Hunt, your experience on United sure beats ours on USAir. We were stuck in Philly…same deal…mechanical issues. They took us off of the plane…twice. Then after we sat for an hour or so, they moved us to a different gate. There were weather issues as well, and most flights to our destination had been cancelled. It was not pretty.
We were sure our flight would be cancelled…but it wasn’t. It finally took off and we arrived at 2 a.m. But…wait. Remember all those cancelled flights? Well…they had luggage on the plane but it didn’t belong to the people on the plane. And of course at 2 am they were ill prepared to handle this. They handed us all brown paper towels…no kidding…and asked us to put our contact info on the sheet…and they would deliver our checked bags.
My husband completed ours. All he put was our names, and a nice note saying NOT to deliver our bags…because he was returning to the airport the following day, and would just pick them up. Stupid idiots…guess they can’t read. They delivered them to our house. In the meantime, DH was searching for them at the baggage claim. I found them on the back deck.
Oh…compensation? We were flying first class on that flight. DH had either gold or platinum status. We didn’t even get a drink voucher.
"Adding more people to the reservation system would have meant that I could do something more productive and pleasant with my time than standing in line (hungry and otherwise uncomfortable) for 2-1/2 hours. It may very well have gotten me home sooner–several flights going in the right direction left while I was standing in line.
There is no excuse not to increase the capacity/automation of their reservation system. The same people can handle problems wherever they occur, and as you say, such problems do happen frequently"
Yes, they need to call people in and pay them time and a half for extra work. If they know there’s going to be a problem, everyone goes on duty. So annoying when they don’t adequately staff for these situations.
I just was stuck on the east coast, called my extra special diamond line on Delta, and got this recording telling me that they had put more people on staff, but we were still extra special and they’d answer as soon as they could. Was on hold three times, waiting twenty minutes to talk to someone. The second time, I got, “Hello, hello, I can’t hear you, please call back,” after waiting twenty minutes. Should have been able to cancel my refundable ticket online with a few button clicks, but got a message that their online system to cancel was unavailable at this time. Seriously, online system unavailable? It’s not like millions of people are using it at the same time to cancel, so the server is down.
People are aggravated enough, they can make it easier for us.
My daughter and I spent a full day in Chicago thanks to United. We were flying from BWI to Cedar Rapids via Chicago. The first plane had a LOT of paperwork to do - it took them a good 1/2 hour (what paperwork is that?) and that allowed them to open the doors for some stragglers (oh, what a coincidence!). Then, as the plane started, they discovered a frozen engine starter - that was good for another half hour. This all meant, holding the plane in Baltimore for a couple of passengers, we were an hour late arriving in Chicago. Way more people on that flight missed their connections than got on that plane - whoever held up that plane made a poor decision.
We were rebooked on a flight that was to leave an hour later. An hour later, no plane was even at the terminal. The gate agent kept saying ‘the plane is coming from the hangar’. After another 15 minutes, the plane finally shows up at the gate. We board. The captain apologizes for the delay saying usually when the maintenance crew is done going over the plane, they place a placard on the plane indicating it’s all ready to go. He goes on to say the plane needs de-icing so we wait. We wait some more. The captain comes on and says there’s a problem with two of the plane’s computers. They aren’t working ((oh, maybe this is why there was no placard on the plane?). They need a hard reset. So we wait another twenty minutes. The technicians come to do a hard reset. Another 15 minutes. Hard reset doesn’t work. They need to replace the computer. Another 15-20 minutes. The computer arrives. They work fast. We only wait another 10 minutes. Now, the captain says we’re ready to go but we still need to be de-iced. We’re 10th in line. Half an hour goes by. No deicing. The captain comes back to say, United has deployed a third de-icing truck; we’re at the top of the list. Half an hour goes by - no de-icing truck. The captain says United can’t find the third truck (?!) We finally get de-iced. The plane taxis to the runway, engines rev up and we’re going down the runway. We slow down. We do NOT take off. Instead, we’re going back to the gate. The captain now says the temperature gauge has gone out. It needs to be replaced. By this time, FOUR HOURS have passed sitting on a plane whose flight is 40 minutes long. D and I decide to de-plane and go back home (Baltimore) because our entire reason for flying out to Iowa is gone.
Now, the customer service person was very nice and efficient. She rebooked us to Washington National quickly but no vouchers or refund or anything. She did manage to give us token food vouchers at the airport’s vendors. We board a eastbound plane two hours later, so 14 hours after we left Baltimore, we arrived in Washington having, essentially gone nowhere that day. United utterly failed. They did not get us to our destination on time. They failed to get us there even 3 hours late (I had allowed for that much leeway). They would have, at best, reached Cedar Rapids 6 hours late, remember this is a 40 minute flight. We could have driven from Chicago.
From what I can tell, very little of what happened was due to weather. Yes, winter happened so there was a frozen engine starter and the second plane needed de-icing. But the starter was fixed in half an hour - we would have made our connection with that delay. De-icing should have only taken 20 minutes. Again, we would have made our event if the flight had been delayed 20 minutes. The series of equipment failure and maintenance mishap was way more disconcerning than any weather inconvenience…
The thing is United never offered us any sort of compensation or made any gesture to make up for lost time. No free wifi. No snacks or drinks while waiting on the plane. Nothing. We were obviously just airfare to them. United? Never again.
So after me writing american a couple of emails about our issues, they gave us each a 100 voucher for use within a year. I am not sure we will go anyplace within a year, but we shall see. I’d rather have frequent flyer miles… They don’t expire.
Actually the miles CAN expire if you don’t use them or add to them in 18 months. We have been generally getting miles instead of vouchers as well, when we have a choice, as we often rarther do a multi-city trip instead of one way or round trip. United vouchers are supposd to only be for one way or round trip, not multi or open jaws.
@SlackerMomMD, that is an awful story. I would be fuming, and write up a complaint with details as soon as possible. They need to refund your ticket, and give you a voucher or some frequent flyer miles, as a bare minimum. You need to demand this. Sure, write a letter to some higher ups if you want, but you might get satisfaction if you just fill out the form for a customer complaint. Forget waiting for them to offer, write a scathing letter, demanding your money back.
Now I don’t think any of their actions were vindictive, or that they were stalling to wait for more passengers. If it was maintenance paperwork, that can take forever. It’s not just writing things down in a maintenance log, sometimes they have to coordinate with engineers thousands of miles away for approvals. Some of our maintenance procedures can actually delay an airplane getting off the ground for days. De-icing can be a big delay if everyone else has to do it. An airline should plan for this, especially in Chicago! I have seen situations where there’s only a few de-icing trucks for 75 flights, at airports that don’t typically get icing conditions. Whoops. Or where de-icing trucks run out of fluid. But most of their problems sound like complete disorganization and incompetence. As much as I loathe United, I can’t imagine this was a flight on mainline United, it had to be a commuter connection.
I would be enraged, and get my money refunded, as a bare minimum.
Once, I was on a flight that was delayed for two minor mechanical issues. Each was apparently fixed quickly, but the paperwork associated with the problems supposedly took up the bulk of the two hour delay.
However, taking any connecting flight through Chicago O’Hare is just asking for trouble. Unfortunately, in your case, most BWI-CID flights connect in Chicago O’Hare, though perhaps about a fifth of them connect in various other airports.
ORD-CID flights do appear to be operated by subcontractor airlines under the United Express brand.
“ORD-CID flights do appear to be operated by subcontractor airlines under the United Express brand”
Likely Trans State, ExpressJet, or SkyWest. However, even not knowing who flies that routing, that just sounds like too many things going wrong to be on one of the big guys. Profitable airlines do a better job maintaining their aircraft, and reimbursing the passengers for misconnects and delays. The commuter airlines seem to be just hanging on.
Many of the majors just stay on forever, declaring bankruptcy doesn’t make them disappear. They use bankruptcy to manage their finances because they can get away with it. They use it to stay competitive with all the other carriers who have used their bankruptcies to ditch their labor contracts, long term pension obligations and make their debts disappear. Of course, the management bonuses don’t disappear, it seems to be magical money. However, the regionals don’t tend to operate in the same way. They disappear pretty quickly, and if a major severs their connection, it’s very difficult to survive. Not a lot of regionals making the big bucks, with room to grow and improve their business.
Delta has now change our nonstop flight to NYC (still nonstop but 6 a.m. instead of 1pm) our nonstop to Milan 2 times and our D’s trip to Milan 1 time.
!?
The situation where an airline charges extra for a non-stop flight and /or for a flight at a reasonable hour and then switches you ahead of time to a flight with layovers or at an off-peak time sounds like perfect grounds for a class-action lawsuit. I know people who do these in NY and CT - anyone from there who had this happen and who is interested in finding out about this feel free to PM me.
@busdriver11, you’re right. The ORD-CID leg was flown by a regional airline and the difference between United and the regional was stark The only reason, I thought they held the plane was because the flight attendants said they did when we were about an hour outside of ORD. Several passengers were asking about holding their flights; the attendants said it was iffy at best. They said our flight was held for some late passengers at BWI but one attendant said another flight in London refused to hold for a full-fare passenger. Would they know if the plane were held for late passengers?
All your experiences have me concerned. We just booked a flight on USAir from CT to SFO to visit S1 and FDIL. We purposely didn’t choose red eye flights or ones with layovers <1hr or >2 hrs. I sure hope after all the time DH and I spent trying to get the flights we wanted that USAir doesn’t decide to switch us to less desirable flights.
This discussion makes me think that it would be a good idea to note the cost differences between the non-stop or other good flights, and the non-direct and inconvenient timed flights–so if you do get changed, you’d have the facts to demand a reduction in price.
“This discussion makes me think that it would be a good idea to note the cost differences between the non-stop or other good flights, and the non-direct and inconvenient timed flights–so if you do get changed, you’d have the facts to demand a reduction in price”
I think that would be a great idea. And not just to note it, but to take a screen shot of the fares right before you purchase, so you have the physical proof right there.
“@busdriver11, you’re right. The ORD-CID leg was flown by a regional airline and the difference between United and the regional was stark The only reason, I thought they held the plane was because the flight attendants said they did when we were about an hour outside of ORD. Several passengers were asking about holding their flights; the attendants said it was iffy at best. They said our flight was held for some late passengers at BWI but one attendant said another flight in London refused to hold for a full-fare passenger. Would they know if the plane were held for late passengers?”
@SlackerMomMD, I do think the flight attendants could know if the plane was held for late passengers. Probably sometimes they know, sometimes they don’t. However, while I can’t speak for what any particular person does, I doubt the pilots were pretending that they were waiting for paperwork for 30 min, and then pretending there was a starter malfunction just to delay the departure for those late passengers. It may have seemed suspicious, but there are mechanical issues all the time, and I don’t think people make things up just to placate the passengers. Even if it seems like they are. Sometimes I feel that they give the people too much information. It would be more likely that holding the plane for passengers and mechanical problems were completely independent of each other. Not that it helps people who miss their connections feel any better!
@busdriver, oh, I believe the frozen starter malfunction. That was quite apparent because of the rather alarming sound of something not working (much like when a car doesn’t start - lots of whirring). After that happened three times, the captain spoke. I never heard of paperwork taking so long but I’m not a frequent flyer like others here on CC.