UA Passengers Miss the Chance to Celebrate New Year’s Eve Twice

Passengers on a United Airlines flight hoping to travel back in time for New Year’s got off to an unfortunate start in 2024. 

 

Flight UA200 was originally scheduled to depart Guam at 07:35 AM on January 01, 2024, and land in Honolulu, Hawaii at 06:50 PM on December 31, 2023 – traveling across time zones to take passengers back a year. 

 

“You only live once, but you can celebrate New Year’s Eve twice!” United Airlines had tweeted earlier that week. In a separate Instagram post about Flight UA200, they wrote: “Time travel is real”! 

 

Time zone jumping for New Year’s isn’t a new practice – each year, a handful of flights offer passengers a chance to re-do their New Year’s Eve celebrations, with airline crews sometimes marking the occasion multiple times in a single route. 

 

But those on UA200 were in for disappointment. The flight was delayed – ultimately departing Guam at 01:49 PM on January 01, and arriving in Honolulu at 12:34 AM on January 01, missing the countdown. 

 

Passengers on other punctual flights had better luck. Cathay Pacific’s flight CX872, which departed Hong Kong just past 01:00 AM on January 01 arrived in San Francisco at 08:22 PM December 31; and All Nippon Airways’ flight NH106, which departed Tokyo at 12:48 AM January 01 landed in Los Angeles at 5:12 PM December 31. 

 

Celtic maintained their eight-point lead at the top of the Scottish Premiership with a blistering start at 10-player St Mirren to earn a 3-0 victory yesterday.

 

Daizen Maeda scored his side's first goal of the year for the third successive January after just 54 seconds. And after neatly setting up the first, Matt O'Riley smartly tucked away the second in under six minutes. Then, Greg Taylor unleashed a thunderous volley in the sixtieth minute, a goal that epitomized Celtic’s dominance and St Mirren’s despair.

Price Gaffe at Cathay Pacific

It was the New Year’s Eve travel sale that appeared to be too good to be true – business and first-class flights on Cathay Pacific from Vietnam to North America for just $675. 

That represented a staggering discount of extraordinary proportions! A first-class round trip would usually cost around $16,000 and a business class flight $4,000-$6,000. 

It took two days for Cathay Pacific to publicly acknowledge the gaffe with the airline on Wednesday gallantly saying it would honor the cheap tickets. 

Customers who had snapped up these ludicrous bargain-counter airfares breathed a sigh of relief after waiting more than 24 hours to learn what the company had planned to do. 

“Happy 2019 all, and to those who bought our good – VERY good surprise ‘special’ on New Year’s Day,” the Hong Kong-based carrier tweeted on Wednesday. 

“Yes – we made a mistake, but we look forward to welcoming you onboard with your ticket issued. Hope this will make your 2019 ‘special’ too!” 

Acknowledging that the delay had caused unwelcome speculation, Cathay Pacific added #promisemadepromisekept, and in a nod to the expensive error, #lessonlearnt. 

The airline did not respond to requests for comment about the number of flights sold at the steep discount. 

But South China Morning Post believed thousands of tickets had been sold during the online ticketing foul-up, which was blamed on an individual entering the wrong prices into the company’s system for that flight sector. 

And this decision would cost the airline millions of dollars in lost earnings. 

This is not the first-time airlines have mistakenly offered premium-class flights at marked down prices. 

In 2014 Singapore Airlines agreed to honor some 400 business class flights to Australia sold at economy prices. Last year Hong Kong Airlines said it would do the same when a similar error was made. 

But in 2015, United Airlines cancelled hundreds of tickets it sold for $100 by mistake. The American airline said it would not honor the fares because the error was caused by a “third-party software provider”. 

And Air Canada are currently involved in a class action lawsuit at home for refusing to honor a similar price mistake in 2015. 

Manchester City were much better on the ball on Thursday and with luck siding them, they emerged 2-1 winners in this EPL match against Liverpool.

Our unbeaten run had ended and already the Citizens closed the gap with us – separated by a mere four points.

We must remember that every game is a final. And for sure, we must win every game.