A United Airlines flight bound for Shanghai was forced to turn back midway after one of the pilots realized they had forgotten their passport, leading to significant delays and frustration among passengers.
Flight UA 198 took off from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on March 22 at around 2pm, carrying 257 passengers and 13 crew members, CNN reported.
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However, approximately two hours into the flight, the Boeing 787 jetliner made a U-turn over the Pacific Ocean and was rerouted to San Francisco, where it landed around 5pm, according to FlightAware.
United Airlines confirmed the incident, stating, “The pilot did not have their passport onboard. We arranged for a new crew to take our customers to their destination that evening. Customers were provided with meal vouchers and compensation.”
The replacement flight took off at 9pm., landing in Shanghai roughly six hours behind schedule.
Yang Shuhan, a passenger from Hangzhou, recounted her experience onboard, saying she heard the pilot’s “very frustrated voice” over the intercom admitting, “I forgot (my) passport.”
The delay left Yang exhausted, as she had to drive another two and a half hours after reaching Shanghai at 12.43am on Monday.
While she acknowledged the pilot’s “honesty,” many passengers expressed outrage on RedNote, China’s Instagram-like platform.
“How could someone mess up this badly at work?” read a popular post that received over 10,000 likes.
The delay had a domino effect, also impacting passengers on the returning flight, UA 199 from Shanghai to Los Angeles.
A Shanghai-based business traveler, who wished to remain anonymous, said their flight was delayed by about six hours, forcing them to change their connecting flight.
“I’m feeling pretty frustrated,” they said. “Because of the delay, I have to reschedule all my plans for Monday, which is really inconvenient.”
Shukor Yusof, founder of Singapore-based Endau Analytics, criticised the incident, saying, “It’s quite embarrassing (for United).” He described the oversight as “unacceptable” for a global airline and a sign of “a lack of discipline.”
United Airlines, one of the world’s largest carriers, serves over 300 destinations across six continents, flying more than 140 million passengers annually.
The incident comes amid growing criticism of United Airlines. Recently, an Orthodox Jewish passenger sued the airline, alleging that a United pilot forcibly removed him from a lavatory, exposing him to other passengers.
In another case, a New Jersey mother accused United of asking her to remove her medically complex son’s breathing tube before takeoff. Her TikTok post about the incident has since gone viral, garnering over 1.3 million views.
