United Airlines FTL
 

*General bitching post about a terrible airline...*

So today my mom was supposed to fly to Pittsburgh to visit my grandma (she's had health issues recently and is 81 years old). We live in the Cities, so she's flying from Minneapolis to Chicago at 4:50 Central and arriving at approx. 6:10 PM. Connecting in O'Hare to go to Pittsburgh at like 7:05 or something.

She is told at the American Airlines ticket counter (she's flying AA to O'Hare and United between CHI and PIT both ways, then NWA back to Minneapolis) to go to a United gate to get her boarding pass for the connector. There, they tell her that her flight has been cancelled because they don't have A F*CKING CREW IN CHICAGO FOR THE FLIGHT. That's right, they don't have a pilot, or enough flight attendants, or whatever, in their HUB CITY. Retarded, but OK, how do we fix this? My mom calls us from the gate and says they booked her for a flight at 9 PM tonight. Sucks, but at least she's going.

We get some dumb recorded phone call from United at about 4:30 or 4:40 saying she's had her 7 PM flight cancelled and that she's been rebooked to leave Chicago at 9 AM TOMORROW. WTF?!?!?! She's ON THE PLANE and NOW we get a call about a cancellation?

So after my dad gets on the phone with United Customer "Service", we apparently have a free hotel for the night, but my mom's traveling alone and is inexperienced, plus we don't know if she even knows she's staying in Chicago tonight. All this because UNITED AIRLINES DOES NOT HAVE A CREW IN ITS HEADQUARTER CITY.

[censored] United Airlines. They should put her ass in a first class, fake-leather seat, at the MINIMUM. I love flying, but I hate that in this industry, its so acceptable for companies to piss on their customers like that.

/rant

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

Yeah, they managed to tack an extra six hours on to my 24 hour flight a couple weeks ago. I was pretty far past polite at that stage.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

[ QUOTE ]

We get some dumb recorded phone call from United at about 4:30 or 4:40 saying she's had her 7 PM flight cancelled and that she's been rebooked to leave Chicago at 9 AM TOMORROW. WTF?!?!?! She's ON THE PLANE and NOW we get a call about a cancellation?

[/ QUOTE ]

Since this thread will obviously become filled with tales of airline woe, I'll start by saying, with sympathy, that at least your family got a call.

I flew AirTran from MKE to ATL two Saturdays ago with my wife and eight month old baby. ATL to MKE was perfectly fine and I generally have good experiences with AirTran. Anyway, this flight was scheduled for 10:50am.

I went online Friday night to check-in and print our boarding passes only to find out that the flight had been pushed up to 6:30am. W. T. F. I never received a phone call (they have my cell), never received an e-mail.

I called the airline to change the flight and the reservation agent, upon listening to my gripe, said that her department is not responsible for the change, and essentially offered no apologies. She said there was a 7:00am flight with a connection, but I told her that sucked, too.

After prodding for several minutes, she finally offered me an 11:00am direct flight. Well, thanks! Thanks for not volunteering that information earlier! I mean, I know the chances were low that I would accept a flight a whopping 10 minutes later than my original one, so it was nice that you thought of it.

I imagine that the scene at check-in that morning was horrible. I'm sure there were a lot of people who didn't check-in early and got to the airport only to find out the flight had already left.

I called them last week to complain and did get some vouchers for future travel, so that's fine. But [censored].

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

United is [censored] terrible. I had to stay at a hotel in Pittsburgh when I was flying into CLEVELAND.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

[ QUOTE ]
she's flying AA to O'Hare and United between CHI and PIT both ways, then NWA back to Minneapolis

[/ QUOTE ]

is your mom a terrorist?

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

I always hear horror stories about United, but I end up flying it a lot between SAC and Boston/Providence and haven't had any real problems. Last week flying back to SAC was the first time anything odd came up, but it was due to weather.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

[ QUOTE ]
I always hear horror stories about United, but I end up flying it a lot between SAC and Boston/Providence and haven't had any real problems. Last week flying back to SAC was the first time anything odd came up, but it was due to weather.

[/ QUOTE ]

United is a pretty good airline, the problem is that Chicago is the worst city ever to fly through so since it's United's hub most of the [censored] up flights through there are United's. Don't fly through Chicago.

-ChipsAhoya

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

I've also gone through Chicago a bunch, and have generally had good luck with that, too. I guess I'm just lucky.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

Edge,

Have you talked to her since she's landed? There's a 9:07p flight ORD->PIT. Maybe she just misunderstood the gate person, but it's definitely possible that she the default system rebooked her for 9a tomorrow after the cancellation, but when she talked to the gate they were able to put her on the flight tonight.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

Avoid Chicago like the plague, especially this summer. My aunt made it to Ireland 2 days late for our family vacation. Her flight was on AA from Charlotte to Chicago to Dublin. When the first leg (Charlotte to Chicago) was late, they told her they couldn't rebook her for 2 freaking days. This used to be unheard of but supposedly is becoming standard this summer.

Most of the major airlines pretty much have standard running delays of a couple hours on all flights going through Chicago right now. But you won't find out until a couple hours before the flight. Also they've figured out how to game the system so the flights don't count against their ontime record. Lovely.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

I thought they had built a plane that went faster than light. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

Every airline sucks. I had a 9 hour 2 legger turn into a 21 hour absurdity because Continental decides to schedule flights when they have no crew as well. 3/4 of my continental flights were delayed by over 2 hours this summer. 4/4 delta were at least an hour late, and my 2 southwest flights were actually cancelled and I was put on different flights. US Airways has been decent, being on time about 50% of the time.

Oh, I actually had good luck with JetBlue. I know there are horror stories with them, but I've been running good.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

All the airlines are playing the crew availability game and every time they blame it on weather regardless of how big or small a role it played in the situation. When they blame it on weather or ATC they don't have to reimburse you, help you out with a hotel or take any action other than schedule on some subsequent flight.

The sick part is how often this is happening in major hub cities like Chicago and Dallas. If it's some small regional airport like say, Knoxville, Tennessee or something it's understandable but the frequency this is happening where they should have the greatest number of flight crew available is ridiculous. The airlines are deliberately running everything with zero margin and once the slightest thing goes wrong it cascades into widespread failures.

Then they pull stunts like on my last trip. They hustle onto the plane - "hurry up, hurry up so we can leave on time". Then we sit. Twenty minutes after we should have pushed back they get around to telling us that they are waiting on a particular crew member that is "on their way". We wound up being over an hour late because they can't get their act together on crew scheduling.

It's little gems like this that turned my last jaunt into a 49.5 hour marathon including a lovely overnight stay in Terminal D at DFW.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

[ QUOTE ]
Edge,

Have you talked to her since she's landed? There's a 9:07p flight ORD->PIT. Maybe she just misunderstood the gate person, but it's definitely possible that she the default system rebooked her for 9a tomorrow after the cancellation, but when she talked to the gate they were able to put her on the flight tonight.

[/ QUOTE ]

El D,

UPDATE:

She got on the 9:07 from O'Hare to Pittsburgh. When she landed in Chicago she found out that she was booked on both the 9:07 tonight and the 9:10 tomorrow morning. Their customer service guy told us earlier in the day that she was priority standby, and the gate attendant in Chicago just told her to get on the plane. No misunderstanding with the airport and my mom, apparently United doesn't even know which flight their passengers are booked on.

She made it to Pittsburgh just fine. I couldn't help but be amazed at the incompetence shown at various levels of this ordeal, and I still have no idea how they can't round up two pilots and 4 flight attendants in their freaking hub city to get someone on the flight they paid for. Apparently the 9:07 tonight was delayed because all the people on the 7 PM flight wanted to get on that one, and people were getting bumped and rescheduled all over the place. I love flying, but will make an effort to avoid United if possible. We just got lucky with this one, especially since my mom NEVER travels alone.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
she's flying AA to O'Hare and United between CHI and PIT both ways, then NWA back to Minneapolis

[/ QUOTE ]

is your mom a terrorist?

[/ QUOTE ]

Not to the best of my knowledge, but I'm glad one of your first posts was this comedic gem. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

Edge,

So her 7pm flight got canceled and they put her on the 9pm flight just like they told her. I don't see the big deal here.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

[ QUOTE ]
Edge,

So her 7pm flight got canceled and they put her on the 9pm flight just like they told her. I don't see the big deal here.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, the drama was caused by the fact that United can't get their [censored] straight enough to the point that they called with an erroneous schedule and their customer service didn't even know what flight she was scheduled on. They were perfectly happy to put her on a morning flight with zero notice.

Not to mention - no crew? I call BS. Lame excuses and bad customer service don't endear me to a company. This one just happened to work out.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

[ QUOTE ]
Edge,

So her 7pm flight got canceled and they put her on the 9pm flight just like they told her. I don't see the big deal here.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think the fact your mom happens to be an extremely timid traveler is United's fault. If this was my worst travel "adventure", I'd consider myself extremely lucky and not tempt fate by whining.

[ QUOTE ]
Not to mention - no crew? I call BS.

[/ QUOTE ]
Standard.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Edge,

So her 7pm flight got canceled and they put her on the 9pm flight just like they told her. I don't see the big deal here.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think the fact your mom happens to be an extremely timid traveler is United's fault. If this was my worst travel "adventure", I'd consider myself extremely lucky and not tempt fate by whining.

[ QUOTE ]
Not to mention - no crew? I call BS.

[/ QUOTE ]
Standard.

[/ QUOTE ]

I started out just ranting, not expecting any responses. When I got back online and saw El D responded, I explained the results. It turned out to be a minor inconvenience caused by a company who can't keep track of their own passengers when they cancel flights for their own make-believe reasons.

And my mom's not a timid traveler, just inexperienced in all the ways to get what you want out of these people. My dad, who traveled pretty consistently for 30+ years for business knows a lot more than she does and took the lead.

So yeah, nothing to see here, but its always good to get a little cathartic experience and bitch about the ways airlines screw over their customers.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

Edge,

"Well, the drama was caused by the fact"

Sounds like the drama was caused by you and your dad getting involved when it wasn't necessary. She was at the airport and handled everything fine. Then some automated phone call comes giving information about the situation your mom has already let you know has been handled, and you and your dad freak out. Next time, just let inexperienced mom take care of it; she seems able to do just fine.

Your mom got delayed for two hours. Stuff happens when you travel large distances via planes and involving connections. A two hour delay is just not a really big deal.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

Standard.

-d

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

Edge,

"My dad, who traveled pretty consistently for 30+ years for business knows a lot more than she does"

Sorta surprising he didn't know what the deal is with those automated messages then.

Once your mom had handled stuff at the airport, the right move for you guys was to ignore that phone call describing the earlier situation.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

[ QUOTE ]
Avoid Chicago like the plague, especially this summer. My aunt made it to Ireland 2 days late for our family vacation. Her flight was on AA from Charlotte to Chicago to Dublin. When the first leg (Charlotte to Chicago) was late, they told her they couldn't rebook her for 2 freaking days. This used to be unheard of but supposedly is becoming standard this summer.

Most of the major airlines pretty much have standard running delays of a couple hours on all flights going through Chicago right now. But you won't find out until a couple hours before the flight. Also they've figured out how to game the system so the flights don't count against their ontime record. Lovely.

[/ QUOTE ]

ATC (air traffic control) delays (which they often have at O'Hare due to congestion and a crappy runway layout) do not end up counting against the DOT standard for on-time arrivals.

-d

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

[ QUOTE ]
Every airline sucks. I had a 9 hour 2 legger turn into a 21 hour absurdity because Continental decides to schedule flights when they have no crew as well. 3/4 of my continental flights were delayed by over 2 hours this summer. 4/4 delta were at least an hour late, and my 2 southwest flights were actually cancelled and I was put on different flights. US Airways has been decent, being on time about 50% of the time.

Oh, I actually had good luck with JetBlue. I know there are horror stories with them, but I've been running good.

[/ QUOTE ]

Most crew problems stem from earlier delayed or canceled flights, not because they never planned on having a crew there. Do you think they were planning on making money by having to slam their customer service and fill up every plane (other carriers and their own) at the last minute?

-d

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

[ QUOTE ]
Edge,

"My dad, who traveled pretty consistently for 30+ years for business knows a lot more than she does"

Sorta surprising he didn't know what the deal is with those automated messages then.

Once your mom had handled stuff at the airport, the right move for you guys was to ignore that phone call describing the earlier situation.

[/ QUOTE ]

El D - I have admitted repeatedly that it really isn't a big deal right now, but honestly, it wasn't "freaking out", it was being upset that a company can't even figure out where its own goddamn passengers are. Had we ignored this information, she could have ended up going to the gate at 9 PM in Chicago, finding out she wasn't going to be on the flight, and then having to deal with the same retards at "customer service" as we did earlier, thus leading to resolution at the last minute instead of in advance.

Normally you're spot on in everything, but this time I think you're wrong. Ignoring this would've been asking for trouble.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

Edge,

Whatever, we disagree on this. But we agree that airlines pretty much suck to all hell.

JetBlue is the only US airline I recommend.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

I was on a jetblue flight recently that was delayed because they bent part of the door backing out, we had to wait for engineering to fix it. during that time, the pilot announced anyone who needed to call family or whatever to tell them we were late could use his cell phone. they handled the whole thing really well.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

United may indeed suck, but their in-flight air traffic control "radio station" is unbelievably cool for flight enthusiasts.

Agree that JetBlue is the best domestic carrier. They really got a bad rap for that stuck on the runway incident. Unfortunate, but the airlines can not screw around with the weather. When talking about putting lives at risk, even an overnight delay (read: debacle) beats the alternatives. This holds true for delays caused by mandated crew rest periods as well. If they can't get a crew together, that's very likely the reason. Tired pilots are no gouda.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

[ QUOTE ]
I was on a jetblue flight recently that was delayed because they bent part of the door backing out, we had to wait for engineering to fix it. during that time, the pilot announced anyone who needed to call family or whatever to tell them we were late could use his cell phone. they handled the whole thing really well.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's funny to read all of this bashing of the airlines and [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] JetBlue. I love JetBlue too. But I was at the JetBlue terminal at JFK in February when all hell had broken loose with them, and (apparently) normal adults were screaming obscenities at any JetBlue person they could find because of the disasterous situation with cancelled flights and no crews available.

As some said above, it happens with all airlines. Maybe less with JetBlue or more with United, but this is nothing out of the ordinary at all.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

[ QUOTE ]
Most crew problems stem from earlier delayed or canceled flights, not because they never planned on having a crew there. Do you think they were planning on making money by having to slam their customer service and fill up every plane (other carriers and their own) at the last minute?

[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
This holds true for delays caused by mandated crew rest periods as well. If they can't get a crew together, that's very likely the reason. Tired pilots are no gouda.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, delays cause problems in flight crew availability and crews often time out as a result of delays. No, we don't want bleary-eyed zombies piloting our aircraft. We get that. When flight delays occur because there's lightning in the vicinity and they don't want to endanger the ground crew I nod along and say "no problem, you do what you need to do".

The point both of you are missing is that the airlines have decided to staff and schedule as if they will never, ever have any delays or problems. When those problems inevitably and all too frequently occur the result is a shambles. Is it too much to ask for some contingency planning?

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

I'd be curious where you got your information that suggests that airlines have decided to staff and schedule as if they will never, ever have any delays or problems, and that they do not have contingency plans in place for weather delays, mechanical failures, etc.

This statement suggests a fundamental lack of understanding of the air travel industry.

And JetBlue did screw up quite a bit in the handling of the JFK debacle, but I'd suggest that the animosity and ill-will felt by the passengers was not completely unrelated to the fact that this occured in New York City (and I live in NYC).

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

[ QUOTE ]
The point both of you are missing is that the airlines have decided to staff and schedule as if they will never, ever have any delays or problems. When those problems inevitably and all too frequently occur the result is a shambles. Is it too much to ask for some contingency planning?

[/ QUOTE ]
I think it's super weird for some of you to think that there's just planes and crews hanging out at airports, just waiting to be deployed on an as-needed basis. No.

Anyway, I was treated to a 4-5 hour delay last week, it was because the plane that flew us was grounded in Milwaukee for several hours earlier in the day due to weather. It happens. I was happy and maybe lucky that they decided to fly well into the night to complete the flights though rather than just cancel them.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

The general nature of the statement was somewhat of an exaggeration intended for effect. Of course they have some plans in place but what is there seems to be completely inadequate. The evidence is growing across all airlines that they are cutting their staffing to the bone and scheduling more and more tightly, and this lack of flexibility is making them far more vulnerable to schedule disruptions. I may be an idiot that knows nothing about the air travel industry, but this idiot has averaged something approaching 100,000 air miles per year for the past twelve years. Also my wife's uncle was a senior pilot for United up through around 2003 and I have talked with him to some extent about the industry and how it works. I personally have seen these issues occurring with American and United as my primary carriers but we have evidence in this thread that the same thing is happening to Continental and Jet Blue of course had a notorious situation.

Tuq, I never suggested that airlines should have a bunch of spare planes lying around. Mechanical failures are inherently unplannable and spare planes are very expensive. However, when airlines don't have crews available that means their very expensive planes are not flying and therefore costing money without bringing in revenue.

I also never suggested that the airlines should have spare crews waiting around at the airport. However, when we're talking about huge hubs like Dallas and Chicago is it too much to ask that the airline should recognize that ATC or weather problems will cause crews to time out? If weather forecasting and current data indicates that crews will time out and flights will start getting canceled it's not unreasonable to expect that the phone lines should start burning in an attempt to get off-duty crews into work. See one of my previous posts about waiting an hour beyond scheduled departure time so American could get a member of their flight crew on board for an example of problems even when weather and ATC weren't involved.

This all leads to one key piece of evidence I DO have that airlines are staffing and scheduling in the manner I alleged. On my last trip I overheard a conversation between two flight attendants. To summarize what I heard and believe I understood, one of the flight attendants had timed out a few times during the month and would have had to exceed the number of hours allowed by the FAA to complete her bidded trips. Ordinarily this wouldn't be a big deal but the crux of the conversation was that the airline had cut their flight attendant staffing to such a degree that the airline would have difficulty finding crew to take over for any trips she could not complete. Also, I believe that there are ranges of hours that flight attendants are required to fly to meet their full time status and the airlines are consistently pushing the upper ends of those ranges and limits on a scheduled basis instead of letting some pre-calculated average number of delays soak up those hours. The flight attendants were complaining in general regarding how much flight crew staffing had been cut and that the staff cuts were causing disruptions. It seems like pretty compelling evidence to me.

I also see indications in other areas. I was on a recent flight where the gate staff had been cut to one person. Thus the gate agent could take tickets and board people or assist someone at the counter but not at the same time. Although that is one incident I hope it's not a harbinger of things to come across the board.

Perhaps you think I'm whining about things I don't understand but I can tell you that within the last 24 months there is a large qualitative degradation across the board in terms of airline service and efficiency. I believe it's going to get worse before it get better.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

[ QUOTE ]
I also never suggested that the airlines should have spare crews waiting around at the airport.
On my last trip I overheard a conversation between two flight attendants. To summarize what I heard and believe I understood, one of the flight attendants had timed out a few times during the month.

[/ QUOTE ]

Most airlines do have pilots and FA's on "ready reserve" or aiport standby. But usually when one flight cancels from ATC or weather, many more will also cancel, thus using all the reserve crews available.

Pilots (and most FA's) are allowed to fly 8 hours in a day, 30 hours in any 7 days, and 100 hours a month. This is actual flight time, not time spent at work.

As an example, we were late getting into Detroit last night after a 15 hour day, only to get 6 hours in our hotel room before we had to fly out this morning at 5am. We are required 8 hours of rest everynight, but that doesn't include time to get from the plane to the hotel and back in the am.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

And you know, paying somebody to sit on their ass in case of a delay, while not great for customer service, is probably a positive for airlines since the majority of them are operating either in, near in, or just out of bankruptcy.

Feel everyones pain though....I live in Atlanta, never a single flight on time. And no Southwest...

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

My Mom was supposed to fly United out of New Orleans the day before Katrina hit. We left her in the city while we went to Houston because United said they would still be running flights at this time (her flight was at about 8 am, well before the storm was to hit the next day). She shows up at the airport, and the United desk is abandoned. There is literally not one United employee there. She had already returned her rental car. Every hotel was either booked or closed. Because of United she had to go back and pretty much steal her rental car back (since she had dropped it off a day early and could have still easily been hers, she didn't feel too bad)and drive all the way to Michigan by herself. Because of this my family is pretty much banned from flying United unless there are no other options.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

Re: no extra crew available:

My girlfriend used to work as a flight attendant. Sometimes she would have 'standby duty', where they just put a group of them in a hotel close to the airport for up to 24 hours. That happened pretty often actually, and most times she didn't end up flying. I imagine they do the same for pilots. This was a Russian airline btw; US standards are probably stricter.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

[ QUOTE ]
And you know, paying somebody to sit on their ass in case of a delay, while not great for customer service, is probably a positive for airlines since the majority of them are operating either in, near in, or just out of bankruptcy.

[/ QUOTE ]

The crews only get paid when the aircraft door is closed. Theoretically, you could work a 16 hour day and only get paid for 2 hours.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

Not every airline sux equally, UA, NW, and USair suck more.

Re: United Airlines FTL
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Most crew problems stem from earlier delayed or canceled flights, not because they never planned on having a crew there. Do you think they were planning on making money by having to slam their customer service and fill up every plane (other carriers and their own) at the last minute?

[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
This holds true for delays caused by mandated crew rest periods as well. If they can't get a crew together, that's very likely the reason. Tired pilots are no gouda.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, delays cause problems in flight crew availability and crews often time out as a result of delays. No, we don't want bleary-eyed zombies piloting our aircraft. We get that. When flight delays occur because there's lightning in the vicinity and they don't want to endanger the ground crew I nod along and say "no problem, you do what you need to do".

The point both of you are missing is that the airlines have decided to staff and schedule as if they will never, ever have any delays or problems. When those problems inevitably and all too frequently occur the result is a shambles. Is it too much to ask for some contingency planning?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm sure that's the case. Airlines love running into problems and the fantastic customer relations they get from it. They love giving out free flights and vouchers instead of scheduling a couple standby crews.

I'll agree that airlines aren't always rational firms, but this claim (with no supporting evidence) seems ridiculous on it's face.

-d