Luggage & Delays
Page Two
FEELIN' THE LOVEWound up on United today, although I usually don't fly them... The flight was supposed to leave @ 0630... We boarded the plane, then were advised after about an hour that there was a problem with the "trim leveler thing, which is needed for the autopilot..."
Disembarking, we were told to return to the ticket counters, where it became apparent that there were no openings on flights to our destination that day from this particular airport. The options (which were few) were at the other airports in the area, neither of which was closer than about 30 miles...
While people scrambled, they announced that they were bringing in a replacement aircraft from one of the area airports & that we should all go back to the gate. This was a surprise to the agents actually at the gate...
The promised 0955 departure actually took place around 1555, after another two hours spent on a "fuel pump problem that requires us to return to the gate to reboot the computers."
Let's see, ten hours later I get to my destination, with a grand total of $20 in food vouchers from United. All this for what is, in actuality, a 2.67 hour flight...
Yeah, I'm Feelin' the Love, United. 12/07
STUDENT TOPS PROFS
Arriving back in the U.S. on a trans-Atlantic flight, I arrived in Chicago just in time to get stricken from the list of passengers for the flight I'd booked. It was too late--my seat got given away while I stood there protesting. Security rules prevented my being put back on the list. In sympathy, the airline employees put me at #1 on the standby list for the next flight to my small university town.
While I stood around at the gate for the next flight, three acquainted professors gabbed about how irritated they were to be "so low" on the standby list (#s 2, 5, and 7 out of about 20). They had tickets for a later flight but really wanted to get home earlier. One of them said to the others, "Do you know who that #1 is? Can't this be changed?" Another answered, "Can't your department get you the miles you need to always be at the top of the list?" I bit my tongue. A grad student living on $12K per year beat out the tenured, high-salaried profs whose departments seem to regularly pull strings... 12/07
LONG DAY IS NO CHILD'S PLAY
I was traveling home from Madrid to Houston this summer with my children, ages 9 and 7. We woke up at 6 a.m. in Madrid. Once at the airport, we realized that airlines weren't labeled on the outside of the terminal, and we had to wander up and down the terminal to find ours (no signs inside, either).
We ended up packed onto a 757 for the all-day flight to Newark. Flight attendants were surly and the plane was uncomfortably full. Delays on the Madrid tarmac meant that when we got off the plane, we had only 1.5 hours to clear immigration, get our bags, clear customs, then recheck our bags before our next flight. We sprinted and sweated through it all only to find out that our flight to Houston had been delayed for an hour. We were initially happy to relax a bit, but as we checked, our flight kept getting pushed later and later. Our flight that should have left at 5 finally boarded at 10, which I should add is 4 a.m. Madrid time. The kids and I had been up for 22 hours.
We got to Houston at 1 a.m. local time, and apparently the airport had already sent home all of its baggage handlers, because our entire flight sat in baggage claim until 2 a.m. waiting for luggage! What a day! 12/07
PARADE OF DELAYS
My husband and I were at Dulles, set to leave for London for a big, and expensive, Christmas break. Our flight was delayed for hours but no staff member bothered to mention it, or explain it, so the hundreds of passengers sat around looking confused. Finally, police showed up and the plane, which was sitting at the gate the entire time, went dark. Turns out, the pilot got drunk and wobbled his way into the cockpit, at which point he was cuffed and escorted off the plane.
Interesting enough experience for the passengers, but our blood went cold when the real drama was announced: there was no other pilot to take us to London, at all, that day. Not one. In the entire country.
So after a 5 hour delay we were ordered back to the registration area to all make new arrangements--all three hundred-plus of us. By 3:00 a.m. they managed to put most of us in hotels for the night. Not that it was worthwhile, as we had to immediately get up and get back to the airport: we'd been ordered to arrive three hours before our new flight to allow them time to process us. We did, hundreds of us, but the registration desk did not bother opening until ONE hour before our flight. Miraculously, we got to London a full DAY late, missing my husband's reunion. Worse still, one woman missed her own wedding in India, as her connecting flights were now in havoc, 48 hours before Christmas, and she could not get to India in time for the wedding parties.
The best part is that our return flight was just as bad: we arrived the requisite three hours early, only to find our flight delayed three hours "for security reasons," which we later found out meant something mechanical on the plane. So in order to be back in time for work, we forced them to put us on new flights---my husband flew ALONE to Washington DC and I flew ALONE to Miami--on a flight that was also three hours delayed.
The kicker was that when I arrived at 2:00 a.m. in Miami, I had to drive 5 hours north to Jacksonville to be at work by 8 a.m. The airline ticket agent arranging my car suggested that I share the car with the random man standing next to me who had to get to Georgia, who needed a ride!!!! I declined that idea. 12/07
CUSTOMER DISSERVICE
On July 10, 2007, my one year old daughter and I were to leave from NYC on US Airways. That flight was supposed to leave at 1.23 pm; boarding was supposed to begin around 12.45 pm. At around 1.30 the gate agent informed us that the aircraft (it was a prop plane) was too hot (it had been sitting on the tarmac) and they would cool it down. This procedure took more than a half hour.
Finally, we were allowed to board and I finally get my daughter to fall asleep as we are leaving the gate. We are going slowly. The pilot brings the plane to a stop, opens the door and looks outside, then tells us that there is a flat tire (my thought is that during that 45 minutes of cooling the plane down, don't you think that they would have noticed this????). Then we head back to the gate (my daughter has now woken up and is screaming). We are told that maintenance will come to fix the tire. Forty-five minutes later there is nothing being done, and additionally our gate agent has disappeared. Finally after I complain to special services, the agent makes announcements. We are never really told what is going on.
Finally, I am able to be booked onto a flight going to the next town over. The gate agent says that my bag will be rerouted to this flight that will leave at 5.18 pm. At 5.20 pm the gate agent for the new flight informs us that we have a plane but no crew because they are in Norfolk. All I want to do at this point is to return home to my apartment, not more than a half hour from the airport. My daughter and I are exhausted. The other flight is then canceled, and 15 to 20 people get in line to talk to the gate agent - who then proceeds to disappear. I go back to special services - who has closed off the area! One person is there helping two people. I talk to the guy who says he will help me. Since it took too long, I exit the gate area and go to the main ticketing area at the front of the airport. There they help me by getting me a ticket for 7/11 to Rochester at 12.30 pm. I then go to find my luggage. It is no where to be found. When I ask for help - one guy does help me, but before doing so sneaks off into the back - to have his dinner!!!!!! There is only one person working - three other people are eating. This guy says he will help, but disappears - he returns 10 or 15 minutes later eating a sandwich! He also finds no record of my bag! He gives me a lost luggage form, which he does not fill out. He does not give me a file number, and in my tired stupor and trying to take care of my screaming daughter (because it is now 8 pm and my daughter has not napped!), I don't know that this is what I am supposed to do.
I go home to my apartment and to my husband to feed my daughter and put her to bed. I spend $40 on an unnecessary cab. And I do not have my bag. When I call the lost luggage, they can't help me because I wasn't given a file number. Now I had the worst day at the airport, with US airways not informing people what is going on, not caring, walking away and having dinner while people needed their help, I had to spend $40 on a cab home, and they lost my luggage.
The next morning when I return to the airport I go to the baggage claim. Fortunately at this time they are able to tell me that my bag was most likely already in my hometown (they explained something about how the bag claim number makes it sure that the bag will get to my destination no matter that I had been delayed). I asked why they weren't able to answer that last night and simply tell me where my bag was instead of giving me the run around for nearly an hour (and half of that was eating a sandwich in the back room). I was told that the night shift people were all basically new on the job. So that explained the stupidity. I did though end up emailing pretty much what I wrote above and received a $200 travel voucher from US Airways, but they failed yet again in customer service when I booked my ticket. I was told that they would email me my travel confirmation; it never came. I waited a week and then followed up with phone calls and emails to US Airways customer service and it took nearly another week and a half to receive an email confirmation for my flight. Having flown them again following this incident, I have seen some improvements, but only slightly. 11/07
HOLY BOVINE!
Air India: Holy Cow! (Pun intended.)
I just flew them from Newark to Paris.
1. On arrival, my luggage was delayed by TWO HOURS.
2. On departure, the flight from Paris was delayed by FIVE HOURS, leaving me to miss my connection to SFO.
3. At Newark, I had to spend TWO HOURS waiting on line (once I figured out which line to wait on, because no one from the airline was there to assist), to get a voucher to spend the night at a crappy airport hotel.
4. No apologies from the airline at any point.
I got what I deserved: Several years ago, I flew Air India from New York to London:
1. On the way over, my luggage was LOST
2. On the way back to New York, I was bumped, because, as they told me, "Air India always over-books by ten percent."
3. I was put on a Kuwaiti airliner EIGHT HOURS later.
4. I received nothing more than a 7 Pound airport food voucher
5. I wrote to the airline saying "I don't think I'll fly Air India again."
6. They wrote back saying "Well, it sounds like you've made up your mind. Good luck," and offered no compensation --not even an apology!
YIKES.
BTW: Their lavatories STINK worse than any other airline's. 11/07
BAGGAGE BUNGLE
When my wife and I flew to Italy, the first two legs were on American Airlines. The first flight was supposed to be a non-stop from San Francisco to JFK. It circled Ohio for a while and then had to land at Newark to refuel for the 15 minute flight to JFK. We were told it was "weather." We arrive two hours late and would have missed our connecting flight to Brussels except it was the same aircraft that we flew on to JFK. However, our baggage was removed from the plane and left in New York. We missed our connection to Milan but the American Airlines person at the gate gave us a slip of paper and said to take it to an Alitalia gate. I asked about our baggage and was told that it would be "intercepted and placed on the Alitalia flight." That piece of paper got us on the plane. Of course, when we got to Milan, no baggage. It took three days for my bag to be delivered and my wife got her bag on the seventh day. The only reason my wife got her bag after seven days is that I paid a taxi driver 30 Euros to go to the next town and pick it up at the home of the delivery truck driver who refused to deliver it to where we were staying because it was not on his route that day. I made a claim for compensation to American Airlines. Their response was that they were sorry but that I had to make the claim with Alitalia since it was the last airline we flew. I have submitted two claims to Alitalia via fax and have received no acknowledgment that they even have the claim. I tried their telephone number in New York but it is always busy. I got through once and was told that everyone was busy handling other calls. I hung up after 20 minutes.
It has now been over a month since I returned and nothing positive has happened. 11/07
Signed, Rodney Sweet
THE PLEASURES OF FLYING THESE DAYS
I received automated telephone notification from American Airlines that my noon flight from NY to LA would be delayed an hour. When I got to the gate the equipment wasn't there and departure time came and went. A half-hour later the flight was cancelled. We then had to go to the ticket counter, get our new flight, retrieve luggage from baggage claim, get our new boarding passes, check our luggage and go through security again. We were put on a flight to Miami connecting with a flight to LA. We would never have made the Miami flight if it weren't that my friend had recently had hip replacement surgery and needed wheelchair assistance -- we were put in front of every line and given priority. We finally reached LA 8 hours than originally scheduled. And, of course, no food. Thank god I was traveling on a frequent flyer ticket. All in all, the trip took 13 hours. I wrote a scathing letter to the president of American and received 10,000 bonus miles as a "good will" gesture. Truly a flight from hell. 11/07
LOST LUGGAGE AND LOUSY SERVICE
Lets start off 4 hours delayed at take-off........ My sister and I were on a flight from Puerto Rico to NYC. We usually pack very lightly so as to avoid the long baggage lines. Upon boarding the plane, it became very obvious that most people had decided to just push all their oversized baggage into the tiny bins.....can you see where this leaves us?.....yes, no more overhead space for us. Instead, our flight attendant offered to have our bags stored below; we were instructed to pick them up by the exit door of the plane after landing. To our surprise, they were not there on arrival....nor were they at baggage claim. We proceeded to go to the lost-and-found where the airlines denied any responsibility because the flight attendant had not given us a ticket for the baggage. No bags and no reimbursement. My sister asked to have the flight attendant contacted for confirmation....they refused to do so stating that they did not know who she was!! There were ONLY 2 on the flight! After a heated debate, we were asked to take it up with the main office in the morning.....I have yet to see my clothes. 10/07
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