Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Question about United Airlines and about making stops

Question about United Airlines and about making stops?
So on April 21st, 2010 we are leaving from Pittsburgh International Airport at 5:50pm and arriving in Seattle Tacoma International at 11:10pm When we depart Pittsburgh, it says right beneath the flight number is the amount of time we are going to spend actually flying and underneath the time, it says, "Makes One Stop" but it doesn't specify where or when. Could this be a plane change? Could this be a mistake? When we depart Seattle to come back to Pittsburgh, we actually do make just one stop in Chicago, IL. That part, I knew. I'm not sure if that one stop could be referring to Chicago or if it means a plane change....I tried calling the airline AND priceline but I keep getting a stupid machine instead of a real person. Are they short-handed on people nowadays? haha it says one stop yet I called and it doesn't explain where we are stopping or if we are just changing planes. No information so I assume it's a direct flight from Pittsburgh to Seattle. My aunt is telling me different and that we are making a stop and changing planes in Denver, Colorado....Where is she getting this crap from??? I don't understand where she sees this information. She has the SAME EXACT itinerary that I have. Any clues? I also know that United Airlines is notorious for changing planes a lot. Any info, let me know. Thanks everyone! Well the aircraft IS different so we MIGHT be changing flights but there isn't a time frame as to how long the layover will be....you know how it says, "Landing in Chicago INTL. at 5:35am. Departing Chicago INTL. at 7:35am" well it doesn't say when it departs from Denver....it DOES say that we land in Denver but it doesn't say when we depart or when we land. No time frame whatsoever.
Air Travel - 4 Answers
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1 :
When the itinerary says "one stop" but does not list a city, it's usually just a refuelling stop and you generally are not permitted off of the plane when refuelling (although on larger planes, sometimes you are indeed allowed out in the terminal). You state: "I tried calling the airline AND priceline but I keep getting a stupid machine instead of a real person. Are they short-handed on people nowadays?" Don't forget that there's a couple hundred thousand people stranded due to the closure of European airspace. United does a lot of business in Europe so expect their phones to be jammed for the foreseeable future. So since you can't get someone on the phone, it's pretty easy to find out if you are changing planes in Denver, or just getting fuel. Go to United's website and see if there is any flight on your day of travel that goes from Denver to Seattle, landing at 11:10pm. If there is, then you may need to change planes, regardless of if the flight number is the same or not. It's about a 2 or 3 hour flight if I remember correctly so look for something departing around 8pm and check the durations. If there is NO flight with that itinerary, then it's a refueling stop. You will not change planes and you may or may not be allowed off of the plane. If there is a flight and it has the same flight number, it's more likely that you will stop and be allowed off of the plane, but reboard back into the same plane from the same gate (although not 100% guaranteed, as sometimes the flight number is the same but you change planes, and it's impossible to tell for sure till the day of the flight).
2 :
Some flights are connecting flights and United has a hub both in Chicago and Denver. Therefore it is possible that you will have to change planes in either city. Another possibility is that the plane goes to either Chicago or Denver and refuels so you do not have to change planes. Go to United Airlines' website and look up departing city of PIT and type arrival city of SEA. Then type in afternoon or evening flight and it should tell you your flight number.
3 :
try these numbers for united airlines 800-864-8331 7 mins At prompt, say "Reservations"; t usef 800-864-8331 1 mins Ignore the talking voice and press..... see details » 800-864-8331 21 mins At any prompt, say "AGENT".
4 :
Your aunt is correct -- based on the information on united.com, your flight (United flight 509) is a one-stop flight, which requires a plane change in Denver. The website only gives this information when you search on information for PIT-SEA, not saying anything about how long the connection is in Denver, but it's easy enough to use united.com to get individual information about each segment simply by looking up individual itineraries for the PIT-DEN and DEN-SEA segments. When doing the search for each individual portion of the flight, united.com lists the following information for each portion of United 509: 5:50 PM PIT - 7:24 PM DEN United 509 (Airbus A319) 9:19 PM DEN - 11:10 PM SEA United 509 (Boeing 757-200) Not only will you be changing planes in Denver (as is evidenced by the change of equipment listed for each part of the flight), but you will have a layover of approximately 1 hour, 55 minutes in order to make that plane change.

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