second time ever flying united today - whoa buddy

i generally fly american every two months. i booked a ticket with united for convenience this time, and today my flight from GRR to ORD was delayed due to “not having an aircraft, and they did not have an eta.”

spoiler: the aircraft arrived last night and two others were parked on the tarmac the entire time. even some pilots were asking questions that were flying on the plane as passengers.

i had a connecting flight in ORD to SJU that i was nervous to miss. when i spoke with the agent at the desk she told me that there wasn’t much she could do, but i could fly to chicago and they could probably book me more options being a larger hub. i could try to make it but they’d take care of me if i didnt. okay fine - i still had about 45 minutes for a layover by the time we were supposed to arrive. i felt reassured.

i got there with seven minutes until boarding closed, from gate e11 to b2. i had to full on sprint through the airport and i was the second to last person to get in the plane - they started to taxi four minutes after i got on board. united did nothing to help anyone with delays, and when i looked at the rebooking feature, it said there were no standbys, no flights within 24 hours, nothing at all to rebook. and this wasn’t just me, half the flight was fighting to get off the aircraft.

i get this stuff happens, but their complete lack of effort to rectify or help all of us scrambling was very unprofessional. many of the flight attendants were not very kind either.

i do hope the people next to me headed to the cayman islands made their gate - they had a little more time than i did to get to a gate in C for the Cayman Islands. if you read this, we did the damn thing. with no help from united or even effort.