Dear United Airlines

[ilanarama]

Dear United Airlines,

You have had a major hub in Denver for as long as I have flown in and out of there. In fact, you own most of the DIA gate-estate, a whole concourse just for you. So one would assume that you know what Denver weather is like.

Specifically, one would assume that you know it occasionally snows in Denver. In fact, one would assume that you know it occasionally snows in Denver in October. One would assume that you could cope with five inches or so of October snow. Apparently, one is wrong.

It's clear to me that you don't want to own up to having no clue about what to do in the snow. The gate agents told us, "Don't ask us what's going on, see the departure board." The departure board told us, "Flight 7075 on time, boarding now." The gate agents told us, "We have no control over the incorrect information on the departure board." The departure board told us our flight was boarding three different times before finally admitting to canceling our flight four hours after the original time. The gate agents told us, "Sorry, this is a weather-related cancelation and therefore you're responsible for finding and paying for a hotel room until we can fly you out. Which, if you want a confirmed seat, will be in five days."

The Hertz agents told us, "Sure, we can rent you a one-way 4WD SUV to Durango."

In conclusion, HATEHATESTABBITYSTABSTABANVILFOAD.

No love,
Me.

Comments

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

Urgh, shitty situation, cruddy airline, but nicely reported.

Now I want to see the sequel, United II: the Wrath of Stern.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Alas, all my big guns got taken away in the security screening.

[boutell.livejournal.com]

Uck.

Sending them a strongly worded letter?

Not that it did me any good with American.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Hopefully they will be deluged with them.

[rimrunner.livejournal.com]

Isn't United currently in bankruptcy proceedings? I suspect that has more to do with it than the weather.

(The last time I changed planes in Denver, bad weather caused me to miss my connection. When I reached the gate area there was an agent waiting for me with a boarding pass to a later flight. I was impressed. Too bad service has slipped so precipitously.)

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Heh. It could be. The problem with United in Denver is that they basically own the airport, so whatever they want to do, you're stuck with.

[lolaraincoat.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, it was United whose valiant efforts prevented me from having to go to Salt Lake City last month. They did the same thing too: "it was the WEATHER" they kept saying, although I noticed nobody else was having any trouble getting planes into and out of Chicago and into and out of Utah.

Grrrrrr. Stupid late industrial capitalism!

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Yep. My flight in from Boston had no problem landing, and some planes were actually leaving. Although supposedly they were spending 2 hrs on the tarmac de-icing.

In their defense, the planes that were canceled were mostly the smaller ones (although I think some of the bigger ones were also canceled). E.g. my route is serviced by Dash-80 turboprops that seat 37. Maybe they had more trouble with the weather than the e.g. 727s.

[tigresse.livejournal.com]

No matter how good the deal, I won't fly United anymore even though they have a major hub here in Chicago, too. United Airlines once took three days to get me to France on what should have been a ten hour trip. One leg of that trip included an engine blowing out, which I witnessed but the rest of the passengers were lied to about. I could go on and on, but you put it so nicely, I don't feel I need to.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

EEE!

Unfortunately, I don't actually live in Denver but in Durango, and we have exactly two airlines here: United, which flies to Denver, and America West, which flies to Phoenix. I usually choose AW but for this particular flight I was meeting a friend in Denver and then we were flying together to Boston. And occasionally I have a business trip to Denver.

Although someone wrote a nasty letter to the editor today which mentioned that another small airport an hour away (as opposed to 20 min for our local one) has another small carrier going to Denver 4x/day, so I might try that next time I go to Denver.

[madbodger.livejournal.com]

While I generally like UA, that's pretty lame. No wonder they're in financial trouble,
eh? Flying via Denver, I tend to like Frontier, FWIW.

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

Yep.

As I said to tigresse, our problem here in Durango is that we have exactly 2 airlines, United to Denver and America West to Phoenix. Although apparently there is a tiny airline out of Farmington NM, which is about an hour from here, which flies to Denver, so I might try that next time.

There are advantages in living in the Back of Beyond, but one penalty we pay is sparse (and pricy) air service.

[alembicresearch.livejournal.com]

Maybe they're like California drivers with rain ...
every Autumn when it starts raining ...
millions of California drivers suddenly don't know
what this wet stuff is that is falling from the sky ...
and they seem to reason that the solution must be to
drive faster and more wrecklessly.

For some reason I'm reminded of Steve Martin and his
hilarious movie: "LA Story".

Or more like: picture his character from the "The Jerk",
dressed in a United Airline overalls, looking up
into the sky with a puzzled face, saying,
"there's white stuff falling from the sky!!!".

[ilanarama.livejournal.com]

But, you know, DENVER.
They should be used to it.

[alembicresearch.livejournal.com]

Well, the excuse Californians have
for not being able to drive in the rain
is that either they're on drugs,
or they haven't lived here long enough
to have experienced rain.

Although you wonder: didn't they have rain where they came from?
Maybe they they did, but maybe they didn't drive either.