A co-worker who’s trying to fly United today is stuck at O’Hare because she was told she’d checked in juuuuust a couple of minutes too late to check baggage and was bumped from her flight. Then she was told that the next flight she was standing by for was oversold, but the airline is putting 20 flight attendants and pilots on in full uniform so they can go to Denver (her destination). A UA res person I spoke to just now was extremely tactful and careful about how she worded it, but the flight ops record is tagged that employees in uniform “MUST RIDE.” I couldn’t get her to state positively that they’re traveling to crew flights that have been disrupted by a CHAOS work-slowdown, though. She just was reassuring me that everything’s fine and she doesn’t know anything about any “action.” However, she certainly took her time to slow the call down.
Meanwhile, my co-worker says they’re all boarding the flight, in their shiny uniforms, as paying passengers in the departure gate area are being told there are no seats. Also, the gate has been changed several times just to aggravate everyone. UPDATE: At this point it’s possible that the people in uniforms are being deployed to Denver to work flights that are being disrupted. So it’s not just aggravating, it’s confusing. And my friend might well be misinterpreting things. We’ll see.
Nice, United flight attendants. Way to curry favor with the traveling public. Luckily for you, there are also weather and air traffic delays today, so your actions are somewhat camoflaged.
UPDATE: my co-worker called back to say that the planeload of uniformed flight attendants and pilots pulled back from the gate, went out to the tarmac, then turned around and came back to another gate and they all got off. Then the gate attendants started calling for all the people who’d been bumped earlier to come get on, and they were evidently making an issue of all the people who had checked in but weren’t on the plane. So they had to pull baggage off. And the flight, according to my friend, took off with 20 empty seats.
It’s looking a little less like a legit “we’re moving crew around” thing and more like an illegit “we’re just screwing you around” thing.
