Another airline abuse story

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Presumably the Roatan flight you rebooked on the next day was already full. How do you get 30 extra people on it?
 
No problem. I knew that Cozumel was in a different time zone, but it's still Tuesday there?

LOL - I guess it is Wednesday, pretty easy to lose a day or week here - oooopppss!!
 
Presumably the Roatan flight you rebooked on the next day was already full. How do you get 30 extra people on it?
I wondered about that. I suppose that it wasn't. Or maybe they found another group to jerk around, but that's a wild speculation.
 
I wondered about that. I suppose that it wasn't. Or maybe they found another group to jerk around, but that's a wild speculation.

I've had the worst luck with United and refuse to even consider flying with them anymore. They always (seriously - every time) lose my luggage. Last time I flew them - with my husband and son - they changed out the aircraft for a plane with 37 fewer seats. So there were 37 people bumped and another 30+ people waiting standby! Then United tried to bump us right before boarding to give our seats to standby passengers! I put up a quiet fuss (which is never good from me) because I paid full fare first class AND my son had dental surgery scheduled for the next afternoon. We ended up getting on the flight, but they bumped my son down to economy and didn't refund us for the difference. We were basically told "so sad, too bad". Then when we got to Denver to transfer, it turned out b*&$% at the counter had canceled my connection. She didn't cancel my son's or my husbands. I had to wait in line to sort that out, but did manage to get it fixed. Then, of course, when we got home our luggage didn't arrive.

If any of this had been handled pleasantly by the UA staff, I wouldn't have been so annoyed. If this had been the first time we'd encountered issues with UA, I might have given them another try. This was basically the last straw...so no more UA flights for us. Sadly, none of the USA airlines is much better. I had a terrible flight with Delta in February, but at least it was on time and our luggage arrived. American keeps changing their schedules, making it difficult to know when you're really going to arrive at destinations, but their staff is friendly and the luggage arrives on time and relatively unharmed. In fact, AA has gone above and beyond to help when connecting airlines have lost our bags. Now if they can just get their scheduling back to some semblance of reliability....
 
DD, I did not see any real abuse. Just a story of how the airlines work or really do not work at times. There really does need to be a law in the US that is similar to the EU 261 law. I had to use it when the airline canceled my internal EU flight only hours before hand. They paid for my hotel, new flight, and €200 compensation. It would have been more but I was staying with friends.

FWIW Unless I had no option I would not have book a flight with a one hour connection to a once a day international flight. I would have flown the night before, paid for a cheap hotel, and had a nice dinner. I have done that in ATL several times. Yeah it is a PITA but better than the alternative.
 
DD, I did not see any real abuse.

They must have known the night before that they didn't have a crew available to fly the plane, but letting us know was out of the question until they had us where they wanted us.

They did put us up in a nearby hotel. They could have arranged all of that in the hours before our arrival, but didn't, so our leader spent over an hour working that out after we arrived.
 
I feel your pain, but....

They must have known the night before that they didn't have a crew available to fly the plane, but letting us know was out of the question until they had us where they wanted us.

You don't know that. Reasons why they may not have had a crew but not known until the last minute:
  1. Crew members called in sick.
  2. Crew members were delayed on an earlier flight and would therefore no longer have been in compliance with FAA duration-of-service or rest time regulations.
  3. They knew they were short a crew but were still trying to decide which flight to cancel. (A complex decision that usually does consider the number of passengers inconvenienced by the canceled flight but also ripple effects of having the aircraft in the wrong place etc)
  4. They knew they were short a crew but were trying to cover by calling in someone who wasn't scheduled, and it didn't work.
  5. They got caught in a crew shortage for a particular type of aircraft because they had to substitute equipment on another flight due to a mechanical problem, and decided to make the switch at the last minute.
  6. They did have crew but they were in the wrong city due to other scheduling problems or cancellations earlier that morning that they thought they could resolve in time.
 
Presumably the Roatan flight you rebooked on the next day was already full. How do you get 30 extra people on it?

Either it wasn't full, they bumped people (or took volunteers), or they substituted a larger aircraft -- all of which happen routinely.
 

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