Japan To Guam Flight Services Cancelled By United Airlines

Seeing this story at Guampdn.com reminded me that I almost had to take a flight to Guam in order to get back home to Los Angeles from Japan:

United Airlines later this year will cancel twice-weekly service between Guam and the Japanese cities of Niigata and Hiroshima. United's Guam-Okayama flights will end in February. 

"We have regretfully made this decision because the services' financial performance did not meet our expectations in order to continue regular service on these routes," stated Koji Nagata, United's communications director for Asia and the Pacific. 

United will discontinue its twice-weekly Guam-Niigata service on Dec. 14; Guam-Hiroshima Service on Dec. 19; and Guam-Okayama on Feb. 21, 2015, Nagata confirmed.

One good reason to have Internet access is to check on your flight's status. This is what I did before leaving Tokyo last February. I checked and found that my flight had been cancelled. I figured it was due to the snowstorm that hit that morning.

As such, I searched further and found that the airline, United, had me re-booked on a flight that would have taken me to Guam for a several-hour layover and then, from there, to Los Angeles via Honolulu. In other words, it would have taken me almost an extra day to get home from Japan. Normally, the flight time from Tokyo to L.A. is around nine hours.

I emailed a friend in California and mentioned about the side-trip to Guam. She thought that may be a nice place to see for a few hours. I said it would, except that there wouldn't be much to see as my entire time there would be at night. She responded, "Good point!"

Once I got to Narita International Airport, I bee-lined it to United's departure counter and asked if there were a better flight available. The clerk (a very attractive Japanese girl) checked and found that there was. It was scheduled to leave in a few hours and it was a direct flight to L.A. So I grabbed it. It was actually better than the flight that was cancelled, which, it turned out, was not due to snow. It was due to maintenance. Couldn't they have gotten another plane? Another reason, besides the mediocre food, that I won't fly with United Airlines anymore.