A United Airlines flight took off from Chicago for London on Friday night and should’ve arrived the following morning but things didn’t go according to plan.
Due to maintenance issues, the plane had to be diverted to Goose Bay, Canada in Newfoundland, landing safely around 11:30 pm.
The flight crew spent the night in a hotel but there was no room for the 200 passengers.
So where did they stay?
The passengers were “were accommodated overnight and provided meals” according to a UA press release posted on ABC News. The accommodations for the passengers ended up being four barracks at a local military base.
An ABC News report states that they lined up and waited for bed assignments in unheated military barracks. (Image above.)
They were then flown to Newark Airport at 9:50 pm, almost 24 hours after arriving in Canada. After going through customs and immigration, they then caught another flight to London.
According to ABC News, “The passengers arrived at London’s Heathrow Airport approximately 33 hours late.”
Considering the passengers had a full day in Canada, I’d love to know if they were allowed to leave the barracks to look around Goose Bay? Then again, is there even anything to see there? 🙂
The passengers were refunded for their flights to London according to the press release and “one passenger said they were offered $500 in E-coupons for UA as compensation“.
Although they were well taken care of, some passengers said the biggest problem was not knowing where and when they’d be flown to.
Find out more from ABC News here.
Darth Chocolate- I agree, better to avoid disaster and have an inconvenient and somewhat uncomfortable night….
Elliot- Right.
Rich A.- I like your thinking! Moose- awesome!
Let’s see, arrive 33 hours late but you get a free ticket to London as your fare is refunded and $500 towards a future fare? Where do I sign up?
“….is there even anything to see there?” = Moose and lots of trees!!!! ;<)
Just be glad the flight landed safely and no one was killed or hurt, except for a few bad feelings.
While these incidents are not fun (in any sense of the term), would they have preferred potentially being in a air disaster? So they were inconvenienced for a while. You travel, you deal.
Two years ago, I was booked on an ultimately cancelled flight in the middle of nowhere China, and we got to stay at a “police training barracks”. No landline, no internet, no television, crappy food, 5th floor walk up, did not speak the language, two to a room, and we had to pay a deposit for the room key. Messages were relayed by the girl at the front desk pounding on the door and yelling the information in Chinese (this happened at 11 PM and again at 5 PM). Good times.
Oh yeah, and there was no mention of compensation.
Jarrett- Right! Depending on how much of a rush you were to get to London, it could definitley be interesting. However, I’d guess that more passenger’s plans were messed up opposed to being thrilled by this situation.
If I didn’t have to be anywhere (like to a meeting, or wedding), then it sounds like it would have possibly been a slightly fun adventure!
Randi- I’d love to hear more about what happened with your flight, how things were handled etc…
Ua diverted my flight last month for 27 hours and didn’t get any press? We landed in Ankara turkey and Ua denied we were diverted.