A United Airlines passenger, trying to leave one of the world’s largest gaming festivals, DreamHack in Atlanta, found her flight cancelled after she’d spent four and a half hours at the airport. She used United’s ‘agent on demand’ product, where there’s no customer service help at the airport but you get a live agent to chat with via a QR code. You can use audio and text, and they opted for both.
I was supposed to leave Atlanta today, just spent 4.5hrs at the airport, and now my flight is cancelled…I coulda spent another day at Dreamhack, and watched all the esport finals today. 😭😭😭
— Ghost Saski (@Saskkiii) May 17, 2026
When you start a chat with an airline (united atleast) you can opt in for a text chat, or audio + text. I opted in for both, so it started the audio call! When she ended the chat, it all disappeared but at the beginning I even said ‘can you hear me?’ And ‘I can hear someone…
— Ghost Saski (@Saskkiii) May 18, 2026
The agent had no solutions. The passenger thinks the reservationist didn’t even check for one, just saying nothing was available. And, the customer says, the agent could be heard talking smack about her to a colleague.
Paula, the agent, said she checked for availability and there were no flights for the rest of the day. There were no flights the next day. “All full.”
When the customer asked what’s next, Paula replied: “Nothing.”
YO @united YOUR AGENT IS TALKIN SHIT ABOUT ME LMAOOO! This is actually the craziest customer service experience I’ve ever had. Fuck Paula 😭😂 pic.twitter.com/vLCzT04fEt
— Ghost Saski (@Saskkiii) May 17, 2026
Oddly, agent Paula asked whether the itinerary is “all on United.” That’s something that customer service should be able to see (unless it’s a third party booking ticketed by another carrier with multiple segments, where it’s possible they might see only the segment following the United one but not additional onward travel). And the agent kicked her to the 1-800 number.
The customer, Sierra, says she can hear everything Paula is saying – that she told a coworker that Sierra “is not being nice.” Sierra thinks Paula is dumping her to the 800 number rather than helping.
Paula responds, oddly: “I DO NOT HAVE A HEADSET” and “There is no one in my room” while Sierra says she is recording the entire call and can hear everything.
- It’s possible the agent is telling the truth, they checked and United has no inventory available for two days.
- If the cancellation is United’s fault, their customer commitment requires them to put passengers on another airline, but not if it’s an issue that is not controllable.
Social media responses see the passenger as arguing after being told something true (no seats) and therefore she’s called a Karen when she threatens to report the agent. But the agent’s service is bad even if you accept what they say as true.
A response of “Nothing” is not a competent answer. What’s the earliest confirmed reaccommodation? standby options? Other airline options? Alternate airports? Is the passenger eligible for hotel and meals? Would they like to consider a refund?
This service is also supposed to be able to take care of irregular operations accommodation. After waiting on hold for an agent and getting nowhere, the customer shouldn’t be told to start all over at the 800 number.
Before you blame the worker or the consumer, please note that this is all by-design. ‘Customer service,’ especially use of AI, is no longer designed to actually help us or anyone; it’s entire focus is to save the company money, increase profits.
We need air passenger rights legislation like EU/UK 261, Canada’s APPR, so that we get compensated when airlines fail us; also, we should bring back Rule 240, where the airline has to get you on the next available flight on any carrier, if you want to proceed with travel.
Now, feel free to ignore that, as some of you are about to fall for the rage-bait, then cuck and shill for big businesses. I’ll wait. (“Wah, wah… I’m no victim.. I don wanna a handout.. wah, wah…”)
People like this person are morons. This is the wave of the future across the board. People being replaced by AI. Like it or not.
This person could have done her research and found an alternative flight to be put on with open seats. That often can be done on the app. Problem solved.
Instead, she thought that there would be someone that would research all the options for her. It doesn’t work like that anymore. If you can figure out how to do a Tik Tok or tweet you should be able to figure out how to use an airline’s website or mobile app.
@George Romey — Ahh, so close. See, you know this is a problem, because you, too, are experiencing it first-hand, but, instead of acknowledging that this is a bigger problem that sensible regulation could improve, you double-down on the personal responsibility myth.
No, you cannot ‘do your own research’ out of this. These for-profit corporations are not playing by any rules other than to separate you from your money. Individuals cannot ‘win’ against this. We should, in the aggregate, fight it, but ultimately, we need effective government to ensure consumers are actually protected here. DOT, FTC, anyone.
(Now, where’s @Mike P to share his white-paper on ‘gobermint bad.’ Tell us how you’re a sovereign citizen again. ‘You do not have jurisdiction over me!’ Yeah, yeah, tell it to the judge…)
What is my bored self missing? I don’t see any cancelled UA flights out of ATL yesterday. Checked AC too since this person seems to be from Canada – everything was fine. This morning’s ATL-ORD flight was full with LOTS of standbys cleared – several UA flights have long standby lists, which to me suggests a flight was cancelled somewhere or a bunch of freeloading gamers are using their United friends’ “buddy pass” to get to/from this gathering. (By the way, CUN, T. made it on this morning’s ORD flight!) dang I’m easily distracted…
@Gary Remind us again, please, about the compensation rules airlines are obligated to follow for cancelled flights? A nice, detailed article listing the rules and steps to take following a cancelled flight would be useful to most readers. Any variations by U.S. airline would be helpful as well.
@Quo Vadis — DOT rules: Option of either a refund (within 7 business days if paid via credit card) or rebooking (if possible). Sometimes that refund is only partial, often at the airlines’ discretion. If the airline fails to comply timely, you can submit a DOT complaint, which they usually get back within a month. Otherwise, that’s it. No further obligations. Anything else is them being generous (like overnight accommodation, meals limited to $20 vouchers, extra points or miles, etc.)
EU, UK, Canada and elsewhere include actual compensation $250-700 on-average depending on route/distance/duration of delay. In EU/UK, if it’s an ‘extraordinary circumstance’ (like weather), the airline doesn’t have to pay (but the burden is on them, not the passengers to prove.) Yes, even their better consumer-friendly systems could be further improved and streamlinedz
Overbooking is different than delays/cancellations. US airlines have their own policies, some of which will pay up to $10,000 to avoid involuntarily bumping a passenger (after Dr. Dao incident.) Otherwise, DOT/FAA fines.
I work on the corporate side at United. The agents who handle Agent on Demand are actually the same employees you’d normally see at the airport help centers helping with rebookings and other issues.
The difference is that when they’re working AOD, they’re usually sitting in a back-office area at the airport on a computer instead of standing at the counter. The whole point of the system is that if one hub gets slammed with delays or cancellations, agents at other hubs that have downtime can jump in remotely and help customers out.
So the AOD agents are still direct United employees working out of airport offices — not outsourced or third-party agents.
Assume that the only thing airlines will do in overbook scenarios is cancel your ticket and refund your money, leaving you to make alternate travel arrangements somewhere else at same-day/next-day fares.
And the notion of “one of the world’s largest gaming festivals” says how far we’ve fallen as a culture.
I’ve had this situation happen as well. I had a SFO-SIN flight get canceled during the pandemic, and I had already done my research before calling to find 2 or 3 upcoming flights they could put me on. However the agent I talked to insisted there were no scheduled flights EVER on that route no matter how far into the future she looked and forced a refund on me. I had to end up going to the app and booking one of the flights I knew existed on points because the cash price was so much more expensive than the amount she refunded.
@Denver Refugee — Which is why.. in those circumstances.. compensation actually does make a big difference…
In other news the United premium AI robot was fired and sent back to delta where it was purchased from to handle all their hundreds of cancellations
Nowadays people do everything to expose themselves and shaming others on the internet. Just for engagement and visibility. Sad.
“Your call is important to us”
But it’s less important than saving 50 cents of a phone agent’s time.
Fake news
What an idiot she called the airline not her travel agent. She needed to call her to travel agent and have it sorted out for her that’s what they do that’s why you pay them.
We are at a strange point on the timeline of human history between previously excellent customer service, and robots. The humans have checked out and don’t care, and the robots arent fully online yet. Its digital purgatory.
United has been especially horrible lately.
Left on a trip to Indonesia on May 2nd. Had us sit on the runway at SFO for our connecting flight to Singapore for three hours (and only a half cup of water during that time) before cancelling the flight. Could not get an alternate flight on the app, and there was a 40 minute wait on the call. We were told we’d be taken care of in the boarding area once we deplaned only to be immediately kicked out past security and put in a long line to rebook. The woman helping me did not know what she was doing AT ALL, and wasn’t finding anything, seemingly because she didn’t know that DPS and Bali were the same thing, until a coworker asked her why she wasn’t trying to connect us through Taiwan, which is finally what happened. While the clueless one tried to figure out how to even book our seat, alternate flights were filling up. We missed a full day in Bali and our first night at our hotel. The reason for the cancellation was a radio issue they had already known about.
THEN, coming back from Yogyakarta, they had us sit on the runway in Singapore for two hours because their idiot ground crew loaded an extra pallet of cargo on the plane, overloading it, unbalancing it, and risking all of our lives. That delay coupled with a long immigration line cost us our connecting flight, stranding us AGAIN in San Francisco until a later flight could be found for us.
For all of this, I had to actually fight to get a 400 dollar flight credit for both me and my traveling companion, which they treated as some kind of grand favor. Short of using the flight credit, I am never flying United again. They managed to screw up every leg of our trip over the course of nine days, and I think it wound up turning about 45 hours of transit time, which is already a LOT, into 65-70.
I’m taking my inaugural United flight this month since my first choice, AeroMexico, was double in price. I’m dreading the prospect.