brp1264

Frequent travelers know that the 3 hour limit does not apply to connecting flights, only departing flights.

yul36

So she's famous, good for her. But why crap all over her for being so. Lots of people take to social media when things don't go well. Why are we much more forgiving of them. She missed her flight was pissed and ranted. I am sure many of those commenting would have done exactly the same thing had they been in her position. As others on the thread have noted. There are really not enough facts to figure what really transpired. So I will cut her some slack. Besides how many times have you heard run there are empty seats you will make it no problem..

pruss2ny

not a helpful comment perhaps, but in my experience, if you fly UA enough, you will eventually get shut out from an IAH GA...tight connection, you will get to the gate, see the open jetway, and be told "no."

ExplorerWannabe

I had an open mind when I first heard about her case but the more I read her account of what happened, the less sympathetic I became. Perhaps I misread but from I gather, she was late to the gate (may be her fault or not) and she was informed there was no way her carry-on would fit under the seat or in the overhead (CRJ-200? ERJ-145? Full flight?). Her proposed solution was to put her carry-on in her reserved first class seat and then be given any seat in economy? I don't follow that one and am not clear how Bialik made it into Mensa with that kind of thinking.

Haven't heard the FA/GA side of the story and probably never will but based on the timeline Bialik presented, I'd guess the F seat she references was already given away to an upgrade and any available Y seats disappeared while she was arguing with the GA. As is typical with Hollywood/media types, when Bialik didn't get what she wanted, she then resorted to public outrage via Twitter and accusations "she hates me" or "she hates my show". Again, that last is speculation unsupported by evidence.

No matter what, I really don't care. Bialik clearly was able to get on with her life.

spin88

I am surprised it took so long to point out these immutable truths. UA does this all the time. The focus is on getting an artificial departure time, and even when people are running to get flights, UA makes no effort to hold seats, they just off load the person's seat. While it might not matter as much to coach passengers, they do it to Elites and Paid F as well. UA used to not due this, but it started in 2012, and trying to meet a D0 stat has not helped.

We all know what happened, the GA gave away her F seat, and when she showed up, they came up with some line ("bag will not fit" ) to cover up for having given away her seat. YMMV.

When you run a business this way, don't be so surprised when someone with 31M instagram followers (figure from the Murdoch Post, so its probably fake) goes after you.

Aussienarelle

I am confused. On my last flight they wanted to see my BP for my next flight and it needed to be within 3 hours (and they did see my original BP). So I can push back and say I am connecting and therefore allowed more than three hours before departure of my next flight. News to me, and great news to me!

iluv2fly

It's United.
It's IAH.
I'm with Amy Farrah Fowler on this one.

Often1

Yes, but she is neither.

Self-important and self-absorbed nobody unfortunately shows up late for her flight and has a bag which will need to be checked. Likely her seat was filled somewhere between T-15 and whenever she showed up and once that was done, W&B would need to be recalculated if a bag is checked.

Short connections are a great thing for people with mission critical commitments on both sides of a journey. But, they come with risks. I hate them, but I use them when necessary.

BTW - The upgrade could just as easily have been an F passenger from some prior misconnect, so the frothing at the mouth about CPU's is just frothing.

BobOscar

Weight& balance would need to be recalculated because of a bag? Really?

TerryK

DYKWIA at its finest. Late inbound causes passengers to miss connection happens daily to hundreds. I personally experienced dozens over the years.

I do link Big Bang Theory, and its cast, and had been following it since Season 1.

clubord

LarryJ

Yes.

On mainline we'll get an ACARS message invalidating the previous Final Weights then a revised Final Weights message will follow. A single extra bag won't usually require us to do new takeoff performance and trim setting (our numbers are rounded up to the next 100#) but sometimes it does.

On Express they type the bag and passenger counts into ACARS and it returns their takeoff performance and trim setting. They would have to do that again with the extra bag.

In either case, it is not a problem and only takes a minute or two. It's not a reason to deny someone from boarding. At mainline we can do it during taxi out (we often pushback before receiving final numbers, anyway). I think all of the Express carriers will do it at the gate.

enviroian

That's where I saw this girls face before....on a poster in the waiting room of the Seinfeld episode where George and Jerry are waiting to pitch their show idea to the NBC execs.

jsloan

W&B has to be recalculated for the final passenger count, too, so that's not the issue, especially if, as reported, other passengers from her connecting flight were allowed on. I think it's more likely that the gate agent didn't want to call the baggage handler back up to the jetway to pick up another bag.

I have been on flights where they've had cabin bags strapped into seats. It wasn't as crazy an idea as it sounds. Well -- the idea that her F seat was still available on IAH-LAX is crazy. The idea that there was some other Y seat into which a bag could have been placed isn't.

brp1264

You probably had an agent that misunderstood a new memo and denied you by mistake. They are changing the rules next month, but either way with the current or future rules, you should have been let in.

The current access rules as per their website:They are changing their rules on March 22 to: