Missed Connecting flight from LA on May 27th

[DeeMcGuire]

My US Airways flight 1416 landed from LAX on time to PHL On May 27th, but we had to wait for crew to bring our plane. This added at least 20 minutes onto disembarkation time. By the time I got to my connecting gate flight 3866 (a very long walk and a shuttle away) the flight was closed (the plane was there) but I was not allowed to board the flight. It was already past 10 PM, and there weren't any flights available until the early morning. What would you do, sleep in the airport, rent a hotel room, or rent a car and drive 2 hours to a hotel room that you had prepaid for already?

I decided to forego waiting on a customer service line that was at minimum an hour wait (many other passengers missed their connecting flights as well) and went to the rental car company.

3 Hours and nearly $200.00 later I am at my destination Moosic, PA in the middle of the night, and made it to my nieces Graduation the next morning.

After 3 letters and responses from US Airways customer service I have not received an apology, nor any compensation for my trouble. At minimum, I was hoping for a voucher for a flight, or reimbursement for my rental car expense. If they had just let me on the flight all of these negative letters, stress and financial hardship could have been avoided.

What do I do next? Any Ideas, can anyone help, offer suggestions?
Thanks
Dee McGuire

 

[SparrowHawk]

My US Airways flight 1416 landed from LAX on time to PHL On May 27th, but we had to wait for crew to bring our plane. This added at least 20 minutes onto disembarkation time. By the time I got to my connecting gate flight 3866 (a very long walk and a shuttle away) the flight was closed (the plane was there) but I was not allowed to board the flight. It was already past 10 PM, and there weren't any flights available until the early morning. What would you do, sleep in the airport, rent a hotel room, or rent a car and drive 2 hours to a hotel room that you had prepaid for already?

I decided to forego waiting on a customer service line that was at minimum an hour wait (many other passengers missed their connecting flights as well) and went to the rental car company.

3 Hours and nearly $200.00 later I am at my destination Moosic, PA in the middle of the night, and made it to my nieces Graduation the next morning.

After 3 letters and responses from US Airways customer service I have not received an apology, nor any compensation for my trouble. At minimum, I was hoping for a voucher for a flight, or reimbursement for my rental car expense. If they had just let me on the flight all of these negative letters, stress and financial hardship could have been avoided.

What do I do next? Any Ideas, can anyone help, offer suggestions?


Thanks
Dee McGuire

Couple of things,
1. Why were you not allowed to board?
2. Why did you decide to not wait on line for an hour?
3. PM me with details and contact information and if I find an issue I'll put your situation in front of a high level contact at US.
Regards,
Bob

 

[SS255]

I can't believe somebody else on this board has even heard of Moosic, much less been there. That alone deserves some compensation!!!

I would certainly try sending US a complaint letter. If it were just a late arrival, you probably wouldn't have a leg to stand on, but the fact that you sat for 20 minutes waiting to get tugged to the gate, IMO, is something which was within US's control. I am 98% certain that you will not get reimbursed. More likely, you will get a $50 travel voucher (if anything at all) and a form letter apology.

US has been very strict about on-time departures, so I am not surprised that they didn't hold the plane for you. On the other hand, the last flights of the night really should be held in these situations.

If I had been in your position, I probably would have done the exact same thing, rather than getting up super early to take the first flight to AVP, and having to deal with checking in again......and it probably took less time overall. Look at the bright side, though: At least Moosic is only a 2-hour drive from PHL, so you had the option to rent a car. Good luck!

 

[snapthis]

Couple of things,
3. PM me with details and contact information and if I find an issue I'll put your situation in front of a high level contact at US.
Regards,
Bob

Once again, Piney Bob, Mr Chairman saves the day. So, Mr Important who are those friends in high places? A gate agent in Philly? You were on the right track with your suggestions to help this passenger but your ego got in the way of the facts. The HQ is in Tempe, AZ in case you forgot. You are not a US Airways employee, I think this is best handled by the company. Don't you? Take the weekend off and go to the Jersey shore. You really need to get out of that lonely dark room with your imaginary friends in high places.

US Airways
Attn: Customer Relations
4000 E Sky Harbor Blvd
Phoenix, AZ 85034

Fax: 480-693-2300

 

[Harry Callahan]

Once again, Piney Bob, Mr Chairman saves the day. So, Mr Important who are those friends in high places? A gate agent in Philly? You were on the right track with your suggestions to help this passenger but your ego got in the way of the facts. The HQ is in Tempe, AZ in case you forgot. You are not a US Airways employee, I think this is best handled by the company. Don't you? Take the weekend off and go to the Jersey shore. You really need to get out of that lonely dark room with your imaginary friends in high places.

US Airways
Attn: Customer Relations
4000 E Sky Harbor Blvd
Phoenix, AZ 85034

Fax: 480-693-2300

Sir you are more of an idiot than I thought you were. FWIW this poster is a very good friend of mine & it doesn't matter if you believe me or not but I can tell you he "has the people" in "high places " that can get it done.

 

[crazystnic]

My US Airways flight 1416 landed from LAX on time to PHL On May 27th, but we had to wait for crew to bring our plane. This added at least 20 minutes onto disembarkation time. By the time I got to my connecting gate flight 3866 (a very long walk and a shuttle away) the flight was closed (the plane was there) but I was not allowed to board the flight. It was already past 10 PM, and there weren't any flights available until the early morning. What would you do, sleep in the airport, rent a hotel room, or rent a car and drive 2 hours to a hotel room that you had prepaid for already?

I decided to forego waiting on a customer service line that was at minimum an hour wait (many other passengers missed their connecting flights as well) and went to the rental car company.

3 Hours and nearly $200.00 later I am at my destination Moosic, PA in the middle of the night, and made it to my nieces Graduation the next morning.

After 3 letters and responses from US Airways customer service I have not received an apology, nor any compensation for my trouble. At minimum, I was hoping for a voucher for a flight, or reimbursement for my rental car expense. If they had just let me on the flight all of these negative letters, stress and financial hardship could have been avoided.

What do I do next? Any Ideas, can anyone help, offer suggestions?
Thanks
Dee McGuire


what was the weather like at the time? at departure and destination and in between?
we flew Dallas Charlotte last month day of Tornado's and worked our way around and got delayed because of it. Flew many miles out of the way to avoid.. and IMHO did a hell of a job just getting the passengers to Charlotte. But when they got there it was a near riot. Cops called as they all missed there connections. We didn't arrive until near 11PM... sure looks to me like the passengers missed the big picture. No nice job, glad we are here safely...

 

[Crzipilot]

Snapthis is starting to look like a resurgance of posters that were on here in the '01-03 time frame? (think it was then) where certain boxes were mailed to certain customers of standing and tracked back to a HQ of a certain company. Hmmmmmmm......is there sand flowing from this persons posts?

 

[SparrowHawk]

Snapthis is starting to look like a resurgance of posters that were on here in the '01-03 time frame? (think it was then) where certain boxes were mailed to certain customers of standing and tracked back to a HQ of a certain company. Hmmmmmmm......is there sand flowing from this persons posts?

Nah Crzipilot, Chris had more class than this dim bulb has or ever will have. It was Chris being Chris, he did a similar thing to Terry Trippler when Terry wrote an article regarding the demise of US Airways. He sent him a fork so he could "Eat his words". I do suspect this blowhard may be some mid level "Tempe Tard" or more likely a egomaniac pilot with an axe to grind over his shitty pay to which he only need look in the mirror to see who's fault that is. Of course it's hard to look in the mirror when you're on your knees in front Doug

What I find interesting is that one can not PM this particular poster. At least I can't. I do find it equally interesting that he/she is attempting to "out" someone. To what end? People change screen names for a variety of reasons, some silly, some potentially life threatening if their name or location be revealed.

My understanding is that this Piney Bob character lived in NJ near the ocean with PHL being his main airport. I live in the upper Midwest someplace between Madison, WI and Spokane WA.

Perhaps he/she is stroking more than their ego????

So just allow him/her to continue to let their Battleship Mouth run away with their Row Boat ass. Me? I enjoy one line games. Right now I play Mafia Wars, Farmville and the news one is "Snapthis".

 

[Crzipilot]

Ya, wasn't meaning it was that particular person that sent the boxes, just that was the incident that stood out. Thought during that time, there seemed to be a number of lurkers and posters whose IP addy's probably could have been followed back to a building in CC.

 

[28L_or_10R?]

Snapthis is starting to look like a resurgance of posters that were on here in the '01-03 time frame? (think it was then) where certain boxes were mailed to certain customers of standing and tracked back to a HQ of a certain company. Hmmmmmmm......is there sand flowing from this persons posts?

snapthis is Itchy McSnitchy aka cactuspilot1

 

[Art at ISP]

what was the weather like at the time? at departure and destination and in between?
we flew Dallas Charlotte last month day of Tornado's and worked our way around and got delayed because of it. Flew many miles out of the way to avoid.. and IMHO did a hell of a job just getting the passengers to Charlotte. But when they got there it was a near riot. Cops called as they all missed there connections. We didn't arrive until near 11PM... sure looks to me like the passengers missed the big picture. No nice job, glad we are here safely...

The instance above is quite admirable, and if no one else will say it, I will--great job, glad you all arrived safely.

The circumstances of this case were significantly different, in that it appears that the misconnect here was completely within the control of US--understaffing or lack of coordination/communication causing an aircraft to wait 20 minutes to be parked, and then having the connecting flight closed early, and refusing to allow the connecting passenger on board. No mention of weather, ATC or other delay, the flight landed on time.

I will also add that it appears to be another instance where staffing planning (or lack thereof) has fallen short. We are hearing more and more of misconnecting bags at the hubs due to inadequate staffing...when will the spreadsheet spreaders at the Sandcastle learn that it would cost less to have the appropriate number of employees on hand than to have to pay for delivering bags and doling out customer compensation after the fact?

In cases such as this, I would write a letter detailing the chronology of the incident, with particular attention to the details I mention above. In my opinion you ARE due compensation, since this misconnect was technically US' fault. I would also consider filing a DOT report.

Please do follow up with SparrowHawk, or feel free to do so with me, as we DO have connections very high up at US, and they have been very helpful in the past. I will also add that we are quite selective about which issues we do pass along to them, but this one appears to be due their attention.

As for the other poster, the Trolls are being fed on the other thread......so why don't you head back there? They did say their idiot was missing.

My BEST to you all...

 

[SparrowHawk]

Ya, wasn't meaning it was that particular person that sent the boxes, just that was the incident that stood out. Thought during that time, there seemed to be a number of lurkers and posters whose IP addy's probably could have been followed back to a building in CC.

Oh there were my friend. The list of "Visitors" was quite lengthy. I forget most of their screen names now but "Zeus" was widely widely rumored to be Chris Chiames. Harbison, Hemmingway, Jerry Glass & even N. Bruce Ashby were active posters according to some. It was even widely rumored that "Call me Dave" Siegel was on here. A rumor i don not believe but the rumor was rather persistent.

I also know for a FACT, that some Frequent Flyers were actively monitored by Tempe. I can go so far as to tell you the department that does it along with the chain of command if I so chose.

So perhaps now Mr Itchy McScratchy, Cactuspilot1, Snapthis can crawl back beneath the boulder he come out from under. Trying to debate someone like that is similar trying to teach a pig to dance. Never try to teach a pig to dance; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig

 

[700UW]

I know for a fact, Chiames was Zues, even Dave Siegel was on here. And Hemenway was on here, I know cause I got a PM from him.

 

[Art at ISP]

And it also appears that one or more of the current occupants of Rio Salado Drive are on here.. just sayin'....

 

[BoeingBoy]

You are not a US Airways employee, I think this is best handled by the company. Don't you?

US Airways
Attn: Customer Relations
4000 E Sky Harbor Blvd
Phoenix, AZ 85034

Fax: 480-693-2300

Perhaps remedial reading is in order...

"After 3 letters and responses from US Airways customer service I have not received an apology, nor any compensation for my trouble."

It seems that the company has had 3 chances to "handle" the problem already, and failed. While I'd be surprised if customer relations reimbursed the rental car this customer saved the company the cost of a hotel room and meal voucher. Surely something more than a brush off should have been forthcoming.

Jim