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?
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