USA Today reported today on an incident that took place in December. One forgets, with Jetblue dominating the headlines, that other carriers are guilty of shocking neglect. Two planeloads of passengers were shocked to discover that they had been abandoned.
On December 20th, at 9:32AM, United Express Flight 7529, with 59 passengers onboard lands in Cheyenne, Wyoming after being diverted en route from Cedar Rapids to Denver. At 10:08, Flight 7705 inbound from Columbus with 51 passengers does the same. At 4PM, with Denver pounded by snow, the passengers leave the airport for local hotels. Denver remained closed the following day as well.
The flights were operated by Shuttle America, which flies under contract for United and various other carriers. Returning to the airport the next day as advised, passengers were shocked to observe the pilots and crew leaving without them, going to Kansas City and Indianapolis respectively for new flights. Passengers claim they called United repeatedly after arriving in Cheyenne but the telephone agents were not helpful and sometimes hung up on them.
One man whose wife was on the Columbus flight claims he couldn’t reach United for 18 hours and when he succeeded, the United agent in one of their Indian call centers wasn’t aware the jet had been diverted and didn’t even know where Cheyenne was. United insists a service manager from Shuttle America called five hotels and left a number for passengers with questions. The manager of the Holiday Inn where 36 passengers and 11 crewmembers stayed claims his hotel was not called by Shuttle America.
After the jets left, passengers tried to figure out what to do. There weren’t enough rental cars at the airport, and those who got them carpooled the two hours to Denver or six hours to Salt Lake City, which was open. At the time, United refused to pay the hotel and meal expenses of those it left in Cheyenne. It relented Monday night, when it learned USA Today would be reporting on the issue, and decided to pay up.
Both Scott Hinderman, who manages Cheyenne Airport and has worked in aviation for 23 years, and Bill Mosley, spokesman for the Department of Transportation, had never heard of another case where a diverted flight left its passengers behind.
United spokeswoman Megan McCarthy said that various factors led to the decision, including the fact they had passengers at other airports. Airline officials had considered taking the passengers with them to Kansas City and Indianapolis, but many flights from those cities were already booked. The main issue, she claimed, was that United had no personnel in Cheyenne and thus couldn’t draw up a list of passengers as required by law and because some of those who landed there left the airport, the original list was not adequate. However, such a list could have been put together by the flight attendants, who were there, or they could have hired a local aviation company.
The next day, December 22, United did send a bus for the passengers. However, the majority of passengers were unaware buses were on the way, due to the lack of communication and only three passengers took advantage of them. The majority of the passengers were left with large bills United will now hopefully pay for and disappointment.