United We Stand
I was in the army and going home to surprise my mom for Christmas. I was at my final layover in Newark, some time late at night. I’m waiting at the gate to board the plane when they announce the flight has been delayed by a half-hour. No big deal. They continue to delay the flight a half an hour further back at a time. We’d get to five minutes before boarding and they’d push it back a half hour.
This went on for three hours. Apparently, they were waiting for our plane and crew to arrive from Pittsburgh and they couldn’t take off because of a storm. The plane finally arrives, and we board. Unfortunately, by the time we get out to the runway, the storm that stopped them from getting to us has now reached Newark. So we sit on the runway for an hour and a half waiting for the storm to pass so we can take off.
By the time the storm passes, when considering the time span of our upcoming flight, we can no longer fly because the crew cannot work for a consecutive 16 hours without a sleeping break due to FAA rules. They tell us our flight is canceled, and we need to get off the plane. So at this point, we were about five hours past our original boarding time. It’s the middle of the night, I haven’t seen my family in a year, and it’s now officially Christmas Eve.
We all have absolutely no idea what’s going to happen. They gave us all a $12 meal voucher, except at this point the airport is basically closed. The only thing that’s open is the McDonald’s, and of course, they only have a limited menu. All 100 and some of us are in the line, so that takes some time. They tell us that there is no way they can get us a flight today.
The only option is for us to take the bus they have arranged for us. We were all angry, but didn’t really have much of a choice. I figured I would work it out with the airline later. So they sit us all in the main lobby of the airport, where we wait for another two hours for this bus to arrive. Despite paying for a one-hour layover and a one-hour flight to Syracuse, I got an eight-hour layover and an eight-hour bus ride.
All I got from the airline was the meal voucher that I received at the airport. Apparently, they didn’t HAVE to do anything, because this entire situation was caused by weather (which, it wasn’t, it was caused by their lack of planes available to use). Screw United.
Story credit: Reddit / jmccarthy611