[peter1173]

Yet another example of United's hypocritical approach to customers. Flight UA1729 from Chicago to San Francisco on 2/27/15, with the departure already delayed by 30 minutes from scheduled departure time, they keep us sitting at the gate for 1 more hour with no announced reasons for the delay. Not even the typical maintenance check reasons or blaming ATC in San Francisco (always a favorite ). I asked one of the flight attendants who tells me that the delay is due to first class catering being incomplete. I thought it was a joke until 10 minutes later when I walked to the back of the plane, saw two more flight attendants, asked them the reason for the delay and they confirmed this to be the case. They also shared their frustration at not being paid for the delay time.

Finally, the captain announces we are departing and just finishing up some last minute minor details.

We finally arrived in San Francisco about 45 minutes late the captain sounding proud of his accomplishment that we were making up great time despite all of the challenges facing our departure. A very self-serving statement.

To add further insult to injury, prior to landing the flight attendants request any passengers that are not in a hurry please sit down and wait when we arrive at the gate to allow other passengers who are very close to missing their connections to deplane first!

How can we as the abused/disrespected consumers put an end to this hypocritical attitude? I realize that I have a choice of carriers but the blogs show similar (and many worse) incidents across all of them.

Reflecting back on my story above, I probably would have been much happier if the captain had at least announced some sort of lie or another, at the beginning of the flight which would have reduced my frustration along with 160 other passengers.