United Airlines rant

It’s no wonder United has filed chapter 11. They suck donkeys. The fuckers gave my seat away, lied to me not once, but twice, and were totally unrepentant.

I arrived at the airport (very small local , four gate airport) forty five minutes early for the first flight out of the day 7:10am. I had confirmed seats on this flight and had to check a bag. Unfortunately when I arrived, after being ignored by the counter staff for ten minutes, I was told that my checked luggage was “randomly” chosen for a search. Moreover, this search would not only cause me to miss the flight on which I was booked, but as the following flight was completely booked I would not be able to take that flight either, or the next, or the next or, (as it turns out, the next). So I decided to not check any bags, and simply have my luggage shipped to me at a later date, thus allowing me to only carry-on.

It was at this point, with 30 minutes before my flight boarded that I was told unfortunately, my seat had already been re-assigned and I would not be allowed to board my flight. I was never offered stand-by status on the following four flights out despite my requests. Therefore, I would not be able to fly out until 6:30pm. I was re-booked to the later flight, and my arrival time was moved back 13 hours with a three-hour layover in Chicago.

I was never offered an apology by the staff of United Airlines. I also was chided by the only remaining staff member at the counter for “not showing up earlier”.

Ok at this point, I’ll admit I should have gotten there earlier, but they could have just admitted that I wasn’t going to get on that flight because they’d re-assigned my CONFIRMED seat without my permission.

All I really wanted was an apology, or at least a slight acknowledgment or remorse for the inconvenience of what was surely was error on both my and the airline’s part. Instead I received a condescending attitude and anger.

The irony here is that I gladly would have volunteered my seat for compensation had I been asked.

So now I enter round two, so to speak. I go back the airline two hours early for my 6:30 flight. This flight is canceled due to fog. I’m not angry about this, as I realize the airline has nothing to do with the weather. So while I have some time to kill I ask to speak to the supervisor (I didn’t speak to him the first time as I was very upset, my flight had already gone, and I figured I would just just get into a very heated yelling match. I turns out that this was a mistake). The supervisor now on duty, was not there at 6:30 am, so he tell me that his staff informed him that I was only 20 early for the flight. BULLSHIT!! They lied to him. Now he calls me a liar. My mother confirms that we’d been there 45 minutes early, and he flat out say that he has to take the word of his staff. I asked him if he was calling me a liar and he says “well…”. Fuck you asshole.

So I now get the 6:00 am flight out of Detroit (which is 2 hours away) because there are apparently no flights available at the local airport on New years eve. This means that I have to leave my house at 2:00 am. So no sleep for me, or my brother who now has to drive me.

Round three. I get to Detroit to fly out on American (who by the way was great) and it turns out that United never confirmed for a seat on American. ARRRRGGG!. So now I have to go wait at the United desk for an HOUR. There is not a person at the United desk until there less than an hour before their first flight of the day left. There were literally over a hundred people waiting in line before the ticketing staff showed up.

Thanks to United. I almost missed that flight too!

Fucking United. You suck. No wonder you’re going out of business.

I have already sent letters of complaint and called customer service, but apparently since the United staff lied I won’t be getting any compensation.

Thanks to United, I slept through New Years eve (due to being up for over 36 hours straight), and couldn’t go to the party that I’d promised to attend. I’m so pissed!

Well, they’re not going out of business; they’re restructuring. And like you said, you should have gotten there earlier. You’ve “thanked” United for a lot of stuff when you really should be “thanking” yourself.

UA pissed me off a couple of nights ago. My flight to Chicago was delayed, so I was happy when we finally got on board. We pull out and tool around on the runway and then the plane comes to a halt. The captain gets on the intercom and says we have to wait an hour before taking off. I’m not a claustrophobe, but my throat tightened at the thought of being locked on that plane, surrounded by a bunch of screaming toddlers and babies, for an extra hour.

Turns out we only had to wait 30 minutes though. I was able to catch my connecting flight with no problem. The plane didn’t crash into the mountains either, and that’s the most important thing.

I hate United and have vowed never to fly with them again… Those cowardly fucks flew out of Portland down to Medford (what was supposed to be a simple Hour or LEss flight), decided that there was too much cloud cover, circled DIRECTLY OVER THE AIRPORT FOUR TIMES AND HAULED ALL OF US BACK TO PORTLAND FOR A FIVE HOUR WAIT, nevermind that another airline made it to the ground safely as we circled >-(

Six hours later, when we finally reach our destination, I find that I have no luggage. Fed up with their shit, I put in a claim and go back to the dorms. The next morning, my baggage arrives, various small items BROKEN and in general bad condition, from MOTHER FUCKING CHICAGO.

Never again, me hearties, never again… ARRRRRRR.

I too have had more than a fair number of bad experiences with United. Expectedly, all airlines will goof up on occassion, but United seems to not care at all about their passengers inconvenience or complaints. I quit flying United unless it is the only available option and I like to think that I had some small part in their financial woes. I wonder if they will learn anything from all of this?

Were you flying out of Oakland-Pontiac or Bishop? OP’s security was recently reamed a new one, I heard, so now they are jumping up everyones ass, to show how secure they are now. (Dunno if United flies out of there or not)

Same for Bishop; They want to growl a lot to show their dedication to protecting The People. Or so I hear.
:rolleyes:

United does suck, but it appears you were at the airport a grand total of 15min. before boarding.

You may have gotten screwed, but you got screwed within the confines of written policy. It was therefore up to you not to give them the opportunity.

Waverly I easily could have been at the gate 20 minutes prior to boarding. I showed up 45 minutes early, waited 10 minutes, which leaves 35 minutes before the plane was scheduled to leave.

I checked with United and it appeared that my re-booking for the later flight was made 30 minutes before my original flight was scheduled to take off. That makes it really improbable that I was there only 25 minutes early for the flight, as the ticket counter claimed. In addition, I am not so mad about being bumped as I am about being called a liar, and the complete lack of any kind of sympathy. They never even said “I’m sorry but it is the busy holiday season, and we have just instituted new baggage rules…blah, blah blah…” Moreover, both people in line ahead of me got on the flight. While two people behind me and I did not.

Lib, I’m not sure how it was my fault that United didn’t reserve me a seat with American, when they told me they had, and gave me an itinerary. I don’t work for the airlines. I don’t know what I should have been given. They gave me an itinerary with the American flight on it and tickets, I thought that was enough.

Brutus, I was flying out of MBS. It’s even tinier than Bishop. I’ve flown out of there via Northwest, and I’ve never had a problem with being only 45 minutes early, which is why I didn’t think it would be a problem.

Try being a Travel Agent!!! I have to deal with airlines EVERY day!

If you have confirmation of this, they bumped you 10 minutes earlier than their policy allows, and I would bring this to their attention. However, they may not be able to let someone whose bag is queued to be screened remove it. I’m sure you can see how that would look. “You mean my bag is to be searched? Um, on second thought I won’t bring it.”

That being the case, they should have reasonable time to perform the search, and I’m afraid you just didn’t allow for it. I’m not saying that nice, reasonable people couldn’t have expedited the search and bid you bon voyage, I’m saying they aren’t nice reasonable people, and you need protect yourself against that.

Yup, I have confirmation, and I have already brought it to their attention via snail mail.

You certainly can pull a bag. She didn’t seem to have a problem with that, because I was sending it home with my mother. What I can say is the look on the ticket counter woman’s face was priceless when I told her I would be only taking a carry on briefcase with me. Right then she knew she was busted with the “random search” story.

You see she actually printed out my boarding pass three times and tore it up because they were transferring my seat at the gate as I was checking in. Not only did I see this, but I could hear the walkie-talkie conversation with the gate, and the panicked tone when she told the gate attendant that I would only be taking carry-on.

United may not be great, but NEVER EVER EVER fly with Delta and TWA when they work together. A couple years ago, this caused a nightmare for us. My family was going to Spain. We got to the airport nice and early, all ready to take a flight to NY, then to fly to Spain from there. (Oh, and we made sure to leave hours between the time that we were supposed to arrive in NY and the time the flight to Spain was supposed to leave.) So we checked in, went to one of the airport cafes to get a snack, then went down to the gate. No one was there. “That’s odd,” we said. Then we saw it. A little sign on the counter. “Cancelled.” They cancelled our flight and no one told us! So we went down to the Delta counter a few gates down and asked them what was going on. They informed us that TWA was in charge of the booking. So we had to go all the way down to the front desk, wait in a long line, and then explain what happened. So they put us on another flight. Of course, this other flight was already overbooked, so they put us on standby. Of course, there weren’t seats for us. So we went back down to the desk, waited in line again, and were put on another plane. That plane broke down. So they put us all on yet another plane. We got out of that airport on the fourth flight they had scheduled us for, after hours spent there. Of course, we had missed the connecting flight to Spain. That night, we stayed with my grandparents, who live in NJ near NY. The next day, we went to the airport to catch the flight to Spain we were now scheduled for. When we got there, we had to wait in a long line. Rather quickly, we discovered that it wasn’t moving. All the computers had broken down! They had to check people in by hand! (of course, giving different people the same seats.) After hours of waiting, we finally got our seats and got on the plane. Because of the problem with more than one person in the same seat, the flight attendents ended up switching so mant people around that I doubt that anyone had the same seats as they were assigned. When we got to Spain, we had missed our tour group by a day, and had to take a train to find them. Then they weren’t staying in the hotel they were supposed to be in. However, we eventually found then and everything worked out great.

[size=8]And that’s the condensed version- I wrote a 6-page double-spaced paper on getting to Spain for English class last year.[/size=8]

Haven’t flown UAL in a long time, but I have seats with them booked by an agency, and after reading this post, I will definitely arrive extra early and call several times in advance.

You know why else I hate UAL? Their damned chapter 11 filing pushed my Southwest stock down. I hate the other investors in the market. You’d think, that if one airline took a major hit like that the stock prices of ones like Southwest and Jet Blue would go up, but noooo. Fucking sheep that refuse to stay in a sector.

No offense to light strand, but if I’m boarding a plane and become aware that another passenger has been allowed to opt out of a security screening by leaving the offending luggage behind, I’m going to be livid. Could there be any clearer invitation to attempt to smuggle something dangerous (or perhaps merely illegal) onboard, than the knowledge that you can perform a strategic withdrawal if it looks like it will be found?

This, coupled with idiot policies like telegraphing who gets screened ala the infamous SouthWest checkerboard boarding pass, does not make me look forward to another year of 100K mile flying.

This should make it all better: Bankrupt United plans $50M ad campaign