getting screwed by us airways

Nov 11, 2009
1
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This is a 3 or 4 part series of complaints and information based letters we wrote after being delayed, delayed again, had our flight cancelled, etc...

1.
We paid for First Class passage on a flight that was suppoosed to take off at 4:15pm on the 9th, land in Phoenix, pick up passengers, then fly to KC. THIS is what we paid good money for. What we got was:
Delayed in the airport for an hour due to a service issue with the plane. Then told our flight was cancelled and we had to stand in line for another hour and a half where we were told we wouldnt be able to fly out on that day, we checked and Southwest Airlines could have got us on their plane, but US AIRWAYS wouldnt do it because they didnt have a deal with them....clearly, satisfaction of their customers wasnt a priority. We even listened to the "customer service" person next to us make rude comments about a guy who was upset about the situation he was in, who wouldnt be upset...but making that comment after he walked away was unfrofessional. Anyway, we were shuttled to a hotel after standing outside in 48 degree temperatures waiting for a van. We were put in a room together instead of getting seperate rooms, we have to leave the hotel at 4am to get back to the airport we were in yesterday, go through security again for a flight that is gonna put us in Phoenix where we now have A FOUR HOUR LAYOVER and we have to change planes and get home a day later and too late to get to our job where were gonna lose pay. THIS is what we we ended up getting for our money and First Class booking. We paid extra money for basically a nonstop flight and First Class seating to KC. We did not get what we paid for so why are we being charged full price for this unprofessionally managed disaster? I even watched the lady at the counter tell a guy she would take care of his refund, 20 minutes later when we asked for some type of refund for all of this, she said she didnt have anything to do with compensation or refunds...we just watched her do it. Bottom line is that we were delayed, cancelled, lied to, treated like we didnt matter and charged full price for something that isnt even close to what we paid for and not one person gave a darn during the entire ordel....which, by the way, were still dealing with because were still awaiting our flight at the hotel now. We are tired, upset and through all of this were gonna have no choice but to sit in the same clothes for two days.

2.
ok, we are now at the airport, we got here 2 hours prior to our flight as we were told to do and guess what, there was nobody at the ticketing counter when we got there and we are still traveling first class so we stood in the first class line. when somebody did show up, he sarted taking care of the other people while us first class passengers stodd in a line with no attention given to us until we finally spoke up. now were at the gate and theres nobody here either. this airline cant even follow the guidelines they gave us. Why should we be here 2 hours early if they'e not gonna be here? we also found out that we arent even sitting together which is something else we paid for and are not gonna get. weve noticed alot of bad things with this airline including not following their own written procedures. theres a big sign on a RESTRICTED area door that say each person must swipe their I.D badge before entering, no piggy backing, no exceptions...they were following each other in and out of this door all the time, half the people never swiped their badge. this doesnt instil a feeling of security with this airline. i will continue topost everything that happens including taking pictures and video of all of these rules vilations, code violations, etc.... im sure theres gonna be somebody who works for the airline that gonna slander us or talk bad of us for posting this stuff, but the truth is the truth and if they're gonna cost me time, money and aggravation, im gonna report it.

3.
we just arrived in Phoenix...and only about 17 hours later than we were supposed to be here. After all the headaches, the delays, the cancellation, being shuffled aroud, being lied to, etc...etc...the airlines finally saw fit to compensate us for out trouble...they gave us a $5 meal voucher....yes, hats right,$5....FIVE BUCKS! Wow, their generosity overwhelms me and surely that $5 makes up for everything, were trying to decide if we shold get a pack of gum or share a coffee at the airport while we sit here for the next FOUR HOURS waiting for yet another flight that we have been told we may or may not get onto. I hope someone reading this uses our experience to make the decision NOT to fly US AIRWAYS, maybe if it costs them some money, they'll stop doing this to people. I can back up and prove everything i have been writing. id be glad to contact anybody who wishes to know all the details. They keep telling us that we have simply been slightly inconvenienced but it has not cost us any more than it would have cost us before. To everybody whos read this so far....are you doing the math? we lost a days pay, we had to spend the night in a hotel and buy 2 meals at hotel rates, we have to pay another days parking rate at an airport parking lot and we stil havent got what we paid for in the first place which was a simple, first class flight to kc with one stop and no deboarding. were getting the shaft by this airline and have even had a few employees laugh when we tell them how bad we feel about whats happening.

4.
We are now home, we have lost wages, been charged extra parking fees, had to pay for meals we wouldnt have had to pay for if we had been given the flight we were supposed to have, the female in our party had to walk almost a mile through airports on a knee that she had surgery on and is considered partially disabled (we werent even supposed to deboard at all but had to, as well as walk through the whole airport and wait for over 4 hours for our next flight) and now this is a direct copy and paste from the email they sent us:

We understand our decision to decline your request for additional
compensation is not what you anticipated and are sorry we cannot honor
your request.
Sincerely,
Athena Monroy
US Airways Customer Relations
Corporate Office


i dont think weve ever been so politely @$#!#ed over in our entire life. To state a fact, we are only asking for the amount that we paid for the 1st class upgrade on our tickets and only the portion of the return trip and nothing more, simply because we endured so much during this series of headaches, delays, cancellations, wages losses, etc.. I should also mention that we booked the return flight so that we would not have to deboard the plane or have an extended layover or gate change because the female in my party is partially disabled and has had knee surgeries and can not deal with walking across airports. as mentioned, we got none of that, we had to deboard, we had a 4+ hr layover, we had to walk a huge distance across the airport. theres tons more to this story than were writting but were gonna leave it at that. We appologize if we garbled up a few things or got some stuff out of place but we wrote most of this while sitting in airports, parking lots and other places. Im sure they're spelling errors and a few things that may seem out of place, please chalk it up to being us frustrated and tired while trying to keep all the times, dates, monies and other facts as stright as we could. If we made any errors in this series of letters, we will do our best to correct them at a later date.
 
Compose a letter that has some semblance of a beginning, middle and an end.

Clearly state your case and keep your thoughts in order. Tell your story in chronological order, or order of outrage or whichever order you choose but introduce some level of consistency.

Only complain about the issues that the airline has control over. The fact that it was 48F outside where you needed to await a shuttle is neither incredibly remarkable or remotely under the control of the airline.

This was just an endless, exasperated whine.
 
Don't you realize that we have very short attention spans? I got past the first sentence and it was snoozeville.
 
WOW! :blink: Sorry you had a rough few days.
No offense, but I think your complaints are not just with US Airways, but the ENTIRE WORLD.
 
People tell the truth and people lie. If you're telling the truth PLEASE file a compaint with the Department of Transportation. After 11 years in the industry I've seen that the ONLY way to get thorugh to management is with numbers. The DOT customer complaint numbers mean something and only come from one place, the DOT.
 
Well the ordeal certainly sounds like a nightmare. As stated, you need to file a complaint directly with the DOT. You see, people on here will bash Usairways left right and sideways (mainly the employees) but won't believe or tolerate a story like yours on here about "their" company. Writing a letter to the bozo's in consumer affairs or whatever they call themselves or ranting here is like yelling at the cashier in Target for a bad price. So that being said, go to the DOT and don't waste your time posting your bad experience on here. You'll get maybe 1% sympathy while the other 99% will just make fun of you or call you a complainer and a whiner. Sorry you had a bad trip. Just remember to "GET ONBOARD", "TOGETHER WE FLY", "CLEAR SKIES AHEAD" and most importantly "FLY WITH US". :lol: :up:
 
Snoooooooze....................Boringgggggggggggg.................Ive read novels shorter than Your letter.....Honestly you need anger management classes...just my 2c
 
As a FA, I deal with a great many issues like yours and I do apologize that you were inconvenienced. Unfortunately, things happen that can't be controlled. It's the nature of the beast. Planes don't work, other airlines won't cooperate (side note: our lack of agreement with Southwest for dual bookings is not something US Airways can control. It's not as if we just decided not to pick Southwest... Southwest doesn't do them period.), weather sucks, and unfortunately you're 1 person out of several tens of thousands daily. Does this make it ok? Of course not.

You have to expect the unexpected when you travel anywhere... by car, plane, boat, train, hot air balloon... Weather happens, mechanicals happen (like you REALLY want to fly on a broken plane just to save the cost of a couple of extra meals - does your car never break down when you least expect it to? No flat tires ever? A machine is a machine afterall)... LIFE happens. PLAN that something will go awry... that way it'll be a pleasant surprise when everything goes smoothly. Bring extra food if you're a diabetic... pack extra juice for the baby... budget extra cash for extra unplanned meals... Do not expect that you're just going to beam magically from point a to point b when you click 'buy now'.

I will not make excuses for bad customer service... read that as rude employees... I do, however, think it's high time we move past the 1970s expectations of compensation for a purchased airline ticket. Keep in mind that when you got those free drinks and food in coach you paid a hell of a lot more for that ticket and fuel was cheaper than... Those days are gone.

Just something to think about. Is it cool? No. Is it reality? Yes. And we're not the only one. Heck United broke some guys guitar... and what did he have to do? :)

Oh, and I'd like to point out that Southwest does not offer hotel vouchers for ANY reason. Just their standard LUV bucks. :)
 
Reading that diatribe doesn't make me miss my job in East Consumer Affairs - that's for sure!

I'd have fluffed up the language, but in a nutshell, I'd have said:
- Schedules aren't guaranteed. You bought transportation from city X (you didn't specify) to Kansas City. You received that transportation, albeit late, and aren't due a refund of any sort. Information regarding schedule responsibility can be found in our Terms of Transportation.
- Airplanes are mechanical objects and break. We aren't going to fly w/ a broken plane. But we are sorry. We're sure it was inconvenient.
- We're sorry your traveling companion had to walk between flights in PHX since you were expecting not to change planes. We offer assistance to customers who ask for it, but it's unclear from your letter whether you requested such a service or if you decided to walk without aid.
- There is no excuse for the personnel issues you raised and they will be addressed.
- From your description, this sounds like a very disappointing experience overall. In spite of all that occurred, we hope you will fly with us again.

Since it was a mechanical that started the problem (which I'd verify first), I might consider compensation. I'd take a look at the ticket cost (he contradicts himself...says "paid" for first, then says "upgraded"...was it a full F or was it obtained through some other means like another compansation voucher, etc.). Based on how this was written, $1 says he's a kettle, not a US1. That would factor into the comp decision too, as would the # of times he'd contacted us in the past.

There are too many variables and things I'm not privvy to for me (or anyone else on this board) to second guess the CR person who made the decision to decline comp. Customer Relations is an art, not a science.
 

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