So, on 6/24 I was scheduled to fly on a UA award ticket on US from YUL-PHL. Chose this flight because it was the latest departure that would get me near where I wanted to go. After doing a bunch of last-minute stuff, hopped in a cab to head to the airport and on the way to the airport realized my flight had been canceled an hour earlier but the notifications to me were screwed up (turns out I only got a voice message that I didn't pick up).
Should have turned around and gone the next day but I thought, ok, I'll get to the airport and maybe I'll figure something out.
Got to the airport and sure enough the US flight was defunct. Good news, though, two UA flights to EWR that were scheduled much earlier in the day were delayed and still available as possible alternatives. Went to UA counter where just a few people were waiting but two counter staff were taking forever to do anything. Called 1K line while I was standing around and got someone who easily rebooked me into one of the two delayed EWR flights. At that point not sure which one was more likely to actually depart, or depart first.
Got to the front of the line and agent printed my boarding pass and I went though US immigration preclearance.
Got to the gate and by now the flight that I had not chosen was showing as an earlier departure than the flight I did choose. The flight I was booked on had a plane sitting at the gate but no crew. Flight I was not booked on had no plane at gate. So I decided to wait and see what happened.
Eventually the plane showed up at the second gate. I'm thinking, ok, this plane is actually here with a crew, the other plane is waiting for a crew that may or may not show up. So I got in line to rebook on the new flight. At that instant, got notification from UA that the other flight was officially canceled. This is just as they started boarding for the second flight. So I'm still in a slow-moving line, immediately called 1K line again and got them to switch me over to the new flight. Got to the front of the line and told the guy I was rebooked by UA, he grudgingly printed my new pass. Boarded with the last of the passengers and waited to depart.
So now we're all sitting on the plane and hoping we can get going. There had been a ground stop earlier, but at this moment weather was fine. So we sit, and we sit, and we sit. One or two more passengers straggle on, and we sit some more. Then another straggler. Then another long wait. We're all getting that sinking feeling. Eventually, there's a big scrum at the front of the plane with crew and flight attendant and gate agent, pilot comes on the line to announce that the crew is timed out for the day and we're all staying in Montreal.
We all disembark and proceed to stand around waiting for 45 minutes for someone to bother to offload our gate checked bags (this is a regional jet so almost everyone has a gate checked rollaway). Meanwhile the copilot is hanging around telling us that they desperately wanted to get going but the ground team kept putting new passengers on the plane and loading bags and not letting them go. So eventually they couldn't make it before the end of their 16 hour day.
One earnest but very marginally competent gate agent is telling us to wait around for our bags and then telling us to wait around for him to escort us so that we can get to the arrivals section of the terminal so we can reclear Canadian immigration. That probably takes another hour.
What's the moral? Don't know, except that better decisions by the airline instead of worse decisions, make a big difference. They could have easily canceled the other flight earlier, so they weren't faced with a scrum of passengers all trying to change their booking. Apparently at some point during this process, the printer broke at the gate! And, of course, they didn't listen when the flight crew said that they needed to close up and go.
UA gave me 10k miles compensation. That's not a fraction of the hassle, but what can you do?
Should have turned around and gone the next day but I thought, ok, I'll get to the airport and maybe I'll figure something out.
Got to the airport and sure enough the US flight was defunct. Good news, though, two UA flights to EWR that were scheduled much earlier in the day were delayed and still available as possible alternatives. Went to UA counter where just a few people were waiting but two counter staff were taking forever to do anything. Called 1K line while I was standing around and got someone who easily rebooked me into one of the two delayed EWR flights. At that point not sure which one was more likely to actually depart, or depart first.
Got to the front of the line and agent printed my boarding pass and I went though US immigration preclearance.
Got to the gate and by now the flight that I had not chosen was showing as an earlier departure than the flight I did choose. The flight I was booked on had a plane sitting at the gate but no crew. Flight I was not booked on had no plane at gate. So I decided to wait and see what happened.
Eventually the plane showed up at the second gate. I'm thinking, ok, this plane is actually here with a crew, the other plane is waiting for a crew that may or may not show up. So I got in line to rebook on the new flight. At that instant, got notification from UA that the other flight was officially canceled. This is just as they started boarding for the second flight. So I'm still in a slow-moving line, immediately called 1K line again and got them to switch me over to the new flight. Got to the front of the line and told the guy I was rebooked by UA, he grudgingly printed my new pass. Boarded with the last of the passengers and waited to depart.
So now we're all sitting on the plane and hoping we can get going. There had been a ground stop earlier, but at this moment weather was fine. So we sit, and we sit, and we sit. One or two more passengers straggle on, and we sit some more. Then another straggler. Then another long wait. We're all getting that sinking feeling. Eventually, there's a big scrum at the front of the plane with crew and flight attendant and gate agent, pilot comes on the line to announce that the crew is timed out for the day and we're all staying in Montreal.
We all disembark and proceed to stand around waiting for 45 minutes for someone to bother to offload our gate checked bags (this is a regional jet so almost everyone has a gate checked rollaway). Meanwhile the copilot is hanging around telling us that they desperately wanted to get going but the ground team kept putting new passengers on the plane and loading bags and not letting them go. So eventually they couldn't make it before the end of their 16 hour day.
One earnest but very marginally competent gate agent is telling us to wait around for our bags and then telling us to wait around for him to escort us so that we can get to the arrivals section of the terminal so we can reclear Canadian immigration. That probably takes another hour.
What's the moral? Don't know, except that better decisions by the airline instead of worse decisions, make a big difference. They could have easily canceled the other flight earlier, so they weren't faced with a scrum of passengers all trying to change their booking. Apparently at some point during this process, the printer broke at the gate! And, of course, they didn't listen when the flight crew said that they needed to close up and go.
UA gave me 10k miles compensation. That's not a fraction of the hassle, but what can you do?