review: how I flew United but kept landing in Howard Johnson

(this is a style blog, so i rarely, if ever, post on an unrelated topic. however, my recent flight nightmare of epic proportions warrants an exception.) 

a week and a half ago, i was due to fly out of Shanghai to Newark on a United Airlines flight. having flown this 13-hour jaunt many times before, i was looking forward to putting on my Bose headphones and dozing off to some in-flight movies. check baggage, get boarding pass, go through immigration and security check, kindle at the gate until boarding. piece of cake, right?

wrong.

this is what happened instead.

day 1: 

a few minutes before our scheduled departure time, the Chinese supervising gate agent abruptly announces that our flight had been cancelled. no apologetic tone, no explanations, no earlier warning so that people could call around or look for other flights departing out that day. we are told curtly to exit back out through immigration, retrieve our baggage, and wait in line at the check-in counter for instructions. 

at check-in, only to be told that due to the oversold flights, there were no other flight options with other airlines that day or the next. the vague explanation? "mechanical issues".

i and about 250 other passengers end up at a Howard Johnson in the middle of nowhere in the suburban expanse of Pudong. there's a mediocre buffet. i call United's US 1-800 number. an agent tells me they're swapping out a new plane and we'd be good to fly tomorrow. the hotel front desk tells us that we'd get word from the airline later in the evening.

radio silence.

day 2: 

morning, more radio silence.

around noon, finally the hotel notifies us that we're rescheduled to depart at 8pm.

at check-in, the Chinese United agents mill around looking lazy and gossippy. nothing happens for over an hour and a half.

around 6pm, they finally start. we are told that they haven't assigned us a gate yet because all the gates are full. i check my luggage. go through immigration. and then security. head to the gate. it all seems so déja-vu.

it is now 7:30pm, half an hour before our scheduled departure time of 8pm. people are pissed. no announcements. the incompetent counter agents are utterly disrespectful when asked by passengers for an update on the situation.

finally, a few middle-aged Chinese guys lose it. they start yelling, cursing, and demanding that the supervisor show up and make an official announcement for this unacceptable fiasco. the supervising agent finally shows up, tells everyone to wait another half hour for an update.

radio silence.

an hour later, the pilot gives the update: they're unable to fix the mechanical issue, so this flight is cancelled again. it is now way too late in the evening for anyone to try to get another flight out. the airport is pretty much shutting down. 

a small hell is breaking loose. a group of middle-aged and elderly Chinese passengers begin circulating a petition. another Chinese guy is soapboxing about how a third of us should defect to a hotel and try to force the airline's hand. 

at check-in, i somehow luck out and get a flight for the next day with another airline with a connection. everyone is exhausted, sweaty, and almost delirious on the shuttle bus ride back to the Howard Johnson.

by the time we get back to the hotel, it is almost midnight.

day 3:

i fly out in the AM without incident on another airline. the flight attendants are incredibly nice and attentive. the food is really good. 

alas, this doesn't last as my connecting flight is United. i spot three United flight attendants standing in the back, gossiping and just hanging out. instead of, you know, doing their job. 

i ask a flight attendant to help me find a place for my carry-on. no such luck, she just gives me a condenscending attitude. another girl sitting behind me and i end up helping each other with our carryons. 

as for the other people's day 3 who were still stuck on the original flight, it looks like hell really did break loose. see Good Morning America's report here.

in the week since, i have not heard a peep from United on remedying this mess. after several phone calls, i finally got my ticket refunded. no info as of yet on the rest of the travel compensation.

this is not wholly a case of blaming United for a mechanical problem. rather, it's quite damning proof that United utterly failed to handle the problem with timely, empathetic communication and customer service. 

i have tried calling several times, and have only gotten further runaround from atrociously long wait times (the record so far is 45 minutes...) and unintelligible agents working from some outsource farm. at this point, i am convinced that United and its so-called customer service phone lines truly occupy a large swath of the 8th circle of Dante's Inferno.

dear readers, i need your help. 

do any of you have suggestions or advice for any way to get speedy resolution from United? do you have any airline horror stories (United or otherwise) of your own? how did you end up resolving it? finally, does anyone have recommendations for good airlines/frequent flyer programs?

update 7/26: i got a packet in the mail with an apology letter and gift card from Customer Relations, and a reassurance that the rest of my travel compensation will be processed soon. we'll see how this plays out. fingers crossed...