If you do have small kids, you learn to be prepared. If you live in Ottawa and don't know it's winter–get a clue from the snow around you. If you don't know delays occur, try reading the internet or watching the news once in a while. If you don't come prepared for everything that happens with small children, put them up for adoption and go live under a rock.

Sounds like she didn't want to sleep in the bed she made. Too bad. Just because you have kids does not put you ahead of everyone else when it comes to an airline. Unless you have elite status with their frequent flyer program, you are low on the priority list. Suck it up, like the hundreds of other people who probably had personal situations that were far worse that day.

@GOTA… Yeah, I agree the service sucked for her, and it was unfortunate what she had to go through. HOWEVER better planning on her part would have made things a lot better. The situation WAS not her fault. How it ended up is a result of her not being properly prepared, and making poor choices.

Best course of action is to play it smart, and make the best decisions you can in the situation you're put in. This lady, clearly, didn't."

So essentially you agree that the service she received and the situation she went through were both terrible and way worse than what should be acceptable, but that's just the way it is so it's her fault anyway?

That's not the way responsibility works. The airline is clearly in the wrong here.

IMO the writers biggest mistake was trying to fly through Chicago with two small children and not allowing extra time because of the kids. As a parent who fly's with and without my son, I can tell you from experience that traveling with children will slow you down. Her second mistake was not being prepared for the smelly stuff to hit the fan. She probably wouldn't have been nearly as frazzled if she had taken twice formula that she expected to need, an extra change of cloths for everybody, and planned a several hour lay over in Chicago for just this reason. This lead her to her nervous breakdown. She didn't have the supplies she needed for her kids and that lead her to panic and that just snowballed. If she had been Boy Scout prepared and just accepted that her travel plans were screwed, it wouldn't have been as bad as it turned out. Also the minute it looked like her plans were hosed she should have booked a room in Chicago so it was there, if needed, at a reasonable price.

Walk – don't run – to the nearest UNITED RED CARPET CLUB. Pay them the daily visit fee ($60 or so). Have the agents at the club fix things for you. Agents working in the club have a cushy job – they get chairs, and don't have to work terribly hard. That means, they're the ones who have been around a long time and have EARNED their way into the club. They can make things happen that other agents can't or won't. I know this, I've benefited from it on a multitude of occasions.

Going to file that little Gem away for future use. I'm betting it works with all of the major airlines.

Unfortunately, if you fly United, you're inevitably going to get forced through ORD – no way around it. Just make sure you're ready for grief and pack appropriately in your carry-on.

ORD, by the way, won hands-down the "worst airport in America" from Zaggat.

i know i was out of line and it was uncalled for but i had one long day and needed to vent here

Give the lady a break. I agree that this truly was a flight from hell.