HoyaSFOIAD

Well this is a new one. Waiting to board flight 1893 IAD-SFO. Supposed to be departing at 8:39, but there’s little chance of that happening. Apparently the plane was used as a professional sports charter right before our flight and the plane was trashed according to the gate agents. They didn’t say the teams name but the flight went from Greenbriar to CLE as flight 2535 and then came here to IAD as flight 2553. There’s a certain NFL team that plays in Cleveland that was wrapping early training camp at the Greenbriar. I’m sure the airline would rather have the charter biz and let this event pass, but it really shows poorly on the certain NFL team that plays in CLE…

Jeff767

NFL teams I dealt with were usually well behaved. Baseball teams on the other hand were animals. After doing a few baseball charters I never watched baseball again. Not even the World Series. The teams cut checks for the damage but seemed unable or unwilling to discipline the players. Calling them pigs would be a disservice to swine.

HoyaSFOIAD

Well, we’re still here on the ground because of it. The menu was left in a lot of the seats confirming it was the Browns. Pilot has apologized multiple times saying it was the most disgusting he’s seen a plane in his career.

rjburns

How did the plane get from CLE to IAD as flight 2553 without being cleaned?

StevenSeagalFan

Every sports charter I worked whether it be college, amateur or pro was always trashed when it landed.

eng3

Just curious, what does "trashed" actually mean in these cases? Seems like a wide range of possiblities.
lots of garbage? spilled drinks? seat cushions and life jackets pulled out? bodily fluids in places they arent normally found? wall panels detached? holes in windows? escape slide deployed? engine missing?

rhwbullhead

I too am curious with what "trashed means."

Also, how much do teams pay for these charters? They should be more respectful of the plane, but is UA getting more income for these than if you added together all the fares of a regular flight?

narvik

Agreed. This is all too ambiguous to have any idea what really is going on.
At the same time of this thread, we have one where the cleaners of United planes are criticized for not doing their job.
Would be good to get an idea of what the plane ACTUALLY looked like.
But I guess we'll never know...

WineCountryUA

If you have info about UA professionals sports charters, I'm sure the community would be interested.

If you want to "trash" professional athletes / teams, this is not the forum for that. Have removed a number posts to us back on the UA topic.

WineCountryUA
UA coModerator

rhwbullhead

I tried to Google how much a plane character costs on United. This page came up

​​​​​​https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly...ters/faqs.html

One of the FAQs says you don't have to fill the whole plane but you pay for cost of whole plane. I guess we might have figured that's what a charter flight is. I was surprised by this:

Charter customers are often required to pay for the cost of returning an aircraft to its origin after the charter flight, which significantly increases the cost of operation.

Obe of the other FAQs said something about having to book months in advance usually. I'm starting to think this is a UA problem. If the flights are often trashed as someone said earlier, UA should have factored In a deep clean was necessary before having the plane go immediately into service after the flight.

UA I assume prices these flights enough that they probably make more than regular flight? I'm just guessing bc most flights aren't gonna be full (well maybe nowadays they are) but charters are paying for whole plane and for price to return plane to origin.
Edit:
I think FTers would be disappointed that these flights generate no mile accruals according to the FAQ.

Kacee

Good point. Another manifestation of UA scheduling the fleet past reasonable capacity, leaving insufficient margin.

moondog

It appears that it departed about 30 minutes late, That doesn't strike me as a traumatic event.
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HoyaSFOIAD

Never anywhere did I say it was a traumatic event lol. Where did you get that? Said it was a “new” experience for me. While I didn’t get to see what “trashed” looked like for myself, apparently there was tons of garbage, spilled food and drink everywhere, etc. Crew noted that a bit of that is not uncommon, but the extent of this instance was. Just reporting this as another interesting occurrence in the travels of a weekly transcon flier. Why it wasn’t cleaned in CLE I have no idea.

LHCVG

Charter customers are often required to pay for the cost of returning an aircraft to its origin after the charter flight, which significantly increases the cost of operation.

Reading this, I'm curious if there is any language (in the actual contracts) about a potential discount if UA is able to sell revenue leg(s) instead of deadheading more or legs for positioning. Or do they just charge regardless, and then if they are able to run a revenue leg(s), they just keep the money, even if the charter customer already covered UA's deadheading costs?

DEN

I’m guessing this is similar to “toddlers eating spaghetti” . No real damage, just a huge mess. Just a guess though.

DEN