{"id":30172,"date":"2023-12-15T22:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-16T05:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-passenger-receives-mixed-answers-about-united-airlines-flight-delay\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:13:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:13:15","slug":"durango-passenger-receives-mixed-answers-about-united-airlines-flight-delay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-passenger-receives-mixed-answers-about-united-airlines-flight-delay\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango passenger receives mixed answers about United Airlines flight delay"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Durango-La
Durango-La Plata County Airport Director of Aviation Tony Vicari said airport traffic has been up 12% this summer compared with last year. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Mark Morgan was gearing up for his son\u2019s college graduation in Louisiana on Thursday morning when his travel plans suddenly hit a snag.<\/p>\n

United Airlines Flight 1365 from Durango-La Plata County Airport was delayed 3 1\/2 hours.<\/p>\n

Delays happen, especially during the holiday season. But it\u2019s the dishonesty that infuriates him, Morgan said.<\/p>\n

Morgan, Durango\u2019s City Attorney, said crews told him the delay was due to low visibility at Denver International Airport. However, his wife \u201ceasily flew from Colorado Springs into Denver while they were claiming it was shut down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crews then said they had finished de-icing the plane, but \u201ceveryone knows they didn\u2019t do any more (deicing),\u201d Morgan said.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for United Airlines said in an email to The Durango Herald<\/em> the delay \u2013 stated to be one hour and 57 minutes on United Airlines\u2019 online flight tracker \u2013 was due to low visibility in Denver because of fog.<\/p>\n

Morgan said he doesn\u2019t buy that explanation because he witnessed crew members arriving at Gate 1 at DRO. He sent a timestamped photo at 6:45 a.m. of crew members inside the gate and said crews are supposed to be on site 30 minutes prior to boarding.<\/p>\n

The flight was scheduled to depart at 7:20 a.m. but didn\u2019t leave until 9:10 a.m., according to United Airlines\u2019 flight tracker. Morgan said the plane didn\u2019t take to the air until approximately 10:47 a.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cWheels up\u2026..finally,\u201d he said in a text message.<\/p>\n

\"Durango
Durango resident Mark Morgan said he received several different explanations for why a United Airlines flight was delayed out of Durango-La Plata County Airport Thursday morning. He doesn\u2019t buy them. (Courtesy of Mark Morgan)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cJust to add to the lies, this was on the app claiming technical issues,\u201d he said in another message, which included a screenshot of a flight status report.<\/p>\n

The report says Flight 1365 departed late because \u201cwe had to address a technical issue on your plane.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he missed a connecting flight in Denver, and United Airlines tried to charge him $1,000 for two seats on a new connecting flight, which he declined.<\/p>\n

He said passengers should be compensated due to the delay not being weather-related like they were told.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am going to miss the graduation dinner party we planned for weeks but should make the ceremony tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m.,\u201d he said about his son\u2019s graduation.<\/p>\n

He said based on his experience as a pilot, it appears the flight crew was late and missed their scheduled window to fly into Denver, \u201cso all the delays are getting rescheduled into a very busy Denver.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he\u2019s been a private pilot for four years with 350 hours under his wing. He bought his plane to fly back and forth from Durango, Louisiana and Colorado Springs. But his plane doesn\u2019t have deicing capabilities, which is why he was flying commercial on Thursday.<\/p>\n

DRO Aviation Director Tony Vicari said on Friday the delay followed a snowstorm that dumped about 5 inches of snow on Wednesday, and an American Airlines departure to Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport was also delayed by about two hours and 40 minutes.<\/p>\n

From his discussions with United Airlines, Vicari said the delay was attributed to snow removal and deicing the plane.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese planes arrived the previous night and sit \u2026 and collect all of that snow accumulation,\u201d he said. \u201cSo it can result in delays which are admittedly very frustrating for passengers. It\u2019s fully understandable. But in many ways, that\u2019s also just kind of part and parcel to winter operations at any airport.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vicari said low visibility conditions were reported in Denver throughout the morning, but he can\u2019t speak to any role they might have played because he wasn\u2019t on the ground in Denver. As for the airfield itself, conditions were clear in the early morning and there were no limitations or challenges on the runway.<\/p>\n

As to what United Airlines communicated to its passengers, that\u2019s the airline\u2019s responsibility, Vicari said.<\/p>\n

Vicari said reports about delays can obscure people\u2019s perceptions of the airport\u2019s overall reliability, but flight statistics over time show the on-time flight departure rate out of DRO is 82%, 4.5 points higher than the national average and higher than airports in Denver, Albuquerque, Montrose, Steamboat Springs and other locations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d love them to be 100%, but the travel industry naturally has disruptions given the amount of moving pieces and a high focus on safety in the aviation environment. Inherently, there\u2019s gonna be something less than 100%,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

cburney@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\"A
A photo of the airfield at Denver International Airport Thursday morning shows a damp runway below partially cloudy skies. (Courtesy of Mark Morgan)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Explanations included weather conditions, technical issues and de-icing shortage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1978,950,915,28,475,1469],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-30172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-airlines","tag-durango","tag-durango-la-plata-county-airport","tag-headlines","tag-la-plata-county-colorado","tag-travel-and-commuting"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30172"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80985,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30172\/revisions\/80985"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30172"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=30172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}