Dear United Airlines

Dear United Airlines,

I realise that mechanical failures are par for the course in the airline business. I am truly glad that you discovered the problem with the heating duct on flight UA 838 from Tokyo to San Francisco before we took off. Avoiding a fiery plunge into the Pacific at night is always a good thing. The good captain of the plane, explained (in vivid detail), over the intercom, that this would be the consequence of ignoring the problem. Apparently the heat escaping from the broken duct was hot enough to melt metal. I appreciate that the airline crew were friendly and pragmatic and kept us plied with water, and as up-to-date as possible on the progress of the repairs, and that they allowed us off the plane into the waiting area when the plane became too stuffy and hot. I am not even unhappy that you had ultimately to cancel the flight for 24 hrs. My problem is this: Surely this was not the first time you’ve had to cancel a flight and deal with 300 stranded passengers. In fact, talking to two of my fellow passengers, both regular San Francisco -Tokyo - San Francisco travelers, it seems that this is the third time this year that this flight has had to be canceled. Thing is, wouldn’t it be a good idea to formulate some sort of fucking plan, that could be implemented in the advent of a flight cancellation, so we wouldn’t end up being stuck in the airport for 12 hours? For example:

1. You know that the flight crew can legally only work for a certain amount of time, thus there is an exact time at which you know, that even if the plane is repaired, the length of the flight plus the time already elapsed will exceed this limit. If the flight is canceled, all the passengers will need visas to go back to Tokyo for the night. Instead of waiting until after this line has been passed, start organising these visas early. As was shown, it is just a matter of re-attaching their exit visas to their passports. Having these on hand would hugely speed up the process, as opposed to the over two and a half hours it took. If you alerted immigration and had the visas ready to go this could have been done in 30 minutes.

2. Start organising transport and notifying bus companies you may need transport for the stranded passengers. It’s an hour an a half to Tokyo. Waiting until you cancel the flight is a guarantee that your customers will be stuck in the airport for extra hours. We were delayed even further in the airport because you couldn’t find enough buses. It nearly caused a riot when it was suggested we try to get taxis, and then submit the receipts to United, so we could be reimbursed the $200 fare. Not one passenger took you up on this. You see, we don’t really trust you. This was not misplaced. By the time we eventually departed, several passengers who had submitted meal receipts, with the promise these would be covered before the rescheduled flight took off, had not been paid.

3. NEVER tell passengers that they will have to share a room with a stranger because you cannot find enough rooms. I was chatting to a cute Swedish women as you announced this, and while the whole idea might have been acceptable to me, it probably wasn't to her, and anyhow it might have resulted in marital discord downstream. Luckily, this didn’t come to pass because of passenger pressure. When we insisted a supervisor come and talk to us we were informed that your other representative had inaccurate information, which leads to the last point.

4. Communicate the plan to your employees. Be able to outline it to your passengers immediately instead of piecemeal. Your United staff gave regular updates (appreciated), but they contradicted each other which caused confusion, which led to more delays as passengers crowded the ticket desk looking for clarification.

This is the third time this year that I have been on flights which have had major delays or unforeseen cancellations. In all cases, some effort at planning and communication would have saved everyone stress and headaches. Airline companies have taken to treating their passengers like shit. This is unacceptable, especially as it was our tax dollars that bailed you (a private industry), out after the post 9/11 slump.

Yours truly,

John