“What's up with United?”
by n57er on June 1, 2010
Flight from Chicago to Denver
- Airline:
-
United
- RT/OW
- Round Trip
- Number of Stops:
- No stops
- Date of Flight:
- May 2010
- Seat Class:
- economy
Our flight from Chicago to Denver was diverted to Omaha due to severe weather in Denver. We would have been on time for a 9:20 PM arrival, but the diversion delayed us until about 1:00 AM. After landing we sat on the tarmac for about 20 minutes, waiting for United to find someone to drive the jetway so we could deplane. The captain said United had been cutting back on personnel so radically that there just weren't enough people available to take care of routine tasks like driving the jetway out to meet the plane.
We then waited for more than an hour for bags (which we paid $25 to check, mind you) that never showed up. A cadre of 6 Denver police officers did show up at the baggage claim area, however. One of them said they'd been called because there were frequent disturbances at the United Airlines baggage claim because of delays in getting bags off aircraft and complaints about lost bags.
There was only one United baggage service person at the baggage claim to take reports of lost bags. He said there were only two people outside to unload the 16 flights that had arrived. As passengers with lost bags tried to file reports, he became increasingly frustrated, then agitated, and finally, after exclaiming that he couldn't "take any more of this bulls__t". he literally ran down the baggage claim corridor and left the airport.
We then had to hassle with reporting our lost bags by phone, trying to talk with people in some other country who could barely speak English and apologized repeatedly "for the inconvenience" without actually doing much of anything to rectify it.
We had changed from an Air Canada flight in Chicago, and the contrast between the excellent service on Air Canada's flights and United's could not have been more glaring.
Shame on you, United! This was but the latest in a series of extremely poor service we've experienced on United, and we intend to avoid ever flying United in the future if at all possible. Continental used to be our fall-back, but their merger with United means our choices for decent service will be even more limited.