zombietooth

During my last IRROPS, the pilots were delayed for 2 hours (we were told, due to mandatory rest requirements), so I was going to miss my connecting flight to the West Coast. I immediately got on the phone, dialing the 1K number, so I was presumably routed to an experienced agent, and was told that I needed to wait in the line to get rebooked. The line was moving slow and it took 1.5 hours to get rebooked. I checked the app multiple times while I was waiting and there was no back-up booking done by the system. This is the first time that I've experienced something like that being a 1K, and in paid F. I don't think they protect 1Ks anymore.

denver19

Ya, I think you have hit on the answer. I fly OGG (Maui) / mainland all the time. A flight to SFO or LAX with a late connection is risky. I don't do it anymore due to getting stranded on the west coast for the night. A nonstop eastbound, to your destination, is the answer. It's easy to make an outer island hop over to HNL on the front end.

PTahCha

Assuming these were the flights on Friday, 24 March:

The flight from KOA was recorded to arrive at 10:36 at the gate.

The scheduled SFO-EWR flight was scheduled to depart at 10:45, which means that OP was not at the gate 15 minutes prior the flight. This give the GA the right to give away OP's seats.

What I would have done is the following:

1) If the connection is going to be close or nearly impossible, and knowing there is a flight right after, work with KOA staff to get rebooked, even if already boarded.

2) Self help with United app, either during inflight or upon landing

3) Use remote assistance, such as facetiming the remote agent or call the reservation line. They can now issue hotel and meal vouchers remotely.

3a) Use agents at United Club, if access is available.

4) If there is a subsequent flight, go to that gate and get on the standby list, if same day change is not possible.

5) As last resort, get in the (long) line at the rebooking desk.

During all of this, research on what options are available and present to the agent as solutions.

There is no abandonment here. OP got rebooked and chose not to use the hotel voucher. OP was inconvenienced, but not a victim.

findark

Why would connecting to a (often 1x daily) HNL flight be any better or safer than connecting elsewhere? OGG-HNL could take a delay and you'd be in the same position with fewer recovery options.

And how you have to interline with HA, who are awful partners with UA.

HNLbasedFlyer

Or, get a hotel and deal with it the next day.

PTahCha

I usually sleep better when I know I have a confirmed flight the next day.

HNLbasedFlyer

This isn’t like they were flying into a small regional airport with a flight or two a day.

They were at SFO - with multiple nonstop options or via LAX, DEN, IAH, or ORD

IAH-OIL-TRASH

10:30 would normally would have been the last boarding for Newark - 6 minutes prior KOA flight being parked. Not clear if GA had authorization to hold the plane for a certain time beyond that. They might have been able to hold a little longer, but "Parked at gate" at 10:36 probably means another 20 minutes beyond that might be required to connect jetway, offload all the affected connecting pax from a widebody (I'm pretty sure all 15 connecting pax were not seated in First). So that would have delayed departure for a half-hour or 45 minutes. If there was a plane waiting for the gate, no delay might have been possible.

Another thing - UA has plenty of wide-body gates at SFO. At that time of night, they start overnight parking of the planes at some of the gates. Seems like UA could park some planes elsewhere to minimize waits for gates in the evening, especially if there are some late night arrivals and connections still to be made.

I've definitely been seated on a LAX-HNL flight that was sitting at the gate for a long period past the departure time where the FAs were seriously close to timing out but the pilots were fine (in terms of hours). Even after we took off, I overheard the FAs arguing/discussing amongst themslves whether or not the calculation of their duty cutoff was correct. Issue of door opening and closing again. Had two safety announcements.

Hilmar Lehnert

United used to be absolutely brutal seemed to have soften up a bit.

1. I had a tight connection (DEN, I think) but I can run fast and made it with maybe 2 minutes to spare. I scan my boarding pass but it beeps and goes red. GA takes a look and he says "oh Mr. X, we didn't think you would make it so we already gave your seat away" . I was Platinum or 1k at the time. Unbelievable.
2. SBA->LAX->BOS. SBA to LAX is late (as usual) but it still seems doable. We are trying to catch the last red eye out of LAX. Unfortunately the SBA flight docks at the very end of Terminal 8 and BOS departs at the very end of Terminal 6. We run but we are maybe 30 seconds late and the door is closed. This one has a happy ending: The six of us frantically wave at the pilots and the copilot rolls down the window (really !) and waves back. Pilot radios in the gate gets re-opened. The GA is miffed but we get on board. It's mindboggling that saving 6 hotel & meal vouchers plus rebooking fees and very disgruntled customers doesn't warrant 90 seconds of overtime.
3. Lady shows up at LAX->MEL just as the gate closes. The GA is still there (basically closed the door in front of the passengers nose). The lady is clearly distressed (it's one heck of flight to miss) but the GA cannot be swayed while the passengers collapses in tears. I don't know the details but the passenger seemed very reasonable and not doing drama for drama's sake. It was really a sad show.

I don't think they have ever waited for me, but I recently was delayed a few times because of late passengers (which is fine with me within reason). Lately I got lot of flight missing delays on BOS->EWR but rebooking (and hotel in one case) was always very smooth and efficient. I was certainly not abandoned. Maybe maintaining 1k through the pandemic helped a bit here.

halls120

Years ago I was flying MLA-LHR-IAD. We were late out of MLA because of an AF1 transit of European air space and even though I made my LHR-IAD flight before the door had closed, my business seat had been given away - and I was 1K at the time. FAs felt bad for me and brought me a J meal and lots of drinks throughout the flight.

IAH-OIL-TRASH

If the FAs didn’t like you, they would have just bring you a lot of J meals nowadays.

gaobest

We can probably also accept that east coast to Hawaii is just not going to be the best connection situation for delays. It’s like flying west coast to Europe with a connection in USA instead of Europe. It can just have risks of missed connections. It’s more that we should assume that a rare missed connection can happen to US so that when we make our connection, we are just happy. Like getting through tsa pre without a problem.

andrewk829

What's the deal with the "sacredness of the plane door closing"? Like once a plane door is closed, it cannot and shall not ever be reopened?

If there are 15 connecting passengers standing in the gate area who will be stranded overnight, and a plane parked at the gate and will not be moving for 20 minutes, and empty seats available for those passengers, why not violate the "sanctity" of the closed door? Reopen the door, let the passengers on board. It's right from a customer service perspective, from a business perspective, from a kindness perspective, from a logical perspective, and it's just the right thing to do.

clubord

I completely agree with the spirit and intention of the gesture, we never want to leave anyone behind. I’ve been flying long enough and have gotten left behind myself, I get it - it stinks.

Understand operationally it is not as simple as just opening the doors and letting more people on.

Adding additional passengers and/or bags after close out causes significant delays by obtaining new “numbers” for weight and balance and aircraft performance. These numbers have been adjusted and tweaked multiple times as passenger boarding commences and are uploaded to our computers just prior to push. Changing any form especially any additions of weight nullifies all these figures.

Not saying it’s impossible to obtain new numbers or rework the takeoff data. It takes time for the information to be amended by the ramp/customer service agents, inputted by load planning, approved by dispatch, then re-uplinked to us in the cockpit where we verify all data is correct, appropriate for the weather conditions and programmed into the FMS computer.

It’s a process.

If you’re up against some constraint (duty times, curfew, weather, etc.) that additional 15 minute delay could be the difference between a flight departing for the night or outright cancelling.

denver19

Ya, that interline with HA is not good.
I prefer to hop to HNL and grab a nonstop because it's usually an earlier flight in the day with possible options if it gets cancelled. And you aren't going to get significant delays inter island to miss your next leg. OGG-HNL isn't going to take a delay because there are many, many flights of that route every day. You'll be covered.
If you fly to SFO from Maui, and land at 5pm with on flight left on to, say, Denver at 6:30 delays on the first flight means you get to spend the night in SFO.