Early Flight Departure?
 

Has anybody ever had a United or United Express connecting flight depart early? I was flying ORD-SAT-DEN-COS on Sunday with three hours in Denver so I could actually see people for dinner. The ORD-SAT flight arrived at 4:44 P.M. The SAT-DEN flight departed at 4:47 P.M. which was :08 minutes early. Waiting for the carryon bags and an agent to appear caused me to miss the connection and ensuing dinner. UA had to send me over to AA. This cost them more money than I think they wanted to spend. The agent never checked that somebody was actually connecting. I never saw my friends for dinner.

I contacted PW (Customer Relations) today, and they are taking care of getting the miles credited, etc..... I was floored that a trip could go early without a passenger, especially a 1K.

A few years ago 4 1K's were stranded in HKG as our connecting flight left to SIN about 5 minutes before the scheduled departure. Our flight from SFO was late arriving into HKG. The four of us were put on CX in Business the next morning. We actually saw the plane pushing back as we were pulling into the gate at HKG.

On another note I have noticed they leave early in SIN and NRT too between 10-15 minutes!

I arrived at HKG check-in yesterday and when I got my boarding pass, the agent crossed off the departure time on the stub part and began to write another time. Great, I thought, the plane is going to depart late. To my astonishment, she wrote a time that was 10 minutes earlier! And wehn I got to the airport, by golly all the signs had 12:35 instead of 12:45.

As to your last part - 1K, schm1K. It doesn't matter anymore. They do this to us lowly GS' too.

I am sure that SAT is not used to having many people connect through it...

Um, is there a typeo there? Or did you really book a 11minute connection that was ex-ORD? Cause well if you really did book a 11 minute connection I really can't feel too sorry for you, especially ex-ORD.

No typo there at all. Originally the connection was :51 minutes. We were late. In SAT the gates are next to each other, and they use 3 of them.

I was on this flight as well and very surprised to see a departure time earlier than the scheduled time. Is this a normal occurrence in HKG? I still loved our arriving so early at ORD!

All the time

Sort of... remember doors close at -10 so they should have closed at 4:45

Actually you don't know if UA lost money on this deal. For example... what if the SAT-DEN leg (that you missed) had a handfull of full Y flyers who were connecting to intl flights? (granted this is a stretch, but not impossible).

IIRC GA's have quite a bit of explaining to do if a flight leaves the gate late (and waiting for 1 passenger is not considered too high on the list of excuses)/

With the doors closing 10 minutes before departure, you probably would have still missed the connection. Without a lot of researching, for all they knew you could have been in the back of the arriving aircraft and needing 10-15 minutes to deplane.

But there does seems to be steady stream of reported instances of early departures.

Every UA flight I have been on from NRT has always posted on the airport screens leaving 15 minutes earlier than the scheduled time. Most of the time I assume this to make sure the passengers are on board before the door closes.

For the benefit of the rest of the class, can you point to the GS who considers himself lowly? :)