[GatesOfBabylon]

Last week United Airlines failed on many levels. It has failed in its quality assurance, service delivery and contingency. I will detail below how and why and why I am absolutely devastated by the poor service provided to me by the airline.

I booked my flight about 3 days before flying out to go from Melbourne to LA. I was going to a public memorial service for Ronnie James Dio (a singer who had been very important to me throughout my life, as you can imagine if I would catch a 16 hour flight to LA to go to it) that was happening on the 30th of May and I had to be there by 10am. I booked my flight to LA on the 29th, leaving at 11.20am so I could make it to LA in the morning the same day and have plenty of time to get ready for the memorial and actually get there.

Long story short, my flight on the 29th was cancelled about an hour before departure, due to an engine failure, we were notified about this in the check-in queue and told that they were re-booking people on an Air New Zealand flight, but spots were limited. After waiting about 2 hours in line, we were finally told that no flights to LA were available and they would have to re-book us for the next day. I explained this was unacceptable as I had to be at a memorial service. They didn't seem to care, the customer service consultant I was talking to was even smiling in bemusement as I kept pleading with her to find a different flight for me as I had to get LA that day. No one could do anything for me, all they offered was a voucher application form that would be processed within 4 to 6 weeks and a taxi back home.

Shattered, I went home, coming to terms with the fact that I had lost about $90 for one night at my hotel and missing out a whole day of my short 7-day trip to the US. The next morning I was finally flown to the US without incident (albeit disappointed at the lack of individual TV screens)... I arrived at LAX at 11.20am... after the long customs and immigration queues, I was out of the airport by about 12.30 and got to my hotel at 1. Hungry as hell, I went to grab some food before getting to the cemetery for the memorial well after 2pm. Due to arriving by then I could not get inside where the service was being held as it was full by then, so had to stay outside and watch it from the big screens. It was blistering hot outside, I had no hat or sunscreen as I had to rush to the service after landing at LAX. So I had to watch the memorial while jetlagged, tired and hot. I have recently had health issues resulting from sun stroke and dehydration and these came up again, but I won't go into that.

Basically, due to United's failure in service delivery, I missed a portion of the service (the main reason I was in LA for) and had to watch it through great discomfort and stress resulting from the earlier cancellation. I am a full-time student doing a double degree and also work 30 hours a week, and had already been stressed out prior to the trip, the cancellation just put me over the top.

What makes the cancellation worse is that I flew to Vegas 3 days later on American Airlines (without incident), and when I had to fly back to LA from Vegas 3 days after that, our flight was delayed by over 3 hours, once again due to mechanical failures. Luckily, my flight from LA to Melbourne was 7 hours after I was supposed to land at LAX, so it wasn't a problem for me, not so for other people, who had to get a hotel for the night.

Needless to say, 2 out of 2 of my United flights had some sort of mechanical problems. That does not instill a lot of confidence in me, as a passenger, and suggests that United fail drastically in their quality assurance. I have flown at least 30 different times before this and have NEVER had a flight cancelled or delayed. I can only think of a single time when a flight was shifted to another time, but we were advised of this by email well in advance.

There are a few other issues I haven't gone into detail about, but it is appalling service by any standard. Their contingency plan was in shambles, for both flights they could do absolutely nothing for us as consumers and the amount of time they spent with each customer to work something out was a joke.

What can I expect from United? Are they going to send me some lousy 10% off next flight voucher? That's completely insufficient for their failures as a company. Two flights with a mechanical failure in a week (THAT I KNOW ABOUT) is unacceptable.