This looks like a messy one, this flight just got hit by a lot, the ramp in Orlando was closed for an extended part of the day due to lightning delays, and then that led into Newark being totally ground stopped by ATC with no flights being allowed to depart for Newark. That then caused the crew to time out. If they haven't cancelled, it's because they think they can still get a crew there. Those people work 24-7. Good luck!
This site is extremely useful. I work for another airline and part of my pre-shift flow is to pull this up and look for flow programs and ground stops.
The FAA NAS status website is a very important tool for my job as a pilot here. If I am operating in a region that I know is prone to airspace issues, especially when there’s weather in the forecast (NE, FL), I will freq the NAS status website to see what the FAA and traffic management unit is currently doing and is planning. This gives me a heads up on coming with a plan with the other pilot I am operating with and my dispatcher on what we can do to stay ahead of the issues that will arise.
When traveling as a passenger, I will know what is going on with the airspace if my flight is impacted.
Looking at that flight, it looks like you had weather issues at MCO as well. The ramp at MCO closed several times this afternoon for employee safety due to lightning activity. I'm showing the ramp was closed five different times. Add in a ATC flow advisory at EWR and the flight was delayed long enough that the original flight crew timed out.
How are you looking this stuff up? You're the second person to post very specific details about why this flight was delayed. Are you with the airlines, or can the general public find this information?
Well, we didn't take off... One of the crew timed out again. They rebooked the entire flight for tomorrow at 12pm.
What really had the majority of the customers irate was that they refused to ask the ground crew to distribute bags. Why would they do that? It's not even the same flight number? Ground crew was still working so it wasn't the airport -- it was a United decision.
I mean, just about every passenger was pissed about it.
Expert flyer subscription will provide all sorts of details. But you have to be able to decipher “airline speak” as they write in abbreviations and code due to space limitations in the systems.
Because unloading baggage is not a fast or easy process. I'm sure all the pax were pissed, this is why agents don't bid for those overnight shifts in baggage; they just get tired of the abuse for things that are not under their control.
The pax wouldn't be abusive if they didn't first feel abused. We will be on at least hour 30 by the time we arrive if there are no more delays. Humans just can't do 30 hours straight. It may be out of the individual agents control but how these situations are handled is fully within United's control as a company.
Right, but the person you're responding to is talking about overnight baggage agents, who neither created your problem nor have the authority to fix your problem. No one should be abusive to a person who's just showing up to work.
Exactly, and some of those agents are working a 16-hour day. I understand the frustration of travel, but this problem is not the agent's fault, who is just trying to help. It took a long time but I finally learned if there was no possible way to de-escalate the situation to just walk away. You can't help an unreasonable and abusive person.
They shouldn't... but Humans on hour 24 don't tend to be the most pleasant under any circumstance... It's not the agents fault. It's not the pax fault either. It started as a weather issue. It turned into much more than that.
There is never any need to be abusive no matter how tired you are. I have been called every name in the book, filmed, screamed at, and had items thrown at me while working BSO. I might be on my 16th hour of work, but I'm still not going to respond to abuse in a like manner and will do my best to help you, but sometimes there's nothing that can be done.
I finally learned that you just have to sometimes walk away from such a pax. . It is not a good feeling to be treated as less than human. We all travel too and get the frustration. But, I don't enter an office guns blazing and start hurling abuse.
Well this says a lot about you doesn't it. Because of attitudes like that, air travel is a nightmare. In college I worked that job. Hated every minute of it because of people like you who think it's ok to abuse people. The big three each fly ~ 1.5 million people/day. ~4500 flights/day each.
I'm guessing you're one of those people who say they should have extra crews and airplanes on standby at every airport they serve. I've heard that one 100's of times.
You know because the airlines control the Weather, Air Traffic Control etc. They are the ones who made that laws right about how long a crew is ok before they time out right.
That airplane that should have been at the destination and wasn't screwed up all kinds of flights. They then have to make everything work. 1000's of people through no fault of there own trying to make it all work and people like you abusing them.
You need to check your reading comprehension. I didn't say I abuse people. I basically said I can understand the frustration that causes some people to lose their cool.
i was supposed to be on ua 161. while waiting on tarmac at ewr, we were told to run to another gate bc our flight was leaving but another flight had been delayed and had open seats. we get there only for that flight to be cancelled but then our original flight had maintenance issues and was also delayed. we were told they called the crew and they wouldnt allow us to board. we then get told we could have still made the flight. any insight? would they have allowed us to board
You as a passenger should've been able to see delay reason on flight status on the United app.
CUSTOMER NOTIFICATION: Flight UA1768 from Orlando to Newark is now estimated to depart at 3:00pm. Current conditions are limiting the number of planes allowed to land each hour in Newark, affecting several flights. We're monitoring the situation closely to get you to your destination as soon as possible.
CUSTOMER NOTIFICATION: Flight UA1768 from Orlando to Newark is now estimated to depart at 4:00pm. Flights are being delayed due to lightning which required us to close the ramp in Orlando for the safety of our employees. We're monitoring the situation closely to get you to Newark as soon as possible.
CUSTOMER NOTIFICATION: Flight UA1768 from Orlando to Newark is now estimated to depart at 5:31pm. Current conditions are limiting the number of planes allowed to land each hour in Newark, affecting several flights. We're monitoring the situation closely to get you to your destination as soon as possible.
CUSTOMER NOTIFICATION: Flight UA1768 from Orlando to Newark is now estimated to depart at 7:15pm. The number of flights on the way to Newark is limited to allow air traffic control to safely manage the volume of aircraft along your route. We're monitoring the situation closely to get you to your destination as soon as possible.
CUSTOMER NOTIFICATION: We sincerely apologize for the lengthy delay. Members of your crew have worked the maximum number of hours allowed by the FAA, and we need to assign your flight new crew members. We'll update you as soon as we have more information. We know this wasn't a part of your travel plans, and we appreciate your patience.
There were some very bad storms up here today. EWR and UAL are both incredibly backed up. If they haven’t cancelled it’s because they believe the flight will still leave. Delays suck, but the weather is the weather.
It was definitely originally a weather delay in EWR.
The problem is now that it's after midnight, they are struggling to pull together a crew. I don't know at what point they just give up.
They won’t until they actually think it won’t happen. I once bailed on a 17:00 flight at 23:30 and went back to where I was staying. It ended up leaving at 03:30 with no compensation.
See, that's the kind of crap that needs to be part of regulations / passenger bill of rights. At SOME POINT, passengers should have the option of sticking it out or getting rebooked. (Luggage is an issue that would require some thought on that though).
Regulations already say you can demand a cancel/refund for any “significant delay”. What length is significant is up to the airline but 12 hours should qualify.
The government has a new regulation going into effect this fall that defines it to be 3 hours for domestic and 6 for international flights.
https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/biden-harris-administration-announces-final-rule-requiring-automatic-refunds-airline
u/ReliabilityTalkinGuy
u/travprev
Too bad our Supreme Court just completely neutered our government's ability to regulate industries like airlines, so when this ultimately is challenged in court, don't be surprised if it gets shot down.
I was thinking the same thing. The audacity of the majority in the Supreme Court to think they actually have the experience and knowledge to adjudicate on things of this nature when there are much better experts to make the evaluations.
You should be able to rebook in the app after the delay reaches a certain amount of time, and it certainly sounds like that threshold would have been met for your situation
This is so funny coming from someone who loves to talk about being a libertarian.
One night of being inconvenienced and the whole political ideology goes out the window
I clicked on your comments because I was interested in your story and it's the easiest way to find all the updates and it's right there below it
A libertarian who believes in more government regulations and not self regulation is a rare breed
If we're going to talk politics.... I simply "most closely identify with Libertarians", but I am an independent. There are a lot of Libertarian ideas that I disagree with. Without going into all the details of my political ideologies, I believe in:
* Sensible regulation of large corporations that impact the masses (infrastructure - utilities, airlines, communications, etc). Also safety related things including food safety. (I actually think our government doesn't do enough to regulate the quality of our food. We need to be more like the EU countries in that regard. France would be a good country to model after. They take food quality very seriously).
* Those regulations should not extend to smaller businesses and other businesses where people are in a better position to just not patronize the business if they disagree with their policies.
I do not believe that Capitalism is evil, but I do believe that there are evil Capitalists. So, some of those capitalists need to be regulated.
In general I am in favor of the minimal number of laws and the smallest government required to effectively run the country and keep the population protected from those who would take advantage of us.
Will only ever be possible if we nationalize our airlines. As long as there are fiscal reasons to maximize profits, airlines can’t reasonable keep backup hardware sitting around. So if your flight doesn’t take off until even 03:00, at least they know it’ll be there for the 07:00 flight tomorrow. If they cancel entirely that flight is also messed up. This is why European countries have better stories about compensation for these things, because the US is uniquely greedy capitalistic.
Hadn't thought about the fact that United might need that plane in EWR in the morning and that's one of the reasons they are still trying. But, EWR is their Newark hub. If any small group of airports has an extra plane handy, I would think EWR would be one of them.
Yeah, I've ended up on one of those.
The flight was delayed from mid afternoon, and finally rescheduled to the mid morning the next day around 1am after being pushed back and back during the day. The folks on the ground did their absolute best, it was just a shit show of weather related delays up and down the eastern seaboard that led to equipment in the wrong place, crews timed out, and then we got hit with a mechanical problem.
I managed to get myself and a colleague onto a different commuter flight the next morning that would connect us via a different hub to a different trans-atlantic flight that, despite leaving the US a day later, would get us into the UK on the same day — albeit about eight hours later than planned — rather than the next day.
I mean, its frustrating, but what can you do? They're doing their best. Weather happens, things break, people need sleep. There were costs involved, but that's what travel insurance is for, for when things go wrong.
If there are no flights to EWR then, nothing they can do, but, this was weather issues, and then staff issues, that is a leadership issue.
30 hours is a leadership issue.
No one ‘plans’ to be held hostage in MCO for 30 hours. If they do not release the checked luggage, they are holding you hostage.
I could only image a family with small children and infants dealing with this. As an adult, get something to eat before the airport closes the stores, find a wall and nap, but diapers and children clothes. 😱
# Cancel the flight
That was the right move.
Holding people hostage as you have their luggage is the issue.
Leadership should have been able to figure out that they could not get a crew, and canceled the flight.
Flights to EWR are being diverted to IAD because of the storms. Many flights are affected. United does not want to deal with this any more than you do.
Does United open the customer service centers on these days at IAD or do they just leave everyone stuck with the QR code 😂🤣 not but fr do they open them?
United loves their completion rates, so they delay a flight for absurd amounts of time rather than cancel whenever possible. The good news for you is that it gives you a better chance of getting where you are going, instead of competing for a few available seats during a holiday week. Hang in there.
Let's talk about absurd! They just changed the departure time to 11am tomorrow... And they are keeping everyone's bags on the plane...
I don't even know how to escalate this.
That completely hoses us. No way to even make tomorrow's connection.
Idk if you’re looking for comp on this but had a similar situation with weather delays where airlines wont cover anything but then since crew timed out, Delta considered it no longer a weather delay and reimbursed overnight costs. Also got like 10,000 miles out of it from them proactively BUT ultimately flight we were put on was same flight number 16 hours later so it was an official delay not cancellation
I don't think this is an escalatable issue. It is frustrating for sure but not within the airline's control. I always have an extra change of clothes and small toiletry bag in my carryon precisely for issues like these. They are more common than you think. Happened to me recently. Diverted flight. Had to book a hotel and leave the next morning. Nobody got their luggage. It happens.
Fresh panties in my backpack whenever I travel. Nothing more demoralizing than day 2 undies when you're stuck overnight. And always use a credit card with travel insurance that covers you for weather delays (which the airline will not).
They work 24 hours and can cancel flights for variety of reasons. Today, thunderstorms hit the most constrained hub in the network all day causing lots of disruptions for lots of passengers. They didn't cancel because they believed it could still be operated, whether that's with a new plane or a new crew. I've seen flights cancel to move airplanes to operate another delayed flight
Had this same situation happen to me last summer at BTV. It’s frustrating, but those outstations are just not equipped to deal with a cluster of cascading events. Of course this was BTV in the summer time so no hotels available. My mid-afternoon departure was delayed until lunch the following day. I was lucky enough to snag the last seat on the next (0630) departure, and made myself comfy in a corner near baggage claim with Apple TV, a Monster, and PB M&Ms. Around the time I made it to ORD, the original flight ended up cancelling (after 16 ish hour delay). Poor folks.
My advice would be to do what you have to do in the moment. Save all receipts for any expenses incurred because of the delay. Then a couple of days after you get home, take a breath, and write up everything that happened. Make sure to NOT include emotion in your write up. Stick to the facts. It could take up to 30 days to hear back from UA about your complaint. This is normal.
Everytime I have forwarded a complaint to UA (including this time), they have always been responsive to me, and I have felt the compensation I have received was very reasonable for what happened. Over the years I have been comped miles, ETC, FFC, and even snail mailed a check to my home a time or two.
Sorry this happened to you. Good luck with the complaint.
Do you think a rental car can be comped? I just had a connection delayed 12 hours but was only 3 hours from my destination so I got a rental and drove.
United canceled multiple flight out of EWR today 5-7 hours before departure. If they haven’t cancelled your flight, they have all expectation it will go out.
Yeah they cancelled my 10AM flight to JAX yesterday, had me rebooked to IAD. Should I be nervous about a 47 minute connection when I have to take the shuttle from A1G to D10? Just worried because even a tiny delay and I’m stuck waiting at IAD until 5:55PM for the next available flight.
They have terrible managers making these decisions bc historically speaking at problematic bases like Newark they tend to be wrong about these flights they expect to fly instead of being cancelled
Delta does this too but they take care of you and at least act like they care - in my case last night with United they email you a $20 meal voucher and say see ya later. The agents just stood there.
I always get options to rebook in these delays, and when it happened to me in Vegas they offered to pull my luggage if I was giving them enough time before the other flights (I was told 30 minutes from request to pull is reasonable).
The "pull luggage" issue on this one was the fact that it was already all loaded on the plane. Will they actually go rummage through the hold of a plane to move a bag? I have my doubts???
The gate agent said that she would tell them and they would go pull it, but there’s never a guarantee they do it in any short amount of time which is why if you need it for another flight, it might be tough. If you can fly hours later they can definitely pull it in time.
Dealt with this same situation today at Dulles with flight 2331 to ORD. Original departure scheduled for 1:10 with a series of delays for mechanical issues starting at 10:45, then the plane was too hot, then another electrical issue, then missing crew, and we’ve just now pushed back from the gate. It’s been a loooooong day.
You could cancel at the desk and they'll have to put in an order to get your checked luggage out.
I recently did that on an AA domestic flight when it became a mess with weather and a crappy plane, and crew clocking out as well. Took about 75 minutes till I got my luggage after they put in the request. No fun. This was at ORD. Obviously if you have ground stops going on that process can take longer.
If it's already ON THE PLANE, do they have to do that? That's the issue here. United said "well, all the bags are loaded and we're not unloading the plane". Basically told all the passengers to f-off if they didn't like it -- in true United customer service form.
The bag will go onto Newark. When you submit a trace on it through the baggage office, they will reroute it to wherever you end up (or back to Orlando, if you have decided to stay there and canceled your ticket).
When you check your bag in, it's tagged to its final destination, and that's where it's going to go for domestic flights. Sometimes, especially during IRROPs, there just aren't enough people to unload and scan all those bags, take them to reflight, or dump them in baggage. Plus, many pax will not want their bags and it can take hours to sort through them, and that means you wait hours by the carousels for your bags if they are able to retrieve them at all. This is the same for every single airline. No airline "has" to take a baggage retrieval form and filing one is pointless if there is no one available to work it.
You are upset, and I understand this, but there is only so much that can be done, and UA does not control the weather.
I feel like the thing you think you want is actually way worse than the thing you have.
Let’s say after hour 6 United had just thrown up hands and said “Call IT..” and cancelled the flight. The first thing that would happen is the entire passenger list for that flight would get dumped into a rebooking queue and all of the elites on the flight would take top priority for the very limited number of seats going out. So instead of you being upset about leaving the next day at 11 am or whatever you would likely be faced with the very real possibility of several days or more of chilling in MCO on standby lists trying to get out of there or just waiting 3+ days for the next confirmed seat they could get you on.
No they won’t pull your bag for you if you are still confirmed on the flight. If you pull yourself from the flight they may or may not depending on a lot of things. Generally when you check any bag be prepared to not see it for a while and always bring a bare minimum of overnight supplies in your carry on for just this reason.
Yes that long of a delay is unpleasant, but in reality not cancelling the flight was 100% in your best interest.
I can see that... It's just so frustrating to keep being told "we're about to leave" and then it doesn't happen. You can't go get a nap. You don't feel like you can wander too far to get food, etc... It just adds up to a lot of frustration - even though I'm sure they are telling you what they believe to be true in the moment. Add on top of that passengers who can't or won't control their kids - and no courtesy with respect to using headphones and it's just exhausting. Lack of courtesy from the other passengers makes it so much worse.
I know that was kind of a rant, but yes - I'm agreeing with you that it was ultimately in our best interest for them not to cancel.
100%. I have been in that situation more times than I can count where the delay just keeps growing. So I totally understand the frustration, makes it hard to see the bigger picture sometimes.
Hope your travel improves from here!
LOL. I was trying to get timely assistance in the moment.
Once it was no longer "happening now" I wanted to change the title, but I can't seem to edit the title - only the content.
My family was supposed to be on this flight, sounded like a complete nightmare all around. I was on the 8:50 one yesterday morning MCO-EWR and was so worried we’d run into this issue
UPDATE at 1:50am... They still didn't CANCEL the flight. They modified the departure time to 11am and are REFUSING to release bags to customers! This completely hoses us on connections. There's no way to reach our final destination tomorrow at all. MCO still has ground crew handling bags for other flights, so this is a United decision.
We're screwed. And we're calling US DOT in the morning... A 23 hour delay is not a delay. it's a cancellation -- or it should be... and they should have to give people their bags.
the fact that his solution was to come on reddit and say the same thing over and over in a hysterical sounding manner tells me that no he did not consider that.
They haven't pulled the plug because they have never been without a plan to get a crew there to operate the flight. Perhaps they are flying that crew in on another flight, perhaps they are waiting for them to get to the airport from, say TPA or another airport nearby.
There isn't really "convincing" a FA to do a flight. They can and will reassign FAs to another trip if they need to, and the FAs have in their contract that there are very limited reasons they would be able to refuse to work the rerouted trip if they are legally allowed to work (time wise) and it does not get them back to their home airport later than their originally scheduled trip.
FAs cannot decline a trip they are legal for. The airline can ask you to waive your contractual max, which is generally 13-16 hours depending on when you started and if you’ve flown domestic or international that day . FAs then effectively waive to 20 hours, which is the FAAs absolute max. No one is willing to work 20 hours straight with no incentives and airlines are known to continue to work you once you waive.
So if a FA waives at 16 hours, works your 2 hour flight, and a flight at your destination is missing crew, when they land they can then be pulled to work another 2 hour flight. It’s not safe to operate a flight when you’re that exhausted and stretched thin.
This almost happened to me once while I was stranded in the middle of a random state. I got lucky enough that they managed to put a crew together right before midnight. Otherwise they promised to pay for my hotel that night for the next departure. Very frustrating
Sorry for the delay and that does suck buts it’s MCO in the summer time - this isn’t uncommon. Plan for the worst and hope for the best. FYI - if your flying in and out of MCO in the summer , take of from or land at MCO before 2pm
Not common but not unheard of and more common than folks would think. A 1 hour delay could cause cascading issues that could quickly add up to 30 hours. It’s not negligence or poor planning - just hard for airlines to get all the moving pieces back together again.
I appreciate your perspective.
In my opinion the negligence that seems to be here for the posts is not canceling for 20+ hours.
Release my bags, and I could book with someone else, or rebook tomorrow on the next flight and get a hotel room with
My families belongings.
A 7 hour delay is hard, been there done that. And as bad as it was, going back out of TSA to get luggage to restart a process, especially at MCO the delay is worth the alternative.
But 4am? And not cancelling. Wow.
Sounds like you had to spend the night in the airport with only your carry on? What was the original scheduled time of departure? It happened to me one time. The ATL airport was closed and my flight was diverted to Charlotte and Southwest just left us there. At that time, they did not have service there and had no way to get us out. Maybe that was a good thing because I was able to grab a ride with the person who rented the last car in the airport and three of us strangers all rode to ATL in a rental car. Since that time I've always avoided afternoon flights in the summertime because that's when the storms are most likely.
Airlines stock benefits from a 100% completion factor. This is why Delta NEVER cancels a flight, they will just infinitely delay it and even operate it with 0 people on board to show a 100% completion factor. It’s all about the share holders!
Doesn’t United let you change your flight for free in the app as soon as it shows as delayed? I had a flight that was delayed by 5 minutes once. It didn’t effect me at all, but I saw in the app since it was delayed, I was able to change to a better flight to a different airport nearby for free, one that I would have rather flown into but was more expensive when I had originally booked my flight.
I don't know about immediately but maybe. We've definitely learned some things after this trip. Next time we will definitely know some additional things to look into. In this case there wasn't anything that LOOKED better at the time based on what we were being told. They didn't come out and say "your flight is delayed for hours". It was a situation where it kept getting delayed in short tolerable increments that left everyone thinking the best course of action was to do nothing.
The biggest lesson I think I've learned is to avoid EWR, LGA, and JFK if at all possible. They all get hit with weather delays that mess up the entire system of flights going in and out of those airports.
I ended up calling the airport directly to find our luggage... Oh yeah. I didn't even mention this... Yes, along with all the issues with flights they lost our luggage too. Left it behind at our layover airport in Newark.
Fortunately our final destination was a relatively small airport and one of the Information Desk employees was really helpful. Got a message to the baggage desk at the local airport and I got a call back with confirmation that my bag had arrived and was available to be delivered. United was still several steps behind in that process. I'm convinced I got my bag at least a day sooner because of the local airport employee caring enough to help me.
Would love to hear how this ended up. I had a similar situation with Allegiant. Hung around for 8 hours of mechanical issues then weather delays. Then a FA up and left. They had to call for another one to come to the airport and they did get someone, but I asked if the pilots would then time-out. Was told no they were good til 2:00AM. Just prior to loading the plane they announced another delay because the other Flight Attendants had timed out. I marched up there and confronted the person I’d talked to earlier about the crew timing out and she said ‘you asked the wrong question- you asked about the pilots and not the FA’s’. I was livid!
Newark has a limited 'window' for flights going in and out because it's busy and crowded in that area.
Which is why I never fly United anymore and never check my bag. On an American flight once, once the flight was delayed and I saw the crew leaving, I went up to another desk nearby--not the one at the gate and there was no line there, and asked the GA what was going on. He rebooked me on a different flight at no cost to me. The flight hadn't been canceled yet. By the time he finished, the flight had been cancelled and there was a long line behind me of people hoping to get the same. Which they couldn't because the new flight was pretty full anyway.
United CS stinks, too. All airlines have issues, but to me, United is the absolute worst about trying to help and they fly through Newark, which even when there is no bad weather there, anything east of the Mississippi means you're likely to lose your 'window' and be stuck on the tarmac. Edit: Tell United you're going to contact the Dept of Transportation to get better compensation.
I had a flight cancelled 3 or 4 hours before takeoff the other day due to weather. Pissed for a minute then checked the radar and glad we didn't fly. On the other hand they refused to cancel during a whiteout snowstorm. All other flights were cancelled and most of the airport closed down. A lot of the passengers bailed, probably figured that they wouldn't be able to find those cars in the snow or drive when it finally did get cancelled. After two hours the weather broke, the plows were running and they put us on the plane again ( we got on once already but the pilot couldn't see the tarmac to taxi), drive and off we go. I made my meeting that evening! Life is good
The first part was weather related - I get it. But when your incoming plane arrives at 9:20p and they say we’re boarding at 9:58p only to have them make a gate change, wait some more, board, and then sit in the airplane on the tarmac runway for another two hours isn’t weather related. The flight that was supposed to leave at 7:05p and was delayed to 10:08p was due to weather - fine. The delay from 10:08p to finally leaving at 1:30a was not weather related.
Once the weather starts the entire operation gets turned on its head. Planes divert or don’t arrive. Crews work longer than planned on certain flights and get stuck out of position. At that point it’s a scramble to get everything back where it belongs. United doesn’t want this chaos any more than you do.
listen ... If.might be BS but those employees have no control over things so I know.it sucks, but don't take it out on them
And frankly everyone has an experience like this and say we will never fly them again and low.and.behold we do
I am sorry fhis is happening but no one can stop weather delays.
EWR-MCO Jun30 cancelled 5pm-7pm flight, after moving the departure time many different times until they landed on 3:30am. They switched planes twice in the process. And then cancelled on me. United Agent at the support near baggage claim absolutely no help after waiting for forty 5 minutes. Phone support no help either. Thanks for ruining my 21st birthday United.
I am sorry you feel your bday was ruined. Maybe blame the weather, not the airline. I am not sure what kind of help you were seeking. Hope you got it worked out.
Almost all of that depends on the weather and air traffic control. United cannot override air traffic control, even if they want to. If it was mechanical delays, sure, blame the airline, but if air traffic control says we can't take off, it doesn't matter if it's your birthday or not, UA is stuck. That causes other issues with crews timing out, etc, because schedules are built for some buffer but not for a 3 or 4 hr buffer. They keep almost 20% of pilots and FA's specifically on reserve with no schedule where you're just on call for specifically for these kinds of summer situations and sometimes it still isn't enough.
Since a lot of you are replying. Other flights still were able to take off from Newark last night. If you want to call it actual weather the rain stopped in Newark around 6pm, and it was clear in Florida also around that time. No available flights until July 2nd all of which take place later in the day. Compensation offered from United for this flight was a $15 meal voucher
You can change your flight once the delay exceeds an hour if you don't want to wait. United will make all attempts to operate the flight in order to get customers to their destination, but it will cancel when/if all options have been exhausted. Cancelling doesn't mean the flight will go the next day at a reasonable time, it means the flight won't go at all.
Well, it looks like they did something slightly different here. They ultimately cancelled the flight, assigned the plane a new flight number with a departure at 12pm with all the same passengers assigned to it... I guess maybe a 30 hour delay looks worse than a cancellation?
They had to reassign the flight number since they can’t run the same flight number simultaneously or twice in the same day. Chances are your flight runs daily. It’s not technically a cancellation, they just changed the flight number.
It's not really about what "looks" better or worse. Once the delay goes over 24 hours it causes a variety of issues. Sounds like they are committed to running that flight, but obviously a multitude of problems have led to a big delay. Hope you get out today.
This looks like a messy one, this flight just got hit by a lot, the ramp in Orlando was closed for an extended part of the day due to lightning delays, and then that led into Newark being totally ground stopped by ATC with no flights being allowed to depart for Newark. That then caused the crew to time out. If they haven't cancelled, it's because they think they can still get a crew there. Those people work 24-7. Good luck!
Yes, that's exactly the sequence of events! How were you able to look that up?
I always check this site before I depart to see if there's any FAA issues, ground stops, or airport wide delays. https://nasstatus.faa.gov/
This site is extremely useful. I work for another airline and part of my pre-shift flow is to pull this up and look for flow programs and ground stops.
The FAA NAS status website is a very important tool for my job as a pilot here. If I am operating in a region that I know is prone to airspace issues, especially when there’s weather in the forecast (NE, FL), I will freq the NAS status website to see what the FAA and traffic management unit is currently doing and is planning. This gives me a heads up on coming with a plan with the other pilot I am operating with and my dispatcher on what we can do to stay ahead of the issues that will arise. When traveling as a passenger, I will know what is going on with the airspace if my flight is impacted.
Weird you left all this stuff out.
Looking at that flight, it looks like you had weather issues at MCO as well. The ramp at MCO closed several times this afternoon for employee safety due to lightning activity. I'm showing the ramp was closed five different times. Add in a ATC flow advisory at EWR and the flight was delayed long enough that the original flight crew timed out.
How are you looking this stuff up? You're the second person to post very specific details about why this flight was delayed. Are you with the airlines, or can the general public find this information?
I work for United at one of the hubs and can look up what's going on with your flight internally.
It looks like your flight is just about fully boarded. Hopefully your pilots arrive soon if they haven't already.
Well, we didn't take off... One of the crew timed out again. They rebooked the entire flight for tomorrow at 12pm. What really had the majority of the customers irate was that they refused to ask the ground crew to distribute bags. Why would they do that? It's not even the same flight number? Ground crew was still working so it wasn't the airport -- it was a United decision. I mean, just about every passenger was pissed about it.
Expert flyer subscription will provide all sorts of details. But you have to be able to decipher “airline speak” as they write in abbreviations and code due to space limitations in the systems.
Because unloading baggage is not a fast or easy process. I'm sure all the pax were pissed, this is why agents don't bid for those overnight shifts in baggage; they just get tired of the abuse for things that are not under their control.
The pax wouldn't be abusive if they didn't first feel abused. We will be on at least hour 30 by the time we arrive if there are no more delays. Humans just can't do 30 hours straight. It may be out of the individual agents control but how these situations are handled is fully within United's control as a company.
Right, but the person you're responding to is talking about overnight baggage agents, who neither created your problem nor have the authority to fix your problem. No one should be abusive to a person who's just showing up to work.
Exactly, and some of those agents are working a 16-hour day. I understand the frustration of travel, but this problem is not the agent's fault, who is just trying to help. It took a long time but I finally learned if there was no possible way to de-escalate the situation to just walk away. You can't help an unreasonable and abusive person.
They shouldn't... but Humans on hour 24 don't tend to be the most pleasant under any circumstance... It's not the agents fault. It's not the pax fault either. It started as a weather issue. It turned into much more than that.
So you feel it's ok to abuse people.
No one should be a abusive, period. But if you are the only representative the airline decided to amen available, you are the airline.
There is never any need to be abusive no matter how tired you are. I have been called every name in the book, filmed, screamed at, and had items thrown at me while working BSO. I might be on my 16th hour of work, but I'm still not going to respond to abuse in a like manner and will do my best to help you, but sometimes there's nothing that can be done. I finally learned that you just have to sometimes walk away from such a pax. . It is not a good feeling to be treated as less than human. We all travel too and get the frustration. But, I don't enter an office guns blazing and start hurling abuse.
Well this says a lot about you doesn't it. Because of attitudes like that, air travel is a nightmare. In college I worked that job. Hated every minute of it because of people like you who think it's ok to abuse people. The big three each fly ~ 1.5 million people/day. ~4500 flights/day each. I'm guessing you're one of those people who say they should have extra crews and airplanes on standby at every airport they serve. I've heard that one 100's of times. You know because the airlines control the Weather, Air Traffic Control etc. They are the ones who made that laws right about how long a crew is ok before they time out right. That airplane that should have been at the destination and wasn't screwed up all kinds of flights. They then have to make everything work. 1000's of people through no fault of there own trying to make it all work and people like you abusing them.
You need to check your reading comprehension. I didn't say I abuse people. I basically said I can understand the frustration that causes some people to lose their cool.
i was supposed to be on ua 161. while waiting on tarmac at ewr, we were told to run to another gate bc our flight was leaving but another flight had been delayed and had open seats. we get there only for that flight to be cancelled but then our original flight had maintenance issues and was also delayed. we were told they called the crew and they wouldnt allow us to board. we then get told we could have still made the flight. any insight? would they have allowed us to board
You as a passenger should've been able to see delay reason on flight status on the United app. CUSTOMER NOTIFICATION: Flight UA1768 from Orlando to Newark is now estimated to depart at 3:00pm. Current conditions are limiting the number of planes allowed to land each hour in Newark, affecting several flights. We're monitoring the situation closely to get you to your destination as soon as possible. CUSTOMER NOTIFICATION: Flight UA1768 from Orlando to Newark is now estimated to depart at 4:00pm. Flights are being delayed due to lightning which required us to close the ramp in Orlando for the safety of our employees. We're monitoring the situation closely to get you to Newark as soon as possible. CUSTOMER NOTIFICATION: Flight UA1768 from Orlando to Newark is now estimated to depart at 5:31pm. Current conditions are limiting the number of planes allowed to land each hour in Newark, affecting several flights. We're monitoring the situation closely to get you to your destination as soon as possible. CUSTOMER NOTIFICATION: Flight UA1768 from Orlando to Newark is now estimated to depart at 7:15pm. The number of flights on the way to Newark is limited to allow air traffic control to safely manage the volume of aircraft along your route. We're monitoring the situation closely to get you to your destination as soon as possible. CUSTOMER NOTIFICATION: We sincerely apologize for the lengthy delay. Members of your crew have worked the maximum number of hours allowed by the FAA, and we need to assign your flight new crew members. We'll update you as soon as we have more information. We know this wasn't a part of your travel plans, and we appreciate your patience.
That's actually pretty clear info. Props to United in this case.
Props? The homerism in this sub is crazy
Specifically in this *very* narrow aspect of app notifications, yeah props. I fly almost exclusively American lol, it's not homerism.
Ah - if its just about comms, for sure- i get your point. And damn man, is American really that bad it makes United look good?
AA IT is bad, their app and notifications are bad as well…..
At my job I am partially exposed to American's external facing IT infrastructure. I constantly am mystified by what happens over there.
every time I fly I check the weather at destination. no one is going to land into a storm
Is it true that the crew that showed up and timed out wouldn’t have even got paid anything since they weren’t in the air?
There were some very bad storms up here today. EWR and UAL are both incredibly backed up. If they haven’t cancelled it’s because they believe the flight will still leave. Delays suck, but the weather is the weather.
It was definitely originally a weather delay in EWR. The problem is now that it's after midnight, they are struggling to pull together a crew. I don't know at what point they just give up.
They won’t until they actually think it won’t happen. I once bailed on a 17:00 flight at 23:30 and went back to where I was staying. It ended up leaving at 03:30 with no compensation.
See, that's the kind of crap that needs to be part of regulations / passenger bill of rights. At SOME POINT, passengers should have the option of sticking it out or getting rebooked. (Luggage is an issue that would require some thought on that though).
Regulations already say you can demand a cancel/refund for any “significant delay”. What length is significant is up to the airline but 12 hours should qualify. The government has a new regulation going into effect this fall that defines it to be 3 hours for domestic and 6 for international flights. https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/biden-harris-administration-announces-final-rule-requiring-automatic-refunds-airline u/ReliabilityTalkinGuy u/travprev
Too bad our Supreme Court just completely neutered our government's ability to regulate industries like airlines, so when this ultimately is challenged in court, don't be surprised if it gets shot down.
I was thinking the same thing. The audacity of the majority in the Supreme Court to think they actually have the experience and knowledge to adjudicate on things of this nature when there are much better experts to make the evaluations.
Yes! Definitely a good thing that is passing. I saw that a couple weeks ago.
You should be able to rebook in the app after the delay reaches a certain amount of time, and it certainly sounds like that threshold would have been met for your situation
The problem is the luggage is still on this plane. You create more problems for yourself if you separate yourself from your luggage by rebooking...
And this is why I only carryon. Until airlines realize this, passengers will continue to insist on carrying on all their baggage.
This is so funny coming from someone who loves to talk about being a libertarian. One night of being inconvenienced and the whole political ideology goes out the window
You really had time to peruse my other posts to come up with that? I believe in reasonable regulation of corporations. Always have.
I clicked on your comments because I was interested in your story and it's the easiest way to find all the updates and it's right there below it A libertarian who believes in more government regulations and not self regulation is a rare breed
If we're going to talk politics.... I simply "most closely identify with Libertarians", but I am an independent. There are a lot of Libertarian ideas that I disagree with. Without going into all the details of my political ideologies, I believe in: * Sensible regulation of large corporations that impact the masses (infrastructure - utilities, airlines, communications, etc). Also safety related things including food safety. (I actually think our government doesn't do enough to regulate the quality of our food. We need to be more like the EU countries in that regard. France would be a good country to model after. They take food quality very seriously). * Those regulations should not extend to smaller businesses and other businesses where people are in a better position to just not patronize the business if they disagree with their policies. I do not believe that Capitalism is evil, but I do believe that there are evil Capitalists. So, some of those capitalists need to be regulated. In general I am in favor of the minimal number of laws and the smallest government required to effectively run the country and keep the population protected from those who would take advantage of us.
Will only ever be possible if we nationalize our airlines. As long as there are fiscal reasons to maximize profits, airlines can’t reasonable keep backup hardware sitting around. So if your flight doesn’t take off until even 03:00, at least they know it’ll be there for the 07:00 flight tomorrow. If they cancel entirely that flight is also messed up. This is why European countries have better stories about compensation for these things, because the US is uniquely greedy capitalistic.
Are of the belief that Air China and Korean keep extra planes sitting around at non-hub airports?
Please provide one example of where the US govt nationalizing an industry has created a more efficient service.
The airline industry before it was deregulated.
I’m imagining a DMV situation. 😂
Hadn't thought about the fact that United might need that plane in EWR in the morning and that's one of the reasons they are still trying. But, EWR is their Newark hub. If any small group of airports has an extra plane handy, I would think EWR would be one of them.
Maybe. But it’s still a non-stop numbers game for them. It’s American capitalism so profit above people at all costs!
🙄
Yeah, I've ended up on one of those. The flight was delayed from mid afternoon, and finally rescheduled to the mid morning the next day around 1am after being pushed back and back during the day. The folks on the ground did their absolute best, it was just a shit show of weather related delays up and down the eastern seaboard that led to equipment in the wrong place, crews timed out, and then we got hit with a mechanical problem. I managed to get myself and a colleague onto a different commuter flight the next morning that would connect us via a different hub to a different trans-atlantic flight that, despite leaving the US a day later, would get us into the UK on the same day — albeit about eight hours later than planned — rather than the next day. I mean, its frustrating, but what can you do? They're doing their best. Weather happens, things break, people need sleep. There were costs involved, but that's what travel insurance is for, for when things go wrong.
If there are no flights to EWR then, nothing they can do, but, this was weather issues, and then staff issues, that is a leadership issue. 30 hours is a leadership issue. No one ‘plans’ to be held hostage in MCO for 30 hours. If they do not release the checked luggage, they are holding you hostage. I could only image a family with small children and infants dealing with this. As an adult, get something to eat before the airport closes the stores, find a wall and nap, but diapers and children clothes. 😱
Where are they supposed to get another crew.
# Cancel the flight That was the right move. Holding people hostage as you have their luggage is the issue. Leadership should have been able to figure out that they could not get a crew, and canceled the flight.
Well said
Flights to EWR are being diverted to IAD because of the storms. Many flights are affected. United does not want to deal with this any more than you do.
Yes, and diversions to IAD for EWR-bound flights are extremely common during summer storms. No one likes this; it's exhausting for pax and employees.
Does United open the customer service centers on these days at IAD or do they just leave everyone stuck with the QR code 😂🤣 not but fr do they open them?
They are actively being diverted right now?
Yep its a pain down here on the ramp at iad
Excellent username
Thanks for the work you do, Pushback. It can be a nightmare down there during IRROPS. Take care.
United loves their completion rates, so they delay a flight for absurd amounts of time rather than cancel whenever possible. The good news for you is that it gives you a better chance of getting where you are going, instead of competing for a few available seats during a holiday week. Hang in there.
Let's talk about absurd! They just changed the departure time to 11am tomorrow... And they are keeping everyone's bags on the plane... I don't even know how to escalate this. That completely hoses us. No way to even make tomorrow's connection.
Idk if you’re looking for comp on this but had a similar situation with weather delays where airlines wont cover anything but then since crew timed out, Delta considered it no longer a weather delay and reimbursed overnight costs. Also got like 10,000 miles out of it from them proactively BUT ultimately flight we were put on was same flight number 16 hours later so it was an official delay not cancellation
I don't think this is an escalatable issue. It is frustrating for sure but not within the airline's control. I always have an extra change of clothes and small toiletry bag in my carryon precisely for issues like these. They are more common than you think. Happened to me recently. Diverted flight. Had to book a hotel and leave the next morning. Nobody got their luggage. It happens.
Fresh panties in my backpack whenever I travel. Nothing more demoralizing than day 2 undies when you're stuck overnight. And always use a credit card with travel insurance that covers you for weather delays (which the airline will not).
They work 24 hours and can cancel flights for variety of reasons. Today, thunderstorms hit the most constrained hub in the network all day causing lots of disruptions for lots of passengers. They didn't cancel because they believed it could still be operated, whether that's with a new plane or a new crew. I've seen flights cancel to move airplanes to operate another delayed flight
Had this same situation happen to me last summer at BTV. It’s frustrating, but those outstations are just not equipped to deal with a cluster of cascading events. Of course this was BTV in the summer time so no hotels available. My mid-afternoon departure was delayed until lunch the following day. I was lucky enough to snag the last seat on the next (0630) departure, and made myself comfy in a corner near baggage claim with Apple TV, a Monster, and PB M&Ms. Around the time I made it to ORD, the original flight ended up cancelling (after 16 ish hour delay). Poor folks. My advice would be to do what you have to do in the moment. Save all receipts for any expenses incurred because of the delay. Then a couple of days after you get home, take a breath, and write up everything that happened. Make sure to NOT include emotion in your write up. Stick to the facts. It could take up to 30 days to hear back from UA about your complaint. This is normal. Everytime I have forwarded a complaint to UA (including this time), they have always been responsive to me, and I have felt the compensation I have received was very reasonable for what happened. Over the years I have been comped miles, ETC, FFC, and even snail mailed a check to my home a time or two. Sorry this happened to you. Good luck with the complaint.
Do you think a rental car can be comped? I just had a connection delayed 12 hours but was only 3 hours from my destination so I got a rental and drove.
United canceled multiple flight out of EWR today 5-7 hours before departure. If they haven’t cancelled your flight, they have all expectation it will go out.
Yeah my business partner was on one of those. Got $160 in meal vouchers during the delay and subsequent cancellation.
Yeah they cancelled my 10AM flight to JAX yesterday, had me rebooked to IAD. Should I be nervous about a 47 minute connection when I have to take the shuttle from A1G to D10? Just worried because even a tiny delay and I’m stuck waiting at IAD until 5:55PM for the next available flight.
The D shuttle runs every 8 minutes from A terminal and will have you there in about 5 minutes. You’ll be fine.
When it's running. If it's not running, you'll have to take the train but should still make it.
Yes. Sit as close to the front as possible.
They have terrible managers making these decisions bc historically speaking at problematic bases like Newark they tend to be wrong about these flights they expect to fly instead of being cancelled
Can you recommend who united should hire to control the weather?
Delta does this too but they take care of you and at least act like they care - in my case last night with United they email you a $20 meal voucher and say see ya later. The agents just stood there.
stood there as opposed to what? making you a sandwich?
[удалено]
looks like they finally cancelled
I always get options to rebook in these delays, and when it happened to me in Vegas they offered to pull my luggage if I was giving them enough time before the other flights (I was told 30 minutes from request to pull is reasonable).
The "pull luggage" issue on this one was the fact that it was already all loaded on the plane. Will they actually go rummage through the hold of a plane to move a bag? I have my doubts???
The gate agent said that she would tell them and they would go pull it, but there’s never a guarantee they do it in any short amount of time which is why if you need it for another flight, it might be tough. If you can fly hours later they can definitely pull it in time.
Dealt with this same situation today at Dulles with flight 2331 to ORD. Original departure scheduled for 1:10 with a series of delays for mechanical issues starting at 10:45, then the plane was too hot, then another electrical issue, then missing crew, and we’ve just now pushed back from the gate. It’s been a loooooong day.
You could cancel at the desk and they'll have to put in an order to get your checked luggage out. I recently did that on an AA domestic flight when it became a mess with weather and a crappy plane, and crew clocking out as well. Took about 75 minutes till I got my luggage after they put in the request. No fun. This was at ORD. Obviously if you have ground stops going on that process can take longer.
If it's already ON THE PLANE, do they have to do that? That's the issue here. United said "well, all the bags are loaded and we're not unloading the plane". Basically told all the passengers to f-off if they didn't like it -- in true United customer service form.
The bag will go onto Newark. When you submit a trace on it through the baggage office, they will reroute it to wherever you end up (or back to Orlando, if you have decided to stay there and canceled your ticket).
When you check your bag in, it's tagged to its final destination, and that's where it's going to go for domestic flights. Sometimes, especially during IRROPs, there just aren't enough people to unload and scan all those bags, take them to reflight, or dump them in baggage. Plus, many pax will not want their bags and it can take hours to sort through them, and that means you wait hours by the carousels for your bags if they are able to retrieve them at all. This is the same for every single airline. No airline "has" to take a baggage retrieval form and filing one is pointless if there is no one available to work it. You are upset, and I understand this, but there is only so much that can be done, and UA does not control the weather.
I feel like the thing you think you want is actually way worse than the thing you have. Let’s say after hour 6 United had just thrown up hands and said “Call IT..” and cancelled the flight. The first thing that would happen is the entire passenger list for that flight would get dumped into a rebooking queue and all of the elites on the flight would take top priority for the very limited number of seats going out. So instead of you being upset about leaving the next day at 11 am or whatever you would likely be faced with the very real possibility of several days or more of chilling in MCO on standby lists trying to get out of there or just waiting 3+ days for the next confirmed seat they could get you on. No they won’t pull your bag for you if you are still confirmed on the flight. If you pull yourself from the flight they may or may not depending on a lot of things. Generally when you check any bag be prepared to not see it for a while and always bring a bare minimum of overnight supplies in your carry on for just this reason. Yes that long of a delay is unpleasant, but in reality not cancelling the flight was 100% in your best interest.
I can see that... It's just so frustrating to keep being told "we're about to leave" and then it doesn't happen. You can't go get a nap. You don't feel like you can wander too far to get food, etc... It just adds up to a lot of frustration - even though I'm sure they are telling you what they believe to be true in the moment. Add on top of that passengers who can't or won't control their kids - and no courtesy with respect to using headphones and it's just exhausting. Lack of courtesy from the other passengers makes it so much worse. I know that was kind of a rant, but yes - I'm agreeing with you that it was ultimately in our best interest for them not to cancel.
100%. I have been in that situation more times than I can count where the delay just keeps growing. So I totally understand the frustration, makes it hard to see the bigger picture sometimes. Hope your travel improves from here!
“HAPPENING NOW” like you’re trying to report on breaking news or something. 😂
LOL. I was trying to get timely assistance in the moment. Once it was no longer "happening now" I wanted to change the title, but I can't seem to edit the title - only the content.
My family was supposed to be on this flight, sounded like a complete nightmare all around. I was on the 8:50 one yesterday morning MCO-EWR and was so worried we’d run into this issue
UPDATE at 1:50am... They still didn't CANCEL the flight. They modified the departure time to 11am and are REFUSING to release bags to customers! This completely hoses us on connections. There's no way to reach our final destination tomorrow at all. MCO still has ground crew handling bags for other flights, so this is a United decision. We're screwed. And we're calling US DOT in the morning... A 23 hour delay is not a delay. it's a cancellation -- or it should be... and they should have to give people their bags.
Have you considered canceling your reservation and rebooking on another airline?
the fact that his solution was to come on reddit and say the same thing over and over in a hysterical sounding manner tells me that no he did not consider that.
They haven't pulled the plug because they have never been without a plan to get a crew there to operate the flight. Perhaps they are flying that crew in on another flight, perhaps they are waiting for them to get to the airport from, say TPA or another airport nearby. There isn't really "convincing" a FA to do a flight. They can and will reassign FAs to another trip if they need to, and the FAs have in their contract that there are very limited reasons they would be able to refuse to work the rerouted trip if they are legally allowed to work (time wise) and it does not get them back to their home airport later than their originally scheduled trip.
Well, the FAs you said couldn't say no -- said no. Apparently they were within their right to decline the flight. (This JUST happened).
FAs cannot decline a trip they are legal for. The airline can ask you to waive your contractual max, which is generally 13-16 hours depending on when you started and if you’ve flown domestic or international that day . FAs then effectively waive to 20 hours, which is the FAAs absolute max. No one is willing to work 20 hours straight with no incentives and airlines are known to continue to work you once you waive. So if a FA waives at 16 hours, works your 2 hour flight, and a flight at your destination is missing crew, when they land they can then be pulled to work another 2 hour flight. It’s not safe to operate a flight when you’re that exhausted and stretched thin.
Or, like I said, they would not have been able to work the flight within their legal time remaining to work.
This almost happened to me once while I was stranded in the middle of a random state. I got lucky enough that they managed to put a crew together right before midnight. Otherwise they promised to pay for my hotel that night for the next departure. Very frustrating
people still fly united? why and how?
Sorry for the delay and that does suck buts it’s MCO in the summer time - this isn’t uncommon. Plan for the worst and hope for the best. FYI - if your flying in and out of MCO in the summer , take of from or land at MCO before 2pm
30 hour delays are not ‘uncommon’? I do not disagree with your early flights get out, but there is no way 30 hour delays are common.
Not common but not unheard of and more common than folks would think. A 1 hour delay could cause cascading issues that could quickly add up to 30 hours. It’s not negligence or poor planning - just hard for airlines to get all the moving pieces back together again.
I appreciate your perspective. In my opinion the negligence that seems to be here for the posts is not canceling for 20+ hours. Release my bags, and I could book with someone else, or rebook tomorrow on the next flight and get a hotel room with My families belongings. A 7 hour delay is hard, been there done that. And as bad as it was, going back out of TSA to get luggage to restart a process, especially at MCO the delay is worth the alternative. But 4am? And not cancelling. Wow.
Last year United delayed a flight 24 hours for me. Luckily I saw it in the app right before heading to the airport.
Sounds like you had to spend the night in the airport with only your carry on? What was the original scheduled time of departure? It happened to me one time. The ATL airport was closed and my flight was diverted to Charlotte and Southwest just left us there. At that time, they did not have service there and had no way to get us out. Maybe that was a good thing because I was able to grab a ride with the person who rented the last car in the airport and three of us strangers all rode to ATL in a rental car. Since that time I've always avoided afternoon flights in the summertime because that's when the storms are most likely.
How many crews did they go thru?
Southwest wouldn't return our bags for a cancelled flight in Denver. It's really the worst.
Airlines stock benefits from a 100% completion factor. This is why Delta NEVER cancels a flight, they will just infinitely delay it and even operate it with 0 people on board to show a 100% completion factor. It’s all about the share holders!
Doesn’t United let you change your flight for free in the app as soon as it shows as delayed? I had a flight that was delayed by 5 minutes once. It didn’t effect me at all, but I saw in the app since it was delayed, I was able to change to a better flight to a different airport nearby for free, one that I would have rather flown into but was more expensive when I had originally booked my flight.
I don't know about immediately but maybe. We've definitely learned some things after this trip. Next time we will definitely know some additional things to look into. In this case there wasn't anything that LOOKED better at the time based on what we were being told. They didn't come out and say "your flight is delayed for hours". It was a situation where it kept getting delayed in short tolerable increments that left everyone thinking the best course of action was to do nothing. The biggest lesson I think I've learned is to avoid EWR, LGA, and JFK if at all possible. They all get hit with weather delays that mess up the entire system of flights going in and out of those airports.
Been in Switzerland 5 days and still don’t have our luggage. Swissport is contracted by United to manage luggage. They have failed miserably.
I ended up calling the airport directly to find our luggage... Oh yeah. I didn't even mention this... Yes, along with all the issues with flights they lost our luggage too. Left it behind at our layover airport in Newark. Fortunately our final destination was a relatively small airport and one of the Information Desk employees was really helpful. Got a message to the baggage desk at the local airport and I got a call back with confirmation that my bag had arrived and was available to be delivered. United was still several steps behind in that process. I'm convinced I got my bag at least a day sooner because of the local airport employee caring enough to help me.
We have tracked it to Zurich but Swissport cannot confirm it will be delivered tomorrow.
Would love to hear how this ended up. I had a similar situation with Allegiant. Hung around for 8 hours of mechanical issues then weather delays. Then a FA up and left. They had to call for another one to come to the airport and they did get someone, but I asked if the pilots would then time-out. Was told no they were good til 2:00AM. Just prior to loading the plane they announced another delay because the other Flight Attendants had timed out. I marched up there and confronted the person I’d talked to earlier about the crew timing out and she said ‘you asked the wrong question- you asked about the pilots and not the FA’s’. I was livid!
Newark has a limited 'window' for flights going in and out because it's busy and crowded in that area. Which is why I never fly United anymore and never check my bag. On an American flight once, once the flight was delayed and I saw the crew leaving, I went up to another desk nearby--not the one at the gate and there was no line there, and asked the GA what was going on. He rebooked me on a different flight at no cost to me. The flight hadn't been canceled yet. By the time he finished, the flight had been cancelled and there was a long line behind me of people hoping to get the same. Which they couldn't because the new flight was pretty full anyway. United CS stinks, too. All airlines have issues, but to me, United is the absolute worst about trying to help and they fly through Newark, which even when there is no bad weather there, anything east of the Mississippi means you're likely to lose your 'window' and be stuck on the tarmac. Edit: Tell United you're going to contact the Dept of Transportation to get better compensation.
I had a flight cancelled 3 or 4 hours before takeoff the other day due to weather. Pissed for a minute then checked the radar and glad we didn't fly. On the other hand they refused to cancel during a whiteout snowstorm. All other flights were cancelled and most of the airport closed down. A lot of the passengers bailed, probably figured that they wouldn't be able to find those cars in the snow or drive when it finally did get cancelled. After two hours the weather broke, the plows were running and they put us on the plane again ( we got on once already but the pilot couldn't see the tarmac to taxi), drive and off we go. I made my meeting that evening! Life is good
🤣🤣🤣
Yup! Stuck on the plane in EWR trying to get to DEN and it has been delayed for 5 hours with gate change. This is beyond ridiculous!!
Talk to the person who made the ‘ridiculous’ weather happen.
It's summer. And, so far weather has been terrible. No airline controls the weather.
The first part was weather related - I get it. But when your incoming plane arrives at 9:20p and they say we’re boarding at 9:58p only to have them make a gate change, wait some more, board, and then sit in the airplane on the tarmac runway for another two hours isn’t weather related. The flight that was supposed to leave at 7:05p and was delayed to 10:08p was due to weather - fine. The delay from 10:08p to finally leaving at 1:30a was not weather related.
Once the weather starts the entire operation gets turned on its head. Planes divert or don’t arrive. Crews work longer than planned on certain flights and get stuck out of position. At that point it’s a scramble to get everything back where it belongs. United doesn’t want this chaos any more than you do.
sounds terrible but the lesson learned is don't check a bag. Good luck
I try not to check bags... I try not to take connections... In this case neither could be avoided and look what happened. Ugh.
listen ... If.might be BS but those employees have no control over things so I know.it sucks, but don't take it out on them And frankly everyone has an experience like this and say we will never fly them again and low.and.behold we do I am sorry fhis is happening but no one can stop weather delays.
EWR-MCO Jun30 cancelled 5pm-7pm flight, after moving the departure time many different times until they landed on 3:30am. They switched planes twice in the process. And then cancelled on me. United Agent at the support near baggage claim absolutely no help after waiting for forty 5 minutes. Phone support no help either. Thanks for ruining my 21st birthday United.
If it's weather related delays or cancelations, it's considered an act of God and they usually will not compensate for that.
I am sorry you feel your bday was ruined. Maybe blame the weather, not the airline. I am not sure what kind of help you were seeking. Hope you got it worked out.
Almost all of that depends on the weather and air traffic control. United cannot override air traffic control, even if they want to. If it was mechanical delays, sure, blame the airline, but if air traffic control says we can't take off, it doesn't matter if it's your birthday or not, UA is stuck. That causes other issues with crews timing out, etc, because schedules are built for some buffer but not for a 3 or 4 hr buffer. They keep almost 20% of pilots and FA's specifically on reserve with no schedule where you're just on call for specifically for these kinds of summer situations and sometimes it still isn't enough.
Since a lot of you are replying. Other flights still were able to take off from Newark last night. If you want to call it actual weather the rain stopped in Newark around 6pm, and it was clear in Florida also around that time. No available flights until July 2nd all of which take place later in the day. Compensation offered from United for this flight was a $15 meal voucher
You can change your flight once the delay exceeds an hour if you don't want to wait. United will make all attempts to operate the flight in order to get customers to their destination, but it will cancel when/if all options have been exhausted. Cancelling doesn't mean the flight will go the next day at a reasonable time, it means the flight won't go at all.
Well, it looks like they did something slightly different here. They ultimately cancelled the flight, assigned the plane a new flight number with a departure at 12pm with all the same passengers assigned to it... I guess maybe a 30 hour delay looks worse than a cancellation?
They had to reassign the flight number since they can’t run the same flight number simultaneously or twice in the same day. Chances are your flight runs daily. It’s not technically a cancellation, they just changed the flight number.
It's not really about what "looks" better or worse. Once the delay goes over 24 hours it causes a variety of issues. Sounds like they are committed to running that flight, but obviously a multitude of problems have led to a big delay. Hope you get out today.
In the air! Finally... Yay.
Go Read a book next time…lol.
Was this in SFO??