s0ssos

I've had a similar issue where I called because my flight was delayed and I was afraid i was going to miss my connection, and the agent is saying it is on-time and there is nothing to do (or can be done).
You may say they have no mal intent, but if someone is just flat-out wrong why is that not "lying"?

per Webster: Lying: marked by or containing untrue statements

threeoh

That's the definition of the adjective "lying". "Lying" as used in the thread title is the present participle of the verb "to lie", which your source Webster defines as "to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive".

The question isn't whether the agent had mal intent; the question is whether the agent was attempting to deceive the OP by stating something false. And it sounds like just everyone here agrees that didn't happen; it was a series of three misinformed, mistaken, lazy, or incompetent agents.

1P

I'm not talking about outstations. This happened at Toronto. Hundreds of pax were stranded late at night with no one around to help them (their plane had eventually returned to the gate well over an hour after the departure time of the last flight of the day). Complete chaos, and dereliction of responsibility by the airline.

fumje

To UA, Canada is an outstation.

I agree there should be some contingency planning, though.

BThumme

This is a big fear I have when flying - when things are going "wrong", and you have a backup/alternative, but can't get help. While everyone on here wants to debate if UA was lying or not, the fact is that the plane sat before taking off, and the UA system didn't reflect the new arrival time until much later, causing not only OP to misconnect, but also now have to struggle with rebooking as AC is saying no Y available and no one is going to rebook him in J.

As a frequent flyer, it's frustrating being delayed and systems not showing it - this happens a lot, or whenever (this isn't just UA) airlines play the rolling delay game. I love seeing our departure time is 5 minutes from now and not a single person has boarded...let's delay it another 10 minutes (after the new "Departure" time). I've called before to try and get help but if the delay is only showing 15 minutes (don't mind that no one has boarded), UA won't budge until it's at the very least a posted 1hr delay.

I don't expect a phone agent to just blindly assume that someone is saying their flight is delayed and believe them. But if its a 8am flight, and it's now 9am, and the flight doesn't say "in flight", I would give OP the benefit of the doubt since my company's system can't operate in real-tme and help him out.

1P

This was on Air Canada (UA codeshare), for whom, one assumes, Toronto is far from being an outstation....