Heck Of A Guy

The Unabridged Version of United Airlines Owes Me 4 O’Hare Hours With Epilogue

Last week’s terse post, United Airlines Owes Me 4 O’Hare Hours (Equal to 16 regular hours) and Readers 1 Post,¹ is flawed in that it indicates that I am complaining about what was, after all, only a four hour delay in our trip.

Perhaps I can explain.

The First Time Is Always Special;
This Was Not The First Time, Nor Was It Special

First, my discontent did not arise as a reaction to the first scheduling mishap I encountered in a bizarrely charmed lifetime of problem-free flying.

Although I have been, with the exception of three or four years, an infrequent flier, I can immediately recall a number of logistical aviation mishaps I’ve experienced. For example, on one of my first vacations, when time off was a precious commodity, 8 hours of my tiny annual allotment of leisure moments was dissipated at O’Hare in waiting for a repair of the plane assigned to our route. That delay set off a domino effect, causing us to miss the connecting flight to Maui where our nifty beach-front hotel was located. Instead, my wife and I arrived in Hawaii in the wee hours of the morning to be transported, without our baggage, to our replacement lodgings, an off-brand motel with a view of several Honolulu parking lots. (Because of a canceled flight a few years later, I was a tenant for a night at that same motel, which had somehow been transported to a site at the end of one of the St. Louis airport runways.) After several more dominoes tumbled, we finally ended up in another hotel in Maui for a couple of days (our originally reserved room was given as an upgrade to another guest when it became apparent we would not be using it that first night), after which time we were finally re-united with our checked bags, a delay, the airline customer service voice on the phone pointed out, that was of our own making since the airline could hardly be held accountable for our decision to change hotels.²

I’ve experienced lost luggage (always on business trips, by the way), delays attributed to the weather, mechanical problems, and FAA regulations,³ duplicate tickets discovered only after the other passenger and I competing for the same seat were onboard (the other passenger assigned to 18C opted for the voucher and a “next flight out” promise), more passengers showing up with tickets than the plane could accommodate, pilot job actions, and, as it is said, much much more.

Last week’s delay was neither the first nor even in the running for the worst of the batch.

So What Was The Big Deal?

Issue #1: The realization that I was thinking, “Heck, it was only a 4 hour delay; why am I complaining?”

That thought triggered the sudden and unsettling realization that I had, in effect, enrolled in the UAL 12-Step Program, the fundamental percept of which is

I admitted I was powerless over UAL
— and, certainly, that my life had become unmanageable

I was not only buying into UAL’s rationalizations and minimizations, I was directly wired into their message center.

I should have been suspicious when the only beverage offered on my last flight was Kool-Aid.

Issue #2: Now, About That Four Hour Delay …

• It was a four hour delay of a flight scheduled for less than two hours in the air. ⁴
• It was a four hour delay that was announced as first as delays of an hour, then 30 minutes, then 10 minutes. Sometimes there were even positive movements - the takeoff time changed from 12:30 to 12:25. The delays, in fact, continued to decrease in magnitude until the announcement came that the flight had been canceled. Oddly, all the passengers, as far as I could determine, believed these announcements, citing the decreasing length of time for the delays as a positive indicator.
• It was a four hour delay that was finally canceled after a four hour wait without an airplane ever entering the gate.
• It was a four hour delay that UAL expected us to accept although, thanks to one of the most unilateral contracts permitted since the Emancipation Proclamation, United would not only refuse to refund our Economy Class ticket price if we missed the plane, regardless of the reason we did not arrive on time, but would (and did) also re-sell those already paid-for seat to others passengers.
• It was a four hour delay that we had little choice but to accept. United, like the other carriers, confesses its responsibilities only when such declarations are mandated and then in (literally) fine print. While those feature articles in the travel section of the Trib point recommend that we all learn the arcane, complex, and changing regulations re passenger rights, that would seem a low return investment for those of us who travel infrequently. At one point, I considered aborting the entire effort, but with our checked bags somewhere in the bowels of O’Hare and our electronic tickets electronically paid, I had no idea if or when we would be able to recover either our luggage or my money.⁵ And, although I couldn’t understand every word of announcements made on that 1958 Sears home intercom system O’Hare uses, I’m fairly certain nothing was said on the lines of “If you would prefer a refund, … .”
• It was a four hour delay that was first announced by United’s Alerting Service only after we had arrived early enough to park, carry our bags 1/4 mile to the people-mover station, wait for said people-mover to arrive, ride to the terminal, pay to have our bags checked curbside rather than wait in a seemingly stationery check-in line of well over 80 passengers, wait in another line to be inspected for threats to safety and democracy, and made our way to the gate where our flight would not take off.⁶
• It was a four hour delay for a flight that, according to three different United agents I cornered, on that day was never more than a gleam in the eye of a scheduler somewhere.
• It was a four hour delay that could have been a 24 hour delay (or more) if I had followed instructions. At the time of the cancellation, one of my sons was automatically rebooked for the next day’s flight. My other son and I were not rebooked. All passengers on the flight were instructed to rebook at C18, which was manned by two United agents. Unable to contact a human at the United phone numbers, I threw myself on the mercy of an United agent at another gate, asking for an alternative to standing in the imperceptibly moving line at C18. Following the recommendation to go directly to the United gate with the next flight to our destination, I again went into begging mode with the agent there. She did her incantation by keyboard thing and created three seats on an overbooked flight. That plane was only delayed another hour and 30 minutes. During all the time spent rebooking and waiting for the next plane, my phone went off continually with messages from the Alerting Service informing me that our original flight would be “delayed until ____ .” I finally had the calls discontinued an hour after the cancellation. At that point, I was receiving alternating messages that (1) United was apologetic for canceling the original flight and (2) the original flight would again be delayed by 30 minutes.
• It was a four hour delay that changed our schedule with built in time cushions to a schedule that had us speeding to our hotel after we arrived, showering and changing in 12 minutes in order to arrive at a dinner two hours late.
• It was a four hour delay on a flight for which we were still charged the full fee. United’s -pre-recorded announcements did, however, apologize “for any inconvenience” caused by the cancellation.
• It was a four hour delay that was never officially explained.

Issue #3: The United Zombie Effect

I was (and still am) convinced that the explanations and apologies for delays and problems from the airlines rendered during the first years I flew, were genuine and empathic.

A few years ago, I became aware that the words and phrases used in such circumstances had become standardized and reflected the expertise of the airline’s customer service training workshops rather than the airline employee’s own responses. On paper, the words were unfailingly polite, but almost always the answer to any query from a passenger was “No.” For example, “Yes, I can see why you are upset that your mother had to be hospitalized after our skycap mistook her for check-in luggage and threw her onto the conveyor belt where she broke both her legs. I’d feel the same way. But, you did buy a nonrefundable ticket and we have no choice but to keep your money and sell that seat to someone else. Oh, by the way, your plane has been delayed by 30 minutes. Have a great flight!”

On this trip, however, I noticed that passenger complaints evoked a different response - a voiceless, immovable face. Passengers were allowed to wear themselves out while the agent did nothing but look straight ahead with a blank expression. There was no argument, excuse, or justification provided. At most, the agent would repeat his original response (e.g., “There are no seats on Flight 666″).

Looking about, it was clear this was not an isolated incident; either UAL has begun a policy of mandatory Botox injections for all agents or a lot of these folks have given up trying to manage their role as liaison between the airline corporation and the passengers.

I had seen that deadened face reaction before. It was, in fact, the M.O. of the DMV offices I’d visited over the years. The scary part is that at the DMV (or at least my local branch of it) has improved by a quantum leap or two. It’s a bad sign for the airlines that renewing my drivers license is a now a significantly more pleasant experience than catching a flight.

But What Can You Do About It?

Well, for the first time in the 21 years of annual vacation trips, we are planning - despite the price of gas and the 1,000 mile/2 day drive - to hit the road for Hilton Head Island rather than flying the not-so-friendly skies.

Footnotes

1. In fairness, I should point out that I have no evidence that United Airlines or O’Hare Airport is significantly worse (or better) than other carriers or airports, respectively. It happens that the overwhelming majority of my lifetime flights have been on United out of O’Hare so I have far more experience with those entities than others of their ilk.↩
2. I am convinced that were a history buff to pursue the trail of fallen dominoes from this point, it would require only a few more steps to explain the current downturn in the housing market and the decisions that led this country’s involvement in Iraq.↩
3. Incredibly, no airline has ever been at fault for a delay I’ve suffered. Each airline in each circumstance has been exquisitely clear about this on every occasion, including episodes when I’ve been involuntarily bumped because my flight was “overbooked,” a circumstance in which the airline was apparently victimized by a force or forces unknown. In fact, I was given the impression that I was being held responsible making so-called reservations two months ahead and then showing up.↩
4. Yes, I realize that, for the airlines, a delay is a delay, i.e., the distance of and time required for a flight has no impact on the length of the delay in getting that plan to the origin of the flight in question. But for a passenger, the perception is different. I had budgeted for a total package of travel-stress based on fixed time requirements (e.g., travel time to airport, time to check bags, etc) and the variable time required for a flight. In this case that variable was about 1 hour, 40 minutes. Extending that by 4 hours produces a significant negative effect. And, the short time required for the flight means, at least theoretically, that the airline has a chance of making another plane available for that run - if they plan for such eventualities.↩
5. This is why informed consent in healthcare entails providing patients with the risks and their options before starting treatment, not after the surgeon nicks the aorta.↩
6. It could have been worse. The other economy parking lots, while cheaper than ours, require a shuttle ride to the lot where we parked, after which one takes the people-mover to the terminal, … ↩

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