This past weekend, I had the pleasure of attending a wedding in South Carolina and had a flight booked on
US Airways. Now, I must admit, it has been a while since I last flew
US Airways, but I have to admit, it is airlines like this one that give the airline industry a bad name. Normally I don't like to use this space to complain about experiences as much as I like to keep you all informed of the latest news, but well it's my blog and I'll do what I want to. Here is a list of things that happened on the four legs of the flight, going down and back:
1) On the flight down, when the plane was half loaded, they informed those awaiting in the jet-way that their carry-on bags were going to have to be checked, but lucky for us, they'd wave the $25 fee. This seemed all well and fine until we were unloading the plane in Charlotte, and low and behold, the last 10 overhead compartments were completely empty.
2) My flight home was cancelled due to a mechanical failure. When I called the number (newly updated cheat on the
US Airways page), the woman on the phone told me I could leave from Savanah if I could get there in 45 minutes. I was in Hilton Head and didn't have a car. When I informed her of that, she laughed at me like I was being ridiculous, and told me the next flight wasn't until the next day. "That's fine" I thought, "I'll spend another day here, and the airline pays for the hotel." Wrong. When I asked about hotel voucher, she told me they "don't do that" and I was out of luck. What? Since when does an airline, who canceled my flight because their plane doesn't work, not reimburse for a hotel and food? Am I over reacting here? I feel like I've had multiple flights canceled until the next day, and the airline ALWAYS issues a hotel voucher.
3) The customer service representative, while she did answer the phone on the first ring, could not have been less helpful and condescending. This is where many of you are nodding your head as you've experienced the same "level of service."
4) My carry-on luggage was once again removed from me on the jet-way on the way home, and once again, there was plenty of space in the plane as it wasn't even close to fully loaded.
5) For the flight home, they were looking for volunteers to get off of the flight, not because the flight was over booked, but because there was inclimate weather, and they did not want to pay for the extra fuel in order to get us to the destination. Oh right, let me get right on that voucher so I can have this wonderful experience all over again and not have them pay for a hotel for me to stay over night, yet again.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I come from the camp that the customer is always right, and after this experience, I'm going to think long and hard about flying
US Airways any time soon. It's not like any of these events alone would prohibit me from using them in the future, but the combined experience left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Were they physically abusing me? Of course not, but when you pay a company a considerable amount of money, you would think there would at least be a level of courtesy from the employees. Or maybe that's asking too much of a company operating on tiny margins and will most likely be consumed by a larger airline sometime soon. Or maybe they know that's the case and are taking out their frustrations on us the consumers...
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Posted by GetHuman on Tue, 18 May 2010 8:39pm