Why I hate United Airlines: Part I in a series

I'm nearing hour 43 of my return trip from Anchorage to Salt Lake City, via San Francisco and Los Angeles. I'm writing from the Alaska Airlines Board Room at LAX. For those of you following this saga, you might be aware that no, I wasn't supposed to set foot in LA. See, it goes something like this. I was scheduled on UA 700, departing ANC at 2330 on June 26 for DEN, connecting to UA 141, departing DEN at 0825 on 27 June.

Well, UA 700 was indefinitely delayed for mechanical: apparently on an A320, there are two fans that cool avionics, a minimum of one of them is necessary to fly the plane, and neither was in working order. The gate agent was quite clear that it was distinctly possible that the plane was not going to go out that night, and that passengers would be lucky to get seats on UA 736 ANC-SFO the next day, and possibly even lucky to get re-booked on the next night's UA 700 flight. This was due in some part to the fact that an American Airlines (which TGS and I know better as Aerolineas Stalinsta) flight had already canceled for mechanical, and most of those passengers had already be re-booked on UA 700. She cheerily capped off this bad news by informing us that hotel rooms are exceedingly difficult to come by in the summer in Anchorage, and so hotel vouchers would be very unlikely.

So I called United Premier reservations and asked them what they thought I should do, and they quickly and easily re-booked me on UA 736 ANC-SFO departing at 1409 (notably, still in First,) and UX 6356 SFO-SLC departing 2101. I then (easily) got a hotel room for the night, and took a taxi back into midtown Anchorage. While this definitely was the correct decision at the time, let's just say that hindsight is 20/20. So UA 736 left ANC an hour and a half late, and I only had an hour and ten minute margin between the flights. Then, UX 6356 left SFO on time, and so I missed it by about fifteen minutes. I found out at a check-in terminal that UA's genius computers (note the dripping sarcasm) had already re-booked me: to fly out the next day, and connect through LAX, and arrive home around 2100. No, not on either of the TWO daily nonstops that UA and UX (United Express/Skywest) operate from SFO to SLC, nor on any of the SEVEN nonstop flights that Delta and Skywest operate to SLC.

I had a lovely half hour to forty minute wait in line at the United Customer Service counter, where they told me that there was not a single seat available on ANY of the abovementioned NINE nonstop flights to SLC, and that my current re-booked itinerary was definitely the best I would get. They did print out hotel and meal vouchers, telling me that the Crown Plaza in Foster City has a free shuttle every twenty minutes. Not wanting to miss the opportunity to get real food at a real (i.e., non-airport) restaurant, I went straight out to the curb, where I proceeded to stand with about seventeen other stranded passengers from UA 736. We all waited just under an hour for the shuttle to show up. While the check-in was friendly and easy at Crown Plaza (print, sign, date, endorse voucher, get handed keycard) this put us just a little bit past 11pm, which in the suburbia that is Foster City, means EVERYTHING was closed. Not only the hotel restaurants and all nearby chain restaurants, but also the Pizza Smut delivery service. (Who in the hell stops pizza delivery service at 10pm on a weeknight, and 11pm on Friday and Saturday?)

Note that in the midst of all this, my BIL, CKI, was very kindly willing to make the miserable drive from the east bay to come get my sorry ass if I couldn't get a hotel voucher. When I did get hotel vouchers, I opted to stick with them rather than inconvenience CKI and CLI, since I would have also needed an early morning drive to a BART station today. In retrospect, while I immensely appreciate CKI's willingness to come get me, it would have sucked for them.

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of visiting Foster City, California, at least for anything but ingress and egress to the San Mateo bridge, it epitomizes lifeless, sterile, boring suburbia. Not only were no restaurants open, there was literally not a single convenience store open anywhere within eyesight or reasonable walking distance. Now looking at google maps, the nearest convenience store is 1.2 miles SE of the hotel.

By sheer luck, I still had an orange and a small bag of chips in my carryon, and so this, together with a cliff bar and a cup of chamomile tea, made for dinner.

So here I sit, in the Alaska Board Room at LAX, looking out at the planes lining up to depart, and landing regularly. Apparently all of this hassle was caused by the weather in the central and eastern US, especially in Chicago. You wouldn't know it by looking at the departures board at LAX, though SFO was basically in complete chaos. One woman in particular was hysterical (and idiotic, and hideously annoying.) She was quite literally yelling at a CS agent at my gate at SFO (gate 69 this morning awaiting the departure of UA 1179, in case any frequent flyers reading this are curious) about how waiting for five hours was totally unacceptable, and her time is "precious" and that they MUST put her on the next available flight to NYC. Apparently she has a concrt to go to tomorrow. From what I could glean, she had been IDB'd (involuntarily denied boarding) albeit along with 53 other people. Well, miss, I got news for you: I'm hoping that my return flight from ANC to SLC doesn't end up taking much more than 48 hours. I don't have a lot of sympathy for your five hour delay.

This is, once again, confirmation that jumping ship from UA to AS as my primary airline was the right choice: when your planes don't require regular trips to ORD, DEN, and Dulles, east coat weather doesn't much matter.

Well, hopefully in a few hours, I'll board a vaguely on-time flight LAX-SLC, and get back to SLC for four nights before we drive to Seattle. Cross your fingers. Meanwhile, the Alaska Board Room is treating me right: two Alaskan Ambers, and a maragrita. Yum.