United Airlines FTL

[tomdemaine]

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

[Duke]

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.

[OrigamiSensei]

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.

[Edge34]

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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.

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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.

[Edge34]

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

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is your mom a terrorist?

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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]

[El Diablo]

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.

[Edge34]

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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.

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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.

[fouronefive]

[ 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.

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Not to mention - no crew? I call BS.

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Standard.

[Edge34]

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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.

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Not to mention - no crew? I call BS.

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Standard.

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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.

[El Diablo]

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.