United we queue!

I don’t blame United Airlines for the weather, there is nothing they can do about that. I don’t even blame them for changing or cancelling my flight but……….. communicating with their customers is their responsibility and there, right there, I can point the finger of blame.

I’d just flown into New York from Oslo on a very pleasant flight and only had my connecting United Airlines flight to Detroit to complete my journey. I got lucky at Immigration and did not have to queue there for long. After clearing Customs, I walked into the airport Terminal to find out which gate my flight to Detroit was leaving from. I checked the big screens several times but I could not see my flight listed at all. At this point I thought it best to ask for help at the United Check In counter about my missing flight. I did not know this at the time but several flights had been already been cancelled, to several destinations, and other passengers were also seeking help. When I arrived at the Check In area…….there was a queue, a big queue. So I waited in line. Eventually, I got to the front of the queue and was seen by a United representative. He claimed my flight had been cancelled but he could not help me and advised me to go to the Customer Service Desk, which was at the other end of the Terminal building.

Arriving at the United Customer Service area……… there was a queue, a big queue. So I waited in line. Whilst waiting in line, I thought I should contact Scandinavian Airlines, since they were my original booking agency, but my phone was not registering on any network…..So I had to stay in the queue if I was to get any help. After more than two hours of queuing I had reached the front of the queue and stood before a Customer Service agent. I had every reason to feel frustrated with the situation but venting that out on the United agent would not have helped……it was not his fault either. He quietly tapped away at his computer for several minutes and then said something that stunned me. “If you had been here an hour ago, I could have got you on a flight leaving now.” There were no other flights to Detroit that day.

This was not the final piece of poor communication, oh no! The United agent gave me a voucher for a night in a hotel and told me which shuttle bus to get on……. which would take me to the hotel. It was late in the day for me now and I was tired, sweaty and irritable. I boarded the shuttle bus. As the driver pulled away it began to rain but I was starting to relax because I was a short journey away from a much desired shower and a bed. After half an hour of driving I wondered why we were still on a highway and not near any hotels. Shuttle buses don’t normally traffic people very far. Turning on Google Maps I could clearly see that we were heading in the complete opposite direction to the hotel. No one else was concerned…..but I was. Being seated at the back of the bus I had to shout to be heard by the driver. Shouting certainly got the driver’s attention and everyone else’s.

“Hey Driver! Where are we going? We are supposed to be going to the Wyndham Hotel and that is in the opposite direction.” I yelled.

“Yeah, we’re not going there.” He replied.

That did not reassure me.

“I’m taking you somewhere else.” He added.

Alarm bells were now ringing in my head. All the other conversations, between the other passengers, had now ceased and panicked people were shouting questions at the driver, demanding answers.

It turned out the driver had been told to take us to another hotel because the Wyndam had been over booked by United Airlines…….but that too had not been communicated to us.

Just when I thought it was all over, the next day I was rebooked on another flight to Detroit…….which was also cancelled.

Now, whenever I here the word “United” my right eye starts to twitch and I urinate uncontrollably.