hr delay, glad I picked the 5hr connection time option.

Aussienarelle

My delay /cancellation rate is around 50%, and after missing my brothers wedding as the flight to Sydney was diverted to Brisbane and then the crew timed out, and my trip to Egypt was delayed by 28 hours so needed to forgo the Red Ses as i really wanted to see Alexandria, I now allow an extra day for all international flights when I have a need to be somewhere for a set time.

However, at all times I think if the captain feels it is not safe to fly, or the crew is going to time out which is also a safety issue I just accept it will be what it will be. For my most recent 23.30 hour delay LHR-SFO I met my sister for dinner in London. Always an upside in any situation. My friends and family will not fly on the same flights as me due to the high cancellatiin/delay rate - I think I get the safest flying experience possible. All a matter of perspective.

jjmoore

I think 50% cancellation rate is a stroke of terrible luck vs. an actual perspective of the UA operations. I offer my condolences for your streak of stationary flights, and know where you're coming from, as in years past, I have had streaks of months where I was in the 50% range... .but would usually follow that up with a period of months where I had no issues at all.

cheltzel

Out of curiosity, I went to the US DOT airline delays website to compare the US3 carriers. Since it is DOT it relates to only domestic flights so it does not directly address the discussion in this thread of international flights. But I thought it could be helpful as there is repeated comparison of UA to other US based carriers, particularly in the areas of maintenance and general reliability.

For the curious, there is a link for the information source. I copied and pasted the data into Excel and did a percentage calculation of the number of delayed flights (no definition is published on the DOT web page) versus all flights. The period is January 1, 2017 through November 1, 2017. It puts UA in the middle. I am not trying to defend UA here. I have suffered through my share of UA's horrendous handling of IRROPS. Just presenting the data.

https://www.transtats.bts.gov/ONTIME/Airline.aspx

FlyfromDenver

Fortunately, I went to the extra day thing, too. Cancelled flight out of BRU earlier in the month but United did help me out by getting me to the business location where I needed to end up even though only a seat in First was all there was. Their comp was fine and we'll see if I get the EU comp. Nice touch that at the airport hotel, the voucher covered wine, too. Bought a mug at Starbucks with the lunch voucher I didn't use the day we cancelled.

Last full cancel I remember was a flight from LHR something like 8 years ago. Loads of delays but nothing all that notable.