sincx

Has anyone else noticed a lack of weather waivers for SFO starting this year? Last year UA was much more proactive about weather waivers in SFO. But a few weeks ago there was an atmospheric river storm, predicted days in advance, that caused 5+ hour delays in and out of SFO with multiple diversions and cancelled flights, yet there was no waiver.

There's another storm forecast for tomorrow and Saturday. There's a high wind watch, with forecast winds from the south at 20+ knots, gusting to 30+ knots. (For those who don't know, south winds at SFO forces traffic to land and takeoff on the 19s, dropping the arrival rate from 60 to 25 at best, and is the main cause of those 5 hour delays.) I have a flight I'd love to be able to change ahead of time, but once again there's no weather waiver.

What gives?

Kacee

It's odd. They were extremely generous with the waivers when the rains first started this year.

DELee

Perhaps frozen out either at Willis Tower or in Des Plaines?

SFO gotta wait its turn after ORD and EWR?

It never rains in California?

David

sincx

Waiver's now up!

Unfortunately, I still couldn't change my ticket, because apparently the weather waivers work like SDC in that you can change from a code share to UA metal, but not to another codeahare. boo.

silverforumsurf

daisyatl

I changed my flight. I was booked on the red eye tonight to EWR. I can handle a delay but a delay in a red eye seems like it would be worse than a regular delay. I also had been thinking of doing a SDC so it worked out well

sincx

I tried 3 times. Apparently it's just as strict as the SDC rules regarding codeshares. The agents were quite flexible otherwise, since the flight I wanted to change technically falls out of the waiver period (it's tomorrow) and they were still prepared to change it for free if it's all UA operated, so I don't think I happened to get 3 unreasonable agents in a row. (And yes, I did ask that, if the weather waiver officially got extended to tomorrow, can I change to another codeshare, and the answer was still no, UA metal only.)

By the way, now that a waiver has been issued, can a mod change the thread title?

WineCountryUA

schnitzer

I just tried to change to from all UA metal to some code share (Air Canada) got shut down.

DELee

Ask and ye shall receive: Waiver now extended through February 2, 2019:



David

cheme24

I was flying PIT-SFO yesterday and my flight was delayed by approximately 2.5 hours due to bad weather in SFO. Then, when we got close to SFO we could not get permission to land, so the flight was diverted to SJC. We spent about an hour and a half there getting refueled and not really knowing what the situation was. Ground crew came on the plane to talk to the pilots, and thats when several passengers went to the front to try and plead with them to let them out at SJC, but this was a no go because we did not have a gate. Eventually we took off again and landed in SFO about 5 hours after the original scheduled arrival time. Obviously this was a huge inconvenience to everyone, but it was supposedly caused by bad weather. Should I expect some sort of compensation from United? Should I ask them? Thank you for your help.

threeoh

Sounds like it was weather, not just supposedly weather. You should not expect any compensation for a weather delay on any U.S. carrier, even a 5-hour one and even with a diversion. It was a big inconvenience but the inconvenience was caused by the weather, not by UA. Frustrating to sit in SJC but probably a lot of flights diverted and they can't handle all of their normal flights plus a lot of diversions with the number of gates and staff they have.

In short: you can ask, but it is not likely.

WineCountryUA

There were clearly weather issues at SFO on 2 Feb 2019 -- periods of heavy rain and/or high winds -- enough so there was a Travel Waiver - San Francisco Weather 1-2 Feb 2019

The divert to SJC is a clear indication of the weather issues (the heavy rain/winds were spotty, so even though they are close to SFO, SJC conditions may have not been as bad at the moment).
As far as compensation, USA airlines generally do not provide compensation for things outside their control, like weather.

altbg

It was really bad in SFO last night. They were landing on 10L - at least they attempted to. While I was listening to ATC four aircraft in a row initiated a go-around above 2000 ft. since visibility was so bad. One of them was UA560 from IAD which immediately diverted to SJC before even attempting another landing. After two hours on the ground they finally made it to SFO. Lots of planes were circling around SFO so I have a feeling there were plenty more diversions.

findark

Flow control got overwhelmed and a lot of flights had to divert. I wasn't watching live but if the winds swiveled so far east that they had to land on 10L that would absolutely do it. Neither of the 10s have an ILS approach so if 19L (the normal inclement-weather ILS approach) is out of commission things get bad really fast for arriving aircraft.