jupper

It seems a lot of country's embassies in Central/South America are having difficulties in getting good information to share with their citizens in the complex communication mine-field of local and central governments, airports and airlines. But I'm glad the USA DR's embassy is getting that info out. I'm getting messages similar to STEP from Dutch embassies across the continent, well, I think you're better off buying a lotto ticket - except for the one in BsAs, they actually posted useful flight information.

jamesinclair

Shame on United for not doing the bare minimum, yet again. Good on Jetblue for going the extra mile.

QBK

I'm generally pretty aggressively level-headed w/rt criticizing United. They're a business, they're not required to be nice, etc etc. I value my United status, but I have no illusion that it's anything but transactional for them or for me.

I said that to emphasize the following comment: Wow, it looks like United is really acting like a bad actor here. At this point it's not about profits or business models; it's about national solidarity, and getting Americans home before it's too late. This is not in any sense business as usual, and every nation around the world is relying on its own airlines to do that emergency job. United is not short of airplanes, crew, or anything but money -- and like every other airline, they're asking (not unreasonably) for financial help from the US government. So this would be an awfully good time to step up and show willingness to help US residents get home. If freakin' Sun Country and Frontier can operate flights to get Americans home from the D.R., United should too. Now, maybe all the airlines agreed that there's too much capacity and they should divvy up the work (United does this country, JetBlue does that one). In which case United needs to proactively get passengers rebooked!

I'm completely open to learning that there's more to this than my naive perception... but right now I'm genuinely disappointed and ashamed of "my" airline.

Xyzzy

This is an example of an airline ding the right thing:

Quote:

Sunwing offers available seats on repatriation flights to stranded Canadians for free

catocony

United has kept their European routes going all week, without a whole lot of passengers. How many flights did they have to the entire DR per day?

Last Wednesday I strongly encouraged my friends traveling outside the US to bail on what they were doing and get back on Thursday. With the European "ban" last Friday night, it didn't really matter where you were, the airports and airlines were going to be totally screwed. Most were already doing so, but one or two decided to stick it out, and they're now in the OPs position. Get creative, since I can't think of too many routes that are completely shut down.

Not to blame the OP here, but this isn't the time for anyone to keep a vacation going. You rolled the dice on things not getting bad, and they've gotten really bad. Do what you have to do to get back now, and save the blaming for after you're back home.

ErikStratton

I landed at JFK. On the train home now. Kudos to Jet Blue for doing the right thing for its customers. And for making available at a fair price the extra seats.

But now here’s something that’s unfortunate. There were actually some unsold/empty seats on the flight back! I was in row 3 and had an empty middle seat next to me, with 3 more middle seats empty in front of me. (Not sure about behind me? People were actually very good about staying in their seats and not strolling around).

Think about it for a minute. With a simple message from United along the lines of “Unfortunately we are not in a position to provide return travel from the Dominican Republic. However the following airlines will be providing flights in the next (1-2-3-4.) days. Please contact them directly to book return travel”.

They could have sent this in a text /email/VM to all the folks they stranded there. Or just post it on their website. But they didn’t. And I’m sure some people have been left behind who could have been sitting next to me today.

Xyzzy

Good idea, but UA is swamped and has LOTS of destinations each of which has different issues. At times like these you need to think and act for yourself. Thankfully, yu did.

jsloan

I mean, while this is undoubtedly true, let's not overlook the fact that this was an absolute disaster by UA. Assuming the profile is correct, OP is a 1K and still got absolutely no help from UA -- who, to add insult to injury, will presumably refuse even to refund the portion of the fare that wasn't flown.

tcdtcd

Seems like UA dropped the ball here. Bad on them. But you also need to take some responsibility here as this was a “roll the dice” time to take a Dom Rep vacation.

Imstevek

For an organization that will likely be asking for an eleven figure bailout after this crisis, United MUST do better. What a fiasco.

Xyzzy

UA canceled the flight. UA needs to at the bare minimum make the residual value of the ticket available fr future use.

jsloan

Yes, that's what they'll do. But that's not a refund. It's hard for me to get excited about buying a UA flight right now. I think I'd prefer cash... especially if UA had just stranded me in the Caribbean.

UAL250

Glad to hear you are back home safe!

ErikStratton

Home now. I’ll deal with asking United for a refund next week. But just to be clear they haven’t yet refused to refund the return flight portion. (That would have involved them actually communicating with me. And they haven’t).

I agree. Now, and for the foreseeable future, it’s not the time to take an overseas vacation. But my trip wasn’t a vacation. Family issues there.

But in normal times, it is a great place to vacation.

ani90

Problem was not of UAs making and one has to admit these circumstances are extraordinary. It is a bit harsh to lay blame on airlines in this difficult time.