Throughout the week, United passengers have reported having to sleep in airports and stand in line for hours to rebook flights. Some travelers said they had to wait days to retrieve checked bags.
Elizabeth Rodriguez, traveling with her 12-year-old son, said in an interview on Friday that it had taken days longer than expected to get home to Fairfax, Va., from Texas. On Wednesday morning, just hours before they were scheduled to depart on a United flight from San Antonio International Airport, she was notified by text and through the airline’s mobile app that the flight had been canceled because of crew scheduling issues.
When Ms. Rodriguez called customer service to rebook, she was told there was a two-hour wait. With no other available flights to the Washington area that day, she booked a flight online departing the next day via Houston. After she landed in Houston on Thursday night, her flight to Reagan National Airport was delayed repeatedly into Friday morning.
“United Airlines handled this week poorly, was ill prepared and failed to be transparent with passengers throughout the entire process,” Ms. Rodriguez said. She added that testy gate agents had offered many reasons for the ordeal, including crew scheduling issues, weather and mechanical problems.
The airline handed out hotel vouchers for only some passengers on her flight, said Ms. Rodriguez, who ended up paying for a room herself. Her flight finally departed on Friday morning, 15 hours after its original departure time.
“I am so frustrated with delays, but even more so with how they treated people at the airport,” she said. “I don’t know if I will use United again.”
Her exasperation was similar to what passengers of Southwest Airlines felt over the winter holidays, when that carrier suffered a much bigger operational meltdown. Southwest canceled more than 10,000 flights in the four days after Christmas, or about 46 percent of its schedule. On United’s worst day this week, Tuesday, it canceled nearly 800 flights, or about 28 percent of its schedule.
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