United Airlines flight 23 from Newark to Dublin diverted to St. Johns, Newfoundland with a medical emergency on Thursday. Passengers are still stuck there days later, with little hope in sight and no plan to fly out today.
The Boeing 777-200 (N217UA) departed Newark at 7:44 p.m. on Thursday. About three hours into the 6½ flight, pilots squawked 7700 with an emergency, reporting a medical issue on board. The plane turned back towards Canada, and landed on runway 10 in St. John’s.
United’s short Newark – Dublin flight operates with an unaugmented cockpit, having just a two-pilot crew and little margin for extended duty time. Passengers reported as well that the plane had run out of water.
Once on the ground, emergency medical personnel were quick to board the aircraft and attended to the unwell passenger. However, the rest of the passengers were kept on board for an extended period without information. Eventually, they were shuffled onto a school bus bound for a hotel with no update on plans for further travel. One traveler noted, “@united’s solution to stranded flight UA23 is to pack us all on a school bus to some hotel where we will wait until they decide what to do with the flight.”
Update: this was apparently arranged by the airport. United is barely even aware we are stranded here, and has yet to update their system on the flight's status. We landed in St Johns about 6 hrs ago and they still have no answers.
— Phil Magness (@PhilWMagness) February 14, 2025
Other flyers detailed a confusing series of communications—or lack thereof—with United. Some accounts mentioned that, after landing, calls to the airline were treated by customer service agents as if their flight originated in St. John’s. They went long stretches with minimal information.
Dear @United. You have over 200 passengers who are stranded in St Johns, Newfoundland. We have been here for 24 hours with ZERO assistance from your airline. We were just told it will be another 24 hours until we can get out. We have no access to our luggage and no help. pic.twitter.com/OnYCJAM4gG
— Phil Magness (@PhilWMagness) February 15, 2025
Initial plans hinted at a follow-up flight—the same aircraft operating as UA3040—departing from St. John’s to Dublin the following morning. However, that passenger was scrubbed:
Stuck in Newfoundland for another 24 hrs because of weather. Still no United employees in site. This is the “ticket” the local airport staff gave us this morning since there wasn’t anyone from United to handle the situation. It got canceled about 2 hours later.
They decided to go to the nearest field rather than continuing to their destination, when they were halfway there. Details on the medical emergency are scant, but it must have been serious. There was little opportunity to get a replacement crew to St. John’s quickly. Weather was an issue as well, cited for why the airline couldn’t get passengers access to their luggage. So they waited. And waited.
Update in which United informs us we can't get access to our checked luggage because it's too windy outside.
They couldn't give it to us yesterday for different reasons related to staffing and planned departure. So it's 48 hrs without clothing in Newfoundland while 20F outside pic.twitter.com/9NEZaWEFO2
— Phil Magness (@PhilWMagness) February 15, 2025
There’s not a lot that United can do directly on the ground in St. John’s. That may have been the best place to land under the circumstances, and conditions there can be challenging. The decision though not to send additional crew or a rescue flight – or at least accountable management to communicate with customers – compounded the challenges.
Update: Cardinal Dolan was on board, heading to Dublin to celebrate a nun’s 100th birthday.
Last night, I was on a flight to Dublin that was diverted to St. John’s, Newfoundland where I am now stuck for 24+ hours due to a blizzard. BUT, apparently, Cardinal Dolan was on my flight and the knowledge that he too is extremely bored and annoyed is giving me heart.
— Brad (@BGM_22) February 14, 2025
Should have flown all the way to Dublin…..
Is the weather so bad that there are not other air operations at the airport? If so, that’s just the nature of air travel.
If not, how can airlines not have a better plan for when this inevitably happens?
Yikes b’y. Hope the emergency came to a good resolution and everyone gets where they need to be safely and soon. Tough compounding circumstances.
I don’t understand. The plane is there. The crew is there (Right? They didn’t fly out without the passengers?). The crew must be rested — why not fly everyone out on the same plane with the same crew?
St. Johns is a known and very well planned diversion point (I presume you ran out of letters in your title).
It is hard to understand how any airline that flies across the Atlantic hasn’t been able to execute on a plan that should have been in place to protect passengers and get a plane out of there
Emergency Divert does not mean a full service, all weather runway with full support services for every type of aircraft and amenities for hundreds of pax. Read definition of emergency.
Surprised that they were without clothes, I did not known a February Newark to Dublin flight was in their birthday suit.
Certainly 1st world problems to be inconvenienced a little.
How fast can we assume we’ll read posts about how safe and reliable is UA (for Dublin flights).
Shocked they are utilizing a 777 to Dublin in February. Seems like too munch aircraft to begin with. However, looking at the weather and the last few days of Ops at St John’s and this is really just a situation where everything that can go wrong is going wrong. They can’t fly out due to weather. They can’t get United reps in there due to weather. So unfortunately the passengers are just stuck for the time being. I do love newfoundland but certainly not in mid February. Good luck to all of them there.
Too windy to deal with luggage?
This is not a small airport it is a provincial capital city with lots of traffic.
Not only poor communication, but also well, you figure it out!
Rural Canada Gary? St. John’s, capital of NL? Your Murican is showing
Not sure about calling it “rural” canada, while isnt a big city, its the 22nd biggest metro area of canada with 200k population.
Another reason to not check bags.
There are 9 kids that are stuck there, with an adult, that are supposed to be in Ireland. United has cancelled, delayed, and rerouted these kids to many times over the past 4 days. They have now lost 3 days, soon to be more, on there 10 days class trip that cost over $5000 each kid. This is really sad and stressful for the parents. At least the groups that didn’t fly United made it to there destination on time.
Newfoundland and Labrador could have been part of the US. T here was a referendum around 1949. It was to list 3 choices….stay with the UK, join Canada, join the US. Canada was afraid of losing so it kicked America off the ballot, in essence a rigged election. For that rigged election, Canada won.
America has a far stronger case to make Newfoundland the 51st state than making the whole country of Canada the 51st state. Canada should be ashamed of its election corruption.
@Farnorthtrader – when they hit 1% of Canada’s population, call me
I bet something would have been done quickly if Mrs Kirby and the little Kirbys were on that flight.
I disagree with the premise expressed by one commenter that there was little else that United could have done. Could UA have chartered a small aircraft from Boston or New York to deliver a handful of customer service people? Could they have opened a small special reservations desk, specifically focused on people stranded in Newfoundland? Couldn’t they have communicated in a far more proactive and transparent manner? And having visited St. John’s, I will also support the premise that it is not a rural locale but rather a small (and very historic) city and a provincial capital. Based on the information provided, UA gets failing marks on how they handled this situation.
United could and should have contacted AC to deal with the baggage, hotels and rebooking. AC had plenty of personnel they could use to help and appears have since your show öf an AC boarding pass stock.
UA has operated out of YYT before so I’m not sure why a quick call to AC ops would have solved the situation.
It’s not what happens, it is how what happens is handled that makes or breaks a company. This was handled poorly and without compassion and customer (and likely crew) support. Not the first time United has failed and why I refuse to fly them, even when they are the only direct flight.
Had a similar situation happen on Emirates with half of our tour group 3 weeks ago except they were stuck in Iceland for 3 days. Also a medical emergency. No food, crew timed out.
Well, there’s no regulation requiring anything better, and anything better would cost United money, so who is surprised???
Compassion and customer support are part of Inclusion, and DEI is out of favor, so who is surprised???
In any case, anyone who doesn’t have his private jet to cross the Atlantic is a peon, so is automatically a lesser being not worth fretting about.
Sorry for cutting this comment short, but they’re calling me to decide how much should I increase groceries in my supermarket chain.
@Gary Leff — “When they hit 1%…call me.” Sick burn, sir.
Not sure if a passenger’s medical emergency would qualify as an ‘exigent’ circumstance (an exception to the rule), but if we had better passenger protections, like Canada’s APPR, or the EU/UK 261, the passengers might have received compensation from the airline for the significant delay. Alas, in the US, we value shareholder profits and special interests over people, so these affected passengers can ‘suck it.’ Personally, I think we should do much better. Oh well. Guess we’ll have to wait at least another 4 years to do anything.
A semi educated guess is that St John’s lacked the equipment needed to unload the wide body luggage containers as they handle only y narrow bodies on a day to day basis. But otherwise the handling of this is unexplainable, as in United could have AC take over local communications
Tyrone,
St. John’s is a regular diversion point for widebodies crossing the Atlantic. They have the equipment.
weather has been bad and AC has cxld a number of flights over the past few days but some are getting in.
and all the passengers who are there want right now is to get out… they will wait for their bags or accept UA’s lost baggage compensation.
It simply is unacceptable to divert to a place where you can’t safely operate and don’t have the support for everybody on the flight.
UA has done some diversions well in worse climates and at more distant locations.
@Gary I’m planning a trip to Providence RI. Can’t wait to experience rural America.
Tim Dunn… What if the winds are out of limits for deicing? Skip it?
When faced with a medical diversion, continuing the journey to Dublin is irresponsible with a death a potential outcome.
They addressed the emergency and then dealt with the equipment circumstances compounded by weather closures , visability . crew legalities and vendor support constraints. People act as if the latter are fully controllable and other options readily available but not exercised … by a crew also stuck there.
Flying over snow country in the winter can have surprises. Because of the medical emergency followed by the weather conditions delaying leaving, I am not sure that United is required to make any accommodations other than eventually getting the passengers to their destination. St. John’s is over 100,000 per Google and is the largest city in that area. It is not really rural. It has plenty of hotels and shopping, even having a Walmart Supercenter to get winter clothing and extra clothes if they were not packed in the cabin luggage. Hotels seem to be reasonably priced for those who want to get their own. I always have a winter jacket (I carry a lot of necessary things in the zippered pockets) with me when flying except for flights between Phnom Penh and Bangkok.
CANADA should be ashamed of its “election corruption??” We just elected a convicted felon who was found guilty of serial assault.
Hahaha, cities with 1% of the population of the country. The USA has precisely two (New York City and Los Angeles – populations of only the cities and not their metro area). Canada actually has quite a few more than two (10).
@jns – the population of Vancouver is a mere 700,000, about the size of Oklahoma City
In contact with someone on the flight. They have been provided meals, hotels and van transfers all along. YYT is not a small airport, usual amenities available. Swap Tim Horton’s for Starbucks for the win.
@Gary Leff, and the population of Canada is a mere 40 million as of June 16, 2023. 700k times 100 is 70 million, which is larger than the population of Canada so Vancouver is one of those greater than 1% cities.
If it had diverted to Austin, I don’t think Mr. Leff would have called it “rural Texas” despite Austin being far less than 1% of the US population. Diversion to Fresno…maybe, given the extensive farming in the area.
@Johosofat – Austin has 10x the population of St John’s
If we compare Austin’s population of today with the population of the USA 100 years ago (1925), Austin still wouldn’t be a 1% city. Granted that Austin is growing rapidly and if they can incorporate enough area (get up to around 500 square miles), they could hit 1% somewhere in the future.
Fly private, you will never have to bitch again …..
1% was specifically relevant relative to Canada’s small population, not to the U.S.’s population that is > 10x larger
“Come From Away,” Gary?
Travel is an adventure. It’s not a trip to the McDonald’s drive thru. Stuff happens. Sometimes it’s circumstances that add up. Sometimes it’s weather. Sometimes it’s out of everyone’s control. Deal with it or stay home.
I live in Halifax. I used to fly regularly Hfx to Toronto, and learned never to take the flights originating from Newfoundland in Winter. So, i understand the challenge in getting out. And Thursday night was a major ice storm here, which probably hit St John’s Friday. However, United must have staff in Halifax and should have sent at least a couple of people to St John’s ASAP to at least keep passengers in the loop.
It doesn’t sound like anybody is treating this as the end of the world. Travel emergencies happen. What they’re treating it as, is a shameful lack of response from the company that has an obligation to get them to their destination.
Anyone who calls being caught without a change of clothing in Newfoundland in February a “first world problem” probably shouldn’t be on View From The Wing, as it seems they don’t travel much.