Hi all --
I'm sharing this story with you in hopes that you can offer your best suggestions on how I should proceed with UA customer service on this.
Long story short:
My elderly father was flying to a family wedding here in Maine two weeks ago connecting from US to UA in EWR. Flight on UA was EWR-PWM.
UA flight scheduled departure time = 1:26pm.
My father makes the distance from the US gates to the UA gate in terminal C and arrived at 1pm sharp. When he arrived, there was a couple shouting at the GA who, apparently, simply closed out the flight early. The couple was demanding to be let on the plane since there was still 26 minutes before published departure time. My Dad was totally bewildered, so he called me at once. (that's how I know he was at the gate at 1pm -- the time stamp on his call to me was 1:01pm.)
UA's own guidelines state that pax must present themselves at the gate not later than 15 minutes before departure at EWR. My Dad was there 11 full minutes before that, but found the flight closed and a GA who was entirely unwilling to help reaccommodate or offer help whatsoever.
So, Dad walks to the UA Service Center and joins the long queue of pax. He calls me back and I conference call in UA res to look at options. Given that he was flying midday Sat and this is peak season into Maine, no options whatsoever. So, we had to choose between a reroute into MHT or BOS.
BOS was the final choice, but it meant that I had to drop EVERYTHING I was doing that day (getting ready for wedding guests, working with caterer, lots of last minute details to be pinned down), and drive the two full hours to BOS and back.
Bottom line = the GA in EWR that day closed this flight out WAAAAY too soon leaving at least 3 confirmed pax behind -- a full 26 minutes before published departure. That's unacceptable and it required a lot of extra hassle on our end due to no fault of ours.
Based on your wealth of experience here on FT, I'm interested in your best suggestions on how I should present this to UA.
Many thanks in advance.
I'm sharing this story with you in hopes that you can offer your best suggestions on how I should proceed with UA customer service on this.
Long story short:
My elderly father was flying to a family wedding here in Maine two weeks ago connecting from US to UA in EWR. Flight on UA was EWR-PWM.
UA flight scheduled departure time = 1:26pm.
My father makes the distance from the US gates to the UA gate in terminal C and arrived at 1pm sharp. When he arrived, there was a couple shouting at the GA who, apparently, simply closed out the flight early. The couple was demanding to be let on the plane since there was still 26 minutes before published departure time. My Dad was totally bewildered, so he called me at once. (that's how I know he was at the gate at 1pm -- the time stamp on his call to me was 1:01pm.)
UA's own guidelines state that pax must present themselves at the gate not later than 15 minutes before departure at EWR. My Dad was there 11 full minutes before that, but found the flight closed and a GA who was entirely unwilling to help reaccommodate or offer help whatsoever.
So, Dad walks to the UA Service Center and joins the long queue of pax. He calls me back and I conference call in UA res to look at options. Given that he was flying midday Sat and this is peak season into Maine, no options whatsoever. So, we had to choose between a reroute into MHT or BOS.
BOS was the final choice, but it meant that I had to drop EVERYTHING I was doing that day (getting ready for wedding guests, working with caterer, lots of last minute details to be pinned down), and drive the two full hours to BOS and back.
Bottom line = the GA in EWR that day closed this flight out WAAAAY too soon leaving at least 3 confirmed pax behind -- a full 26 minutes before published departure. That's unacceptable and it required a lot of extra hassle on our end due to no fault of ours.
Based on your wealth of experience here on FT, I'm interested in your best suggestions on how I should present this to UA.
Many thanks in advance.