Got up at O-dark-thirty to take the GF to the airport so she could fly home and see her family. Long flight, PST to EST, and she has to catch a bus on the back end. It was tight for the bus she wanted but if they got away on time she'd make it instead of waiting two hours for the next one, the last of the day.

Twenty minutes before scheduled departure, everything fine. Just after that UAL changes it from 8:25 to 8:45. She shoots me an email to update me and notes they told the passengers that "the FAA wouldn't let the previous flight leave their gate" so that their aircraft couldn't get in.

It updated a couple of more times with delays and finally departed at 10:42, and it's likely she will miss the last bus of the day and end up having to find a hotel for the night.

I used to like United until I moved to the bay area. They screw up their gates and schedules at SFO like nobody's business; I think I've been on time twice with them out of here in the last decade. Every other airline I've taken (Delta, American, Frontier, Jet Blue, Virgin, Southwest, America West, US Air have been much better, perhaps four delays of more than ten minutes).

This is the primary reason I won't fly United anymore. They seem to be more like a Three Stooges skit than a real business.