United Complaint

Date of Travel: August 19^th, 2017.

Date of calling United Representative: August 18^th, 2017, late evening.

I am writing to register a strong complaint about my recent flight to Chicago.   In all my years of flying United, it has not been this bad.

I was scheduled to fly from Manchester, NH to Chicago, on a 6.00am morning flight on a Saturday.  At 9.00pm the previous evening, just as I was about to sleep to get ready for an early start in the morning, I got a text that the flight was cancelled due to “air traffic control issues.”   If the text had been a few minutes later I would have been asleep and missed it.

I immediately logged on to my MileagePlus account to find a flight I could change to.  The message when I tried to change was “this is a basic economy ticket and cannot be changed.”   Yes, it was a basic economy ticket, but the flight was cancelled by the airline!!!

I then followed the URL in the text and tried to change the ticket.  I got the same response.

I then called United.   After being on hold for a while, I got to an agent.  She was clearly a non-native English speaker, and very, very mediocre in her abilities.  When I asked her for options, all she could say was, “All flights booook.  All flights booook.”   I impressed upon her that I needed to be at an event on Monday morning, and it was imperative that I get there.  After all, I had given myself 48 hours buffer!  All I got in response was “All flights booook Saturday and Sunday from Manchester.”

I then asked her about Boston.   Note that she did not come up with the option herself, I had to ask her.   She found a flight from Boston on Sunday evening, but that was not convenient for me because that arrived too late in Chicago and I was concerned about safety in getting where I needed to be.  She did not try to help, try to provide other options, or anything.  In her broken English she said that was my only option, and here I am panicking about getting to my event.

I then asked to speak to a supervisor (this is about 40 minutes into the call, each time she went to look up flights she disappeared for a long time).  I was put on hold for 20 more minutes (she came back once to inform me that she was still waiting for a supervisor).

The second time she came back on to inform me that she was still waiting for a supervisor I was getting desperate.  I asked about flights from Hartford airport.  She was able to find me a flight from Hartford to Chicago on Saturday morning, and she put me on that flight.  With her mediocre competence this change was a laborious task.

Finally 1 hour and 15 minutes later, I had a ticket from Hartford airport, 150 miles from where I live.  I drove through the night to make my flight.

There are several things United could have done differently.

    (1)    Have trained staff.  I don’t fault the agent, I fault the training by United. 

    (2)    Ensure that they speak good English.  It is very frustrating in an already stressful situation for the passenger.

    (3)    Ensure that they are proactive and try to help the passenger instead of having an attitude “there is nothing much I can do.” 

   (4)    When a flight is cancelled, why can’t passengers, even Basic Economy passengers, make their change online?  That would be easier on everyone.

   (5)    If the flight cancelation reason was “air traffic control issues” wasn’t there a better way of dealing with this?  An entire plane load of passengers were affected.  Couldn’t the flight have been postponed rather than cancelled?

I really expect better from United.  Basic competence is not too much to expect.