A 
United Airlines flight from Des Moines to Chicago was delayed by roughly four hours after a conflict between two of the flight attendants forced the carrier to pull the entire cabin crew off the plane. As reported by One Mile At A Time, the incident occurred in the morning on Monday, October 27, 2025, and led to the plane arriving over four hours after its scheduled arrival time.
Flight attendants work with different people on every trip, and as such, getting along with people with different personalities is a part of the job. It’s rare for crew members to conflict with one another to this extent, but when it happens, removing the conflicting crew members is often done in the interest of safety. Simple Flying reached out to United Airlines, and the carrier declined to comment.
Four Hour Delay Due To A Crew Dispute
United Airlines UA2138 is a daily flight from Des Moines International Airport to 
Chicago O’Hare International Airport. On October 27, this flight was operated by N452UA, an Airbus A320-200, and the flight was scheduled to depart from Des Moines at 11:26 and to arrive in Chicago at 12:57, after one hour and 31 minutes in the air.
It’s unclear the exact sequence of events that transpired, but reportedly, United’s internal records for the delay read, “Crew Availability Delay : Disagreement on 2 of the FAs. IFDM pulling all crew and will need to recrew flight.” IFDM stands for in-flight duty manager, essentially the individuals who oversee flight attendants.
|
Aircraft |
Type |
United First |
Economy Plus |
Economy |
Capacity |
Flight Crew |
Cabin Crew |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
N452UA |
Airbus A320-200 |
12 |
42 |
96 |
150 |
2 |
3 |
It’s unclear what led to the altercation between the crew members, but the passengers were instructed to leave the aircraft while a replacement crew was flown in. The extent of the altercation is also unknown, but it’s been reported that the two flight attendants involved refused to work with one another.
The Delay And Aftermath
Because Des Moines is not a crew base for United Airlines, the carrier needed to fly in new flight attendants from another hub (likely Chicago). This resulted in the A320 departing Des Moines at 15:56, three hours and 58 minutes after its scheduled departure time, and landing in Chicago at 16:51, four hours and 12 minutes after its scheduled arrival time. Flightradar24 shows a flight time of 55 minutes.
Operationally, this created disruption for United. Flight attendants are often scheduled in a group and operate several flights across multiple days in a trip. This means that United not only needed to find crews for this flight, but it also needed to restaff other flights that this particular crew was scheduled to work.
For passengers, the four-hour delay likely resulted in several passengers missing their connections, and those passengers needed to be re-accommodated onto other flights. As for compensation, the carrier would likely credit meal vouchers but is not required to provide additional compensation. Given the size of United’s Chicago hub, it wouldn’t be a significant challenge for the airline to book the affected passengers on later flights.
Other Similar Incidents
As previously mentioned, the nature of the job for flight attendants and pilots means that it’s rare for disagreements to escalate to an extent that it becomes a safety issue. However, these do occur on occasion. In 2023, two flight attendants on a SkyWest E175 operating for American Eagle were recorded arguing with one another, and both eventually exited the aircraft.
In 2022, two pilots on an Alaska Airlines aircraft got into a heated argument and one of the pilots exited the aircraft claiming that they could not fly safely with their colleague. Also in 2022, two Air France pilots were suspended after physically fighting in the cockpit.
These can cause operational issues and also leave a bad impression of the company on passengers. As such, disciplinary measures can be stiff, although it’s rare that the consequences are disclosed. On the other hand, a flight attendant can be a stressful job, so while it’s far from an ideal situation, the right decision was made to restaff the flight to ensure safe operation.
