Part 5: Ordeal a la United Airlines

I think I'm ready to recount the unanticipated part 5 of our otherwise excellent vacation.

Sunday, we got on the United Airlines plane ready for a quick trip non-stop to IAD. The plane pulled into position on a taxiway and sat for a long time. While I was wondering about the delay, the plane started moving but not onto the runway. Uh, oh. We came back to the terminal and the pilot announced that they have to deal with a minor mechanical issue. OK, so we are going to be delayed. We were in the denial stage of the five stages of grief. I congratulated myself on choosing the non-stop flight meaning I wouldn't have to worry about missing connections but, in the back of my mind, I sensed trouble. The pilot announced that the exhaust from the de-icing and air conditioning system is too hot and it can damage the wings but it may just be a coupler. After more delays, the announcement was that we may shut down the system on one side of the plane and fly to Florida where de-icing isn't needed instead of IAD where it most definitely would be needed. That seemed like a good plan to me, giving us some alternative connections. Meanwhile we had been cooped up for nearly four hours. I believe some legal alarm bells were going off because they said we could leave the plane and wait in the airport lounge. Then they told us all to deplane and take our luggage. The anger stage set in when, after much confusion and queuing at the airport, we slowly got vouchers one at a time and over the space of two hours were transported to the Hotel Mercure near Marigot for a very late dinner and some rest.

On Monday, the saga continued. Before breakfast, they said on the chalkboard, that we are being picked up at 10:30 am which changed to 2 pm after breakfast. I checked my United reservations and saw that we are booked on a flight at 2:30 pm. Many other folks also saw this so we assumed we had to get to the airport before that. Lots of people including us took cabs to the airport rather than wait for the bus at 2 pm. Going through their 3 step clearance procedure again, we noticed that our flight was not on the board. Checking the website, I noticed a delay to a 4 pm departure. Apparently, they were flying a mechanic down from Newark to repair the plane and he wasn't getting here until after 1 pm.

Passengers gathered around the gate area and the pilot and crew showed up to cheers about 4 pm. I believe we may have been experiencing Stockholm syndrome where we identified with and empathized with our captors. The pilot soon returned, having talked to the mechanic, and nicely told people it will be a minimum of 4 hours to fix additional problems with the engine. One of the crew will have exceeded her allowed duty time limit by then so, eventually, the pilot convinced the decision makers at United to cancel the flight so we wouldn't be hostage to the airport. We realized we were being intentionally kept in the dark like mushrooms and forced to schlep our luggage here and there for prepositioning as self loading cargo.

We were eventually transported back at the Hotel Mercure for another night. It was nice enough for a vacation.

However, a cage, no matter how gilded, is still a cage. The pilot thought the mechanic would fix the plane that night or United would dispatch another plane so that we can leave in the morning.

Meanwhile, quite a few of our merry band have deserted for alternate airline routes. This is the bargaining stage: "We'll do it ourselves if United doesn't come through." We considered doing the same but the alternatives were not too good for us. If the plane actually flies the next day, that would have been best. United sucks! Realizing we were stuck without a good option, the depression stage set in.



Tuesday, the morning was beautiful and, at breakfast,

we moved toward the acceptance stage. We made plans to go to the beach after they posted a 5:30 pm flight time. We looked into going to Carnaval in Marigot. United then came back with a 10:30 pickup to dash even this plan. The board was always changing the information.

They based the earlier pickup on a flight from Newark which we would use rather than the Newark passengers. Of course, we could see this flight was delayed and we couldn't possibly make the earlier time. They didn't, however, trust us with this obvious information. I had almost been ready to resume happy posting about vacation activities on the beach.



However, we eventually got to the executive lounge at SXM and waited for our flight along with some BFFs

from our ordeal. We would be using the plane from Newark while Newark passengers will be using the plane we were on which should be repaired. As we boarded, I could see our original plane was still being worked on.

I felt sorry for the Newark-bound passengers. I had thought that if we could only be delayed through the weekend, I may have had an opportunity to drive a boat in the Heineken regatta with our skipper from the sailing trip over the past weekend who liked the way I paid attention to the sails. Lemons to lemonade, perhaps? No, because our Newark-originated plane did actually leave.

It was a happy ending as we had a fun flight home talking for four hours straight with lmj.

It was a party tour group with our captain and crew.






I invite everyone to see how a musician abused by United got revenge. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo for the story. Any ideas how we should respond?

​

United Breaks Guitars

My suggestion for response is to request some monetary reimbursement for your troubles. They'll probably deny your request but offer you FF miles or a voucher for future travel. I admire your keeping an even keel throughout the saga.

Good luck,

Tim

Everyone on the flight received some FF miles or $300 toward a United domestic ticket.

On behalf of United Airlines, we want to express our sincere apologies for your
experience with flight 1749 on March 4, 2014.

At United, we take pride in being a reliable part of your travel plans and your satisfaction
is of paramount importance. I invite you to visit the following website to select a token
of our appreciation.

http://www.united.com/appreciation

Please have your flight information handy when you visit the site. Family members who
traveled together under the same email address should access this site individually.

Thank you for your time. Again, your satisfaction and your business is important to us
and we look forward to serving you better in the near future.

Sincerely,

Proactive Recovery Operations Team
United Airlines

JoshA said:

Everyone on the flight received some FF miles or $300 toward a United domestic ticket.

Click to expand...

That's not much for three days of your life.

We can't believe after a 2 day delay and a number of false alarms, you were such good sports about it all. Congratulations on keeping cool and making lemonade!

What an ordeal..although you reached that point of being really pissed off and feeling abused you kept some sense of humor. Even those fellow passengers you took photos of at the gate were able to smile. I can't imagine just how more of a nightmare this must have been for those with jobs and/or families (little ones?) waiting at home. At least you had some flexibility. I think I'd tell United where to out the compensation (nicely of course) Three days, and being left in the dark about your flights, is pretty hard to make up for in my book. It's a terrible way to end an otherwise perfect vacation....kinda takes all the wind out of your sails (no pun intended). :wink2:

I think the best revenge is to never use them again. UA to the Caribbean is problematic as they are seasonable and even in the season not daily. This results in little flexibility when the stuff hits the fan. Last year out the blue (skies that is) they cancelled our IAD-SJU two days ahead of the snow event -- just in case. We put the miles back in the bank and climbed on JeBlue at DCA. Deicing delays, but they had a plane on the ground and off we went.

This year it was an uneventful trip (deicing in IAD) and we even had a good laugh on the way home as the senior FA told us about a guy in the bulkhead row of First clipping is toenails on her last flight down. No attempt on his part to clean up his leavings. Some passengers using magazines as blast shields.

Sadly, this is what air travel has become. With packed flights, there is no room for recovery when presented with a mechanical malfunction, let alone the massive weather events that we've experienced this season.

We had a one day delay last time (United, I believe).
The problem is that any St. Maarten hotel with enough space for 200 guests on short notice must not be a top quality hotel.
At least you had a place on the beach.
The place we stayed was a real dump.

In any case, you handled it far better than I might.

Thanks Josh for writing out the entire melodrama & saving me the trouble. My case was slightly different but obviously had the same happy ending. When the captain indicated that 4 more hours of work was needed on the plane on Monday night before they were even going to make a "go/no go" decision, I planted myself in front of the gate agent and demanded to be put on another airline. Unfortunately, due to the snow there was nothing available on Monday to the DC/Balto area so I had her put me onto a Delta flight through Atlanta that got into BWI around midnight on Tuesday... not the best option but at least I was sure of a flight out. Then I left the group and went to the Westin where I could be sure of a clean, mold-free room, a "heavenly" bed and a decent meal. The Mercure room that I had been stuck in the night before was mold-ridden and sported rock hard pillows and bed, and the dinner was a steam table buffet with carefully rationed wine. I needed MORE (especially more vin rosé!) after such a crazy day. United told me that it would be at my own expense and I figured who cares? And anyway, I'd argue my case in a higher court so I took off. The Westin gave me a great rate ($265) and upgraded me to a large, beautiful ocean view room with a balcony where I dined on my room service burger (delicious!) and promptly fell fast asleep. I called United early the next day and discovered that a new plane would be flown in from Newark for our group, so I put myself back onto the United flight since it was a non-stop and the supervisor assured me that it would be on time. It wasn't, but it was only an hour late which in the scheme of things was a miracle. I then went to the beach where I had a lovely massage in a cabana on the sand, enjoyed a delicious lunch with a wee bit more wine and then took my time getting back to the airport. I arrived after the rest of the group which made check-in easy and quick. BTW, I had purchased duty-free liquor the first day and was able to get it through security both subsequent days... it just took a little persistence in finding out who to talk to about it. So for future reference, ANYTHING is possible at SXM, just keep asking for a supervisor and eventually it will pay off.

As Josh said, the flight back was a party. I brought on a bottle of rosé and some good chocolate which Josh, Hellie and I enjoyed as we chatted about our respective vacays. The time literally and figuratively flew by and we landed at IAD at a respectable 6:30pm. I zipped through Customs with my Global Entry pass and about 5 minutes after landing I rendez-vous'd with Paul, who brought me roses and took me to dinner. So all's well that ends well. I've already written to United asking for compensation plus reimbursement for the hotel and dinner but don't know if that will happen. Their response will determine my future business, but the extent of the misinformation, confusion and chaos makes me seriously question the wisdom of flying on an airline in such disarray. Buyer beware when it comes to United!!!

If the ordeal were a little longer, we could have made Meyer Lemonade from this lemon by participating in the Heineken regatta. After watching this great drone video, I sense we missed something special.

[video=vimeo;88720486]http://vimeo.com/88720486[/video]

Glad you all got home safe and sound!

Sorry to hear about the trouble, but glad that you finally made it home safely, because at the end of the day (or 3 days in this case!), that's all what matters!

I fly the same bird (737) and by the look of it the crew made the right decision by grounding the aircraft (despite all the trouble caused). Trust me, you don't want to take off with a bleed air problem. Looking at the picture of the aircraft on the ground, I see that the pack panel is open on one side, meaning a serious tech issue was being resolved.

For those interested in the tech part:

The Boeing 737, like most jet aircraft, uses bleed air (exhaust from the engine and APU or Auxiliary Power Unit) for several systems: air conditioning, pressurization, anti-icing of wings (leading edge part), anti-icing of engine cowlings.... Bleed air is cooled, filtered and mixed through various complex systems so as to deliver the right amount of air at the right temperature and pressure to each component. For example, air conditioning and pressurization utilize the "packs" for that matter. For redundancy reasons, there are two packs installed (on the 737), meaning that if one fails, the other one maintains the required cabin air pressure and temperature.

Now on this occasion, I believe the crew got a "BLEED TRIP OFF" warning while taxiing to the runway. This can only happen after engine start, so it was not predictable before (at the gate while boarding). This triggers a "MASTER CAUTION LIGHT" in the cockpit (strong amber light). When a fault occurs, pilots have to go through a non-normal check-list in the "QRH" (Quick Reference Handbook). The check-lists says the following:

Condition: One or more of these occurs:
- An engine bleed air overheat
- An engine bleed air overpressure

It then redirects the pilot to action a few items so as to solve the problem, and if that doesn't work : "Avoid icing conditions where wing anti-ice is needed".

OK, so let's think about this for a minute:

- There is a bleed air problem (most likely an overheat in the duct from the engine)
- As a protection feature, the wing anti-ice system automatically shuts off so as to avoid the overheat to further develop (additional heat is never good on any aircraft, so Boeing engineers designed the system to shut down by itself)
- The check-list does NOT say "Land at the nearest suitable airport" (a QRH check-list is usually used in the air, but can also be used on the ground after the aircraft has started to move under its own power). "Land at the nearest suitable airport" means a serious condition is happening (possibly life-threatening). Typical examples include a engine fire or severe damage. But in this case it doesn't say so. So does it means "We're good to go?".

Yes and no. Let me explain. At that stage the aircraft is still safely on the ground. And nothing serious is going on. But there is a failed system which could seriously affect the normal operation of the flight. So, the crew probably went into some "decision making" to decide what option would be best in this situation. Go, not go? If going, under what conditions, etc... They most likely gave a call to their flight ops department back home (through Sat com) to help the decision.

This is when the crew announced the possible option of going to Florida instead of IAD. The explanation is in the check-list ": "Avoid icing conditions where wing anti-ice is needed". Obviously flying to IAD in winter would involve the use of wing anti-ice during the descent and the approach, whereas in MIA there is a good chance (?) that the crew would be able to avoid any icing conditions.

Yes, but what is "icing conditions"?

The answer is simple: it's when there is visible moisture in the air (cloud, fog, mist, rain, snow, ice...) and an outside temperature of 10 degrees centigrade or less (50° Fahrenheit). Given the cold temperatures in the sky, it means that flying in any cloud "up North" in winter would definitely fall into this category of weather.

But flying to Florida instead of IAD means also a lot to the airline (and of course to the passengers). Change of flight plan, check the performances of the aircraft (make sure they're not too heavy for landing as they carry a lot of extra fuel), organise transfer and connections for the passengers, crew duty times, etc, etc...

I'm guessing the dispatcher in charge of that flight was trying to figure out what would be the best solution for that flight. And this process is long and difficult (hence the long waits). Go or not go, and at the same time see if there was an alternate solution in SXM (that means either finding hotel rooms for all pax or sending down another aircraft).

Although I fully appreciate the frustration of the passengers in this particular situation, I also see the trouble the crew and the airline went through as well. Trust me, they all wanted you to get going as much as you did. But SAFETY comes first. And costs second unfortunately (it should be pax comfort or commercial considerations). But hey this is the world we live in.

Flying into icing conditions without a proper wing anti-icing system could create a very risky situation. Even if the chance to encounter clouds during the descent into Miami (or elsewhere in FL) is light, there's a chance. And as we say in aviation: "if there is a doubt, there is no doubt". Also, one might think, "yes but the temperature in Miami is definitely more than 50°?". Yes, right, but again remember that the Outside Air Temperature decreases at a rate of 2°C per 1000 ft when going up. This means that even if the temperature on the ground is 30°C (86°F), at 10,000 feet it would be only 10°C (50°F), cold enough to create "icing conditions" in any cloud.

How bad is it to fly into icing conditions without the "wing anti-ice" system not fully operational?

Bad. Very bad. Ice would build up on the leading edge of the wing very quickly, reducing the lift capability of the wing in a matter of minutes. And if the wing is not generating lift any more, well the aircraft won't fly any more. That big piece of metal would fall like a rock to the ground. Many aircraft accidents happened due to flying into icing conditions (ask the folks in Canada or Alaska). This is just a no-no.

So back to the original question: Was the decision of the crew safe? Yes, it was. Did it mean a lot of trouble for the passengers? Yes it did. But, it was the right decision. As a Captain myself, I would have done the exact same thing.

PS: on a last note, the only better "commercial" decision the United ops department could have made is to send down another aircraft right away to SXM. But again, this is easy to be said. I was't sitting at the office trying to figure out the commercial aspect vs the costs involved.

That's my 2 cents.

Again, thanks for sharing and glad that you're back home safe and sound, getting ready for your next trip to SBH (perhaps not with United?). But remember, tech issues happen in aviation. With ANY airline. The important bit is to make sure the decisions made (by pilots, ops department, etc) are the SAFEST at all times, no matter what.

Your frequent flyer miles on your Platinum card wouldn't mean much if it wasn't the case... Just a consideration to think of in times of frustration

Blue skies and tail winds!

Thanks for the professional perspective, islander. I think you interpreted the safety considerations beautifully. The thing that was most lacking was the customer relations perspective. The pilot acted as the PR department and he was very good at it given his limited power to make things happen. United should under promise and over deliver to manage expectations. They should provide consistent information to the ground personnel, to the passengers, and on their website. They should not force their customers into constrained conditions until they know for certain that the plane is ready. That would change the perspective from one of incarceration to one of extended vacation for some.

Fully agree!

A quick update on the United response: with a little persistence I received 35,000 miles and a $350 flight coupon. Of course I still have to fly United to take advantage of their compensation... not an appealing option at this point. And Josh, I totally agree with your last statement. Air Tran notified us of a possible delay or cancellation of our flight home from the Abacos in February, so I was able to change flights and extend our vacation by 2 days. It was painless and also free, since my flight insurance covered the additional costs for restaurants, etc. THAT was excellent customer service. United was exactly the opposite.