News & Politics QotW: The Unfriendly Skies
This past year has been called "the worst year ever for U.S. airlines." What has your experience with the airlines been like when you've traveled in recent months?
Well,now, lessee... USeless Air lost my bags when I went to visit AmyH last month. My connecting flight from Toronto (on dis-United) was late, and while I made it on the Dulles-Phoenix flight, my bags did not. Fair enough. But instead of putting my bags on the next available flight (which would have got them there that same night), or even the one after that (which would have got them there the next morning), USeless Air decided they could ONLY ship me my bags on the same flight number I was on. More than 24 hours later.
Oh, and when I got them, my canvas duffle was soaked, as were all my clothes inside. Which meant that someone probably left my bags sitting out on the tarmac in the torrential rain overnight. Thankfully AmyH has a dryer.
On top of that, at Dulles, I had another lovely experience. Because I was switching airlines, I was told I would have to get my boarding pass for the Phoenix flight at the gate counter in Dulles. As I said, my connecting flight was late, but I showed up at the gate just as they were calling pre-boarding. I tried to explain that I was booked through but that I needed my boarding pass. Nobody was listening to me--they kept telling me the flight was overbooked, I was on standby. "NO, I said. I was checked in on the flight this morning in Ottawa". Finally, they started to deal with me. As the guy was entering my info, I said, just to be sure, "I'm in Executive Class, right?" Because that was what I had booked. The guy looks at me and says, "I seriously doubt that."
Excuse me? I explained, again, that I booked a ticket in Executive Class and that he had better find me a seat in Executive Class. He checks again and sees that, in fact, I'm in the expensive seats.
He says, "oh, crap." and runs to get his colleague. She checks and her face says, "oh, crap."
Me: "You gave my seat away (to a standby passenger), didn't you?"
Them. "Yes."
The woman says (probably hoping to make me feel guilty), "Great, now I'm going to have to tell that passenger (who had already boarded) he can't have that seat."
Me: "That's really not my problem."
So they had to go back on the plane and pull the guy out of my seat. Pissing off not one but two passengers.
Fuckers.
Comments
So YOU'RE the reason I lost my awesome seat!!!
Just kidding of course, what assholes, how dare they try to make you feel guilty for their screw up.
I also had to miss the fun on the first evening because they forced me to make my way back to the airport myself from the other side of the island to pick up my bags. I finally got some compensation a few weeks later.
Tip: if you're flying via Paris, and don't have at least two hours transfer time, count on not flying with your luggage.
What SHITheads!!!
We had crappy service by Southwest in Chicago in February. Two "checkin" people laughed and chatted and farted around, we waited in line for 45 minutes, then when we finally get checked in they tell us "You'll be lucky if your luggage gets on the plane with you."
I told them we waited in line too long, and they needed to get moving and get more checkin people in there, just as a "supervisor" walked out and saw the huge line and lack of personnel, and one of the employees snottily said to me "You're lucky you weren't in line longer."
We grabbed the screaming kids and just barely got on the plane but I'm still steaming.
People suck.
What a pain in the ass that was. USAir has a horrible track record for baggage, but I've been fortunate so far *knocks on wood*.
I'm flying to Detroit to meet up with MomH for our trip to Europe. Now I'm thinking I should have booked my flight for the day before instead of that morning. I'm sure I'll be fine.
I'm sure I'll be fine. *rocks back and forth* *repeats*
Yowch. That is pretty sucky. At least American didn't lose my stuff and rebooked me next to a nice guy.
TSA though did break my locks on my brand new bag so they could inspect them---probably because I'd completely forgotten a luggage tag--and left me a note inside saying they'd inspected my bag, and may have had to break a lock and that they are not responsible for the broken lock. So now I have 2 little keys and no lock. fuckers. and they bashed up my (brand new) bag pretty good too.