I just want to publicly say that United Airlines is officially on my boycott list. I have suffered through many, many delayed flights and even voluntarily bumped myself from a flight to get a free ticket. But I have never, ever had to miss a flight because of the airline’s idiotic scheduling. I should be landing in Philadelphia right now. Instead, I’m sitting in a hotel room outside Denver, biding time until a 7 a.m. flight tomorrow.
We were scheduled to fly from Sacramento to Philadelphia on the same plane, with one stopover in Denver. About an hour before the flight, we saw online that it was delayed by 40 minutes. We figured, no problem, it’s the same plane so we won’t have to worry about running to catch a connection. At the gate, the sign also noted the flight’s continuing service to Philly. Seth checked with the gate agent to be sure and was told that because the plane was delayed, they were going to substitute a different one that would leave just before we landed. We were livid, of course, because there were no other flights that would get us home that night. Worse, we arrived literally five minutes after the Philadelphia flight had taken off.
I want to know why United couldn’t hold the plane 15 minutes if they knew that several connecting flights were arriving late? Based on the customer service line in Denver (which took an hour to get through btw) it seemed like the same thing had happened to several other passengers. I remember gate agents holding planes all the time in the past when they knew that passengers were coming in from flights that had been delayed. Isn’t it more cost-effective to do this than to pay for hotel rooms for dozens of people? It would certainly make those passengers happier. I, for one, will not be flying United again anytime soon unless there’s an extremely compelling price difference.
