United...we delay

It all starts when you get on any travel aggregator site, optimize the time, stopovers, arrivals, jet lag, baggage allowance etc. Then you book the tickets.

And hope.

And pray.

That the airlines fly on time.

However, if you booked United airlines, good luck to you. Hope your family supports you. Hope God or the Supreme Being or Nature or Probability is smiling on you.

We (my wife and I) flew United from BOM to SFO via EWR. And back. What we did not realize is the amount of time they will suck out of our lives.

And scar us.

For an airline running for about 90 years or so, you may be forgiven if you think they have

-          Their manpower planning and scheduling correct

-          They know the rules and regulations governing the aviation industry

-          They know how to treat their customers

-          The flight and crew knows what they are doing

-          The airline itself knows what it is doing

Congratulations!

How does it feel to be wrong on all accounts?

Here is our firsthand experience.

We were to take the BOM-EWR flight UA 49 on 01 October 2015 at 2320 IST. Guess when did we board the flight? On 02 October 2015 at 0830 hrs IST. And we finally took off at 0915 hrs on the same day.

Total delay: About 10 hrs

Why, you find your inquisitive self asking. Reasons given to us were

• The flight attendants and pilots cannot fly more than eight or twelve hours at a stretch. And BOM-EWR is a fourteen hour journey. Apparently, it was not apparent to United that fourteen is greater than eight or twelve.
• Something called a flight fatigue which is dangerous and the pilots’ and attendants’ union (existence assumed) knows it
• The plane which was to carry us to EWR had not arrived due the reasons above

Once we took off, we thought we are covered now, we will go to EWR and all will be forgotten.

Bah, you poor suckers!

Flight fatigue reared up once again and we were routed to Heathrow (LHR). A new crew boarded the plane; the current crew stretched themselves on business class.

Well, what about us?

We were told to stretch and help ourselves with juice/water and crackers kept at the end of the plane. They said they had tea/coffee too; but passengers were neither taught not allowed to operate the machines. They were also considerate enough to switch off the AC for the two hours we spent at LHR. So that we do not face the London cold. Of course we could not deplane; naah, why would London want us?

Time we lost at LHR: 2 hours.

Total time lost: 10 hours.

The new pilot apologized off-handedly in a perky voice and instructed us to be happy since we were getting extra desserts.

How cool is that?

After customs and immigration at EWR, we thought our troubles were over.

We were so naïve!

The EWR-SFO flight (UA 1735) was delayed for about two hours. Which brings the total time lost to 12 hours.

Half a day lost in airplanes and airports. One day, if you consider my wife and myself.

The SFO-EWR (UA 1796) flight was delayed due to, you know it by now; amazing manpower scheduling. This is the sequence of events, pardon my blasphemy if you can:

1. In the beginning, there was no plane
2. Then United said, “Let there be a plane” and there was
3. But United had forgotten to say “Let there be crew and attendants.” Hence there were none
4. When it remembered, United said ‘Let there be crew and attendants’. And there were.

Between steps 1 to 4, we lost three hours.

Total time lost: Fifteen hours.

The EWR-BOM (UA 48) return journey would have been amusing if it was not so irritating.

Much to our surprise, we boarded on time. We went to the runway an hour late; mere blip if you consider how much we lost so far. And, to our greater surprise, we returned to the boarding gate!

The reason: Pilot and attendants were to from a flight that was to go to Israel! And the actual crew for this flight was in the Israel flight.

Total time lost: Sixteen hours.

At the boarding gate, we were given an option to deplane. Only, please take your luggage with you. Valuable guests (that’s us, we were ingrate to have forgotten that) were getting fidgety. Cramped valuable guests starting pacing the aisle. Prompting one of the flight attendants (with dyed brown hair) to say, “I have had it with these stupid a**holes congesting the aisles.” Then she saw me, I gave her a wide smile and said, “Tu habla Español?’ To which she replied in negative. To which I replied, “I am fluent in English. And I heard what you said just now. What is your name, lady?”

She scooted without any response.

Quite cleverly, she did not have a tag. And, being the obedient passenger/guest I am, I had switched off my cellphone before the abandoned takeoff. Otherwise, I would have taken a picture/video of her saying that.  

Anyway, after another couple of hours, we had the actual crew. After another complimentary dessert and fourteen hours we landed at BOM fifteen minutes before the ETA. But we were too tired, jetlagged and disinterested to notice that. But I did ask the dyed brown hair stewardess to take a step back since she was congesting the aisle.

Total time lost: Nineteen hours.

And what do we get for all that loss?

A mail from Senior Vice President, Customers saying ‘We are sorry that your flight was delayed on your trip from Newark to Mumbai (Bombay)… We value your business and look forward to delivering a better experience the next time you fly with us.’

That’s all!

No mention of the other delayed flights. Just a boiler plate mail. No compensation offered, not even frequent flyer miles!

There will be no next time, United.