On Monday, United Airlines flight 2138 from Des Moines to Chicago O’Hare suffered a bizarre four-hour delay. It wasn’t weather, mechanical, or a disruptive passenger. Two flight attendants got into a fight.
- Scheduled to depart at 11:26 a.m. and land just before 1:00 p.m., the short hop on an Airbus A320 sat in Des Moines for four hours.
- As first reported byPaddle Your Own Kanoo, the airline’s internal records show the cause:
Crew availability – Flight Attendant: Disagreement on 2 of the FAs. IFDM pulling all crew and will need to recrew flight.
United’s Inflight Duty Manager, who oversees cabin crew operations, decided the disagreement was severe enough that none of the original flight attendants could safely operate the flight. By about 12:10 p.m., passengers who had already boarded were deplaned.
New crewmembers had to be sourced – and Des Moines isn’t a crew base – with the flight ultimately pushing back around 3:24 p.m. and taking off close to 4:00 p.m. generally blowing connections. The flight landed at O’Hare at 5:09 p.m. – a four-plus hour delay for what’s normally less than a one-hour flight.
United’s flight status page didn’t update with details about the incident, and the airline hasn’t explained the delay.
It’s rare for a crew resource managment issue to escalated to the point that the duty manager yanks the whole cabin crew. That’s extreme – but correct – when teamwork and therefore safety can be compromised. Once a pair can’t work together, the airline still has to meet 14 CFR 121.391 minimum flight attendant staffing at all times. But an airline likely won’t have the reserves for this in Des Moines. I am surprised here not to see “crew availability” or something similarly neutral as the delay reason.
Customers don’t require EU‑261‑style cash for delays like this. For a four‑hour controllable delay, United would auto‑issue meal credit, and proactively rebook customers misconnecting at O’Hare.