[Edge34]

*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