Overview
- United Airlines flight UA2138 from Des Moines to Chicago on Oct. 27 departed at 3:24 p.m. after a scheduled 11:26 a.m. takeoff and arrived at 5:09 p.m., roughly four hours late.
- Internal airline records cited a cabin crew disagreement, noting: “Disagreement on 2 of the FAs. IFDM pulling all crew and will need to recrew flight.”
- Passengers who had boarded were deplaned at about 12:08 p.m. while the airline arranged replacement flight attendants.
- Reporters noted that Des Moines is not a United crew base, which likely extended the time required to source a new cabin team.
- United declined to comment, and multiple outlets verified the timing and delay via FlightAware and Flightradar24 data.