Totallyrad

If it was just one thing that went bad I wouldn't mind. I'm 49 and this is the first time my luggage hasn't arrived with me. I also understand that I'm not garranteed my luggage will arrive at the same time as I do. It's just all the little things added together that got to me. I will contact the airline on Monday and give them "my side" and truthfully I don't expect to receive any other satisfaction than that. I also don't expect any compensation and I will not ask for any, but, they need to know and so do you. I'll report back as soon as I have talked to United.

xtoyz17

I understand your anger, and I'd be angrier than heck too. The luggage wouldn't bother me, but I'd be furious about the changing gates. I'd raise hell over that, that'd just ridiculous.

PourinDiesel

Really the original situation doesnt sound too bad in the first post. I learned early on to always check the monitors to see if a gate has been changed or a flight time has changed etc.

There really isnt any airline I wouldnt fly again. But there is one that I would not prefer to fly again and that would be America West.

Geico266

United just cancelled all flights for my daughter last night an hour before she was to fly. I had already dropped her off at the airport! They could have "sold" her ticket to Continential and she could have gotten home, but noooooooooooo. They had to wait until the last second to realize the plane wasn't even gonna make it to our airport.

Slugs!

TheBigNasty

Why didn't you just give her a lift on your plane.

AggieJustin

Actually, I'd be more upset about the luggage. With a long enough connection time at the airport, there really isn't a reason for the bags not getting to your next plane.

As for gate changes, that's just a normal part of airport operations. If the plane that's currently at the gate you're scheduled to leave from gets delayed, they'll have to move your plane to another gate so it can get in on time so it can leave on time. That's why there are so many announcements about watching the monitors for any updates to flight times or gates while you're at the airport. That's also the reason I don't usually stray too far from the gate when it's close to boarding time (30-45 minutes before departure). Most gate change announcements are only made over the PA system at the gate area, the adjacent areas don't get the announcement. So with all the other background noise at the airport, if you're not right there at the gate, you won't hear the update.

Now I'm not saying that United (or any airline) is perfect, because I'm run across my share of customer service issues in the years I've been flying. But there are things that are beyond the gate agents control. But that doesn't seem the stop the multitude of people that will stand at the counter screaming, cursing and complaining about at situation that the gate agent cannot change or control. If I had to put up with that abuse day in and out, I'd probably end up being a little short with people as well.

Geico266

Weather...

TheBigNasty

What, you don't have your instrument? j/k

00Dog

I fully respect any pilots' decision to cancel because of weather. Good move Geico266!

Justwannabeme

hey, without hot beverages, we could be flying on time....kidding

just a past post about Stella the McDonald's million dollar lawsuit for hot coffee... Geico had said that even private planes have had liability issues (read increased costs) due to same thing.

scary...... I was to take a commuter jet to washington dc and had on what i thought was a plain black business outfit ( I am a gal). I had a name tag on and got passed through security and asked questions from the desk agents before I realized they thought I was air crew.......post 911 too
(delta for that one).

I hope that CEO from American is enjoying his golden parachute or whatever big bonus because he has the most clueless agents at the counter. cut funds
and it shows. Do we really want to see what airline mechanics are like?
Flying out from Reno, they "lost a hydraulic part" so the flight was cancelled before the plane even got to the gate. okay- but seven hours later, they still didn't know what part it was.....and we were supposed to board the same plane. can you say "mini riot"?

My best time? Southwest!! so not serious weather reports and just plain funny, I thought Begle1 was flying the plane or at least on the intercom.....

TheBigNasty

J/K means just kidding. Part of being a pilot is the responsibility of the lives of the pilot/passengers and the public (anyone in the vicinity of the falling plane). Having this responsiblity means making good judgement calls and not being talked against it. Yes I agree Geico made the right decision but as I stated I was just joking. Never fly or put yourself in a position where you have to fly out of your abilities.

BigBlue

So for you that means stepping into the passenger cabin and ordering a drink.

TheBigNasty

I just can't get away from this guy.

Begle1

You do realize that you're talking about Geico here?

"Fly out of your abilities."

Totallyrad

Well, we made it back tonight and only an hour and twenty minutes late. After all the fun we had on the way to Seattle we decided to get to the airport plenty early, just in case. It only took 2 trips around the Seattle airport to finally get into the rental car return area. The airport is improving things, I think. I have to say that Hertz performed above expectations. Upon arrival they gave us a good upgrade, upon return it got even better. The price dropped from $170 to $149. We made our way from the rental return area to United ticketing and that went smooth until we went through security. My wife forgot about a bottle of water in her carry-on. RED ALERT.....The TSA was cool, not like it hasn't happened before. They just hand checked the bag and we moved on. Since we had about two hours to kill now we grabbed a cold drink and some Sea's candy, man that stuff is good. Next to our gate was a massage station. Let me give you one piece of advice about arriving early, a massage is a GREAT way to kill some time!
We boarded the plane and just as we should be pushing away from the gate the pilot comes on the intercom to tell us maintenance is checking a problem with the main landing gear and should be done in about two minutes. Shortly after that he returns to the airwaves to let us know it will be about ten more minutes. He continues to tell us this problem had been checked earlier and we needed to wait on maintenance to be sure we didn't have a leak. Hmmmmm.......main landing gear....leak.....checked earlier.....checking again.......all of a sudden I'm not feeling so warm and fuzzy about this flight. We finally push away about 15 minutes late. The remainder of the flight was uneventful, but we still had to get out of Denver.
I really don't know what to say about Denver. This must be one of those places like the Bermuda Triangle, if it can go wrong, it will go wrong, in Denver. On the little marquee in front of our gate the words "cold conditions" were flashing. I asked the gate attendant what they meant by "cold conditions" and the reply was "it was cold outside". O....K......13*F, I'll agree it's cold. This all seemed a little to simple but hey, I'm not going to argue, simple is good! A few minutes later they call for our flight to board, gate B59. Now prior to this I was looking at the gate to the right, B59x. At the time it didn't make sense but all that was about to change. As we handed the ticket agent our boarding passes he quietly said "L", nothing else, just "L". We headed down the hall toward what we thought was the plane. WRONG!!! Down the hall, down the stairs, 150 yards further down the unheated hall to gate "L". So there we stand, no heat and no idea what the heck is going on. After a couple more minutes and someone yells "Birmingham, you folks going to Birmingham, you're in the wrong place". Go Figure! So United changes the gate again. At least this time we were only about 70' away from the correct gate. As the door was pushed open I finally realized why they had the marquee scrolling "cold conditions". We got sent out of the building, onto the tarmac to walk to the plane and they were right, it was cold! So, now we board the plane and are patiently waiting to take off. After about ten minutes the pilot comes on to tell us we can't leave yet, no gas. (Anybody got a credit card???) He said both fuel trucks that work the area we're in ran out of fuel at the same time so they went to fill up and would be back in a few minutes, hopefully. Twenty minutes later he comes back on to tell us he's not sure how long it will take. Another 15 minutes and the fuel truck pulls up. Now we've been waiting a pretty long time by now. The flight attendants have thrown cookies at us to keep us quiet but we're ready to go. There's just one more teeny, weenie, little problem. All this time on the ground and now we've got ice on the wings. We ought to have ice on the wings, the marquee said "COLD CONDITIONS!!!". We push away and, everybody say it with me, get in line to de-ice. The rest of the flight went without a hitch, but not to be out done by Denver the baggage carousel at Birmingham broke about halfway through the unloading procedure. We had just grabbed our last bag when this thing started screeching and froze. I am not at all embarrassed to say we never looked back.