And that’s true.īut it’s sort of like building your next house out of cardboard and blaming the rain when it disintegrates. United will tell you it’s all because of the weather. Which means I need a hotel. So I’m out a few hundred more dollars. The bad news is that the flight is not until Saturday. The good news is that I finally got a new flight by connecting to United on Twitter. Line still had 225 people in it when I left at 5:00a.m.). had the added joy of standing in line until 5:00 am (And beyond. So the same people who got off the plane at 1:30 a.m. Number of people waiting for service desk: 400

They told us all that we would have to go to the United service desk to reschedule. Update: You literally have no idea what’s going on.Īnd after ten hours on board, they finally cancelled the flight at 1:30 am.īut like a good firework show, United saved the best for last. In fact, their updates were so consistently wrong that I started texting back to update THEM, replying to each of their updates with: A monkey taking an algebra exam could do no worse.

If you’re keeping score at home, that’s a stunning 0 for 10. I traded away one of my children for it.īut it was all okay, because United kept me informed viatext, telling me in a series of texts that the flight would:ĭepart at 11:59 pm (wrong) (an odd shift back in time, as well) Eventually, I walked to the back of the plane and snuck a glass of water from the flight attendant. Turns out, they weren’t going to give it to us anyway. The food part was especially ironic given that the lack of food on the plane was the initial reason for the delay. Remember that guy United dragged off the plane not too long ago? We were longing to be him.īut United added to the experience by offering no WIFI, no water, and no food. Translation: If this plane is ready to go, we will abandon you like a three-legged mule. But if you do, they add, you need to remove all your luggage. Wait, you may say, they have to let you off the plane after so many hours. The list of reasons for the delay was, well, magnificent:ħ) Lost our crew while waiting for new captainĩ) Still no new captain (still stuck in traffic)ġ1) Lost new crew while waiting for new captainĭuring the 10 hours, we got off the plane only once. I just spent over 10 hours trapped inside a United plane at the Newark airport.

Pastis comic