Pax's Daughter Dies In Childbirth...

[Reservation Agent]

I heard a disturbing phone call on Pittsburgh's radio station KDKA which has 50,000 watts and covers about 35 states...Last night driving home from work at the reservations center in Pgh, a caller called into the Bob Logue show which airs from about Midnight to 5AM...

The caller was a father almost in tears, explaining how he had tickets for himself and his wife from Pgh to Denver to visit his daughter...

She went into labor early....yesterday (Thurs August 26th)....His daughter painfully died giving birth to a baby girl.....(The baby survived)...

He said he called the airline to change his tickets which cost he and his wife about $250.00 a piece, to travel to make funeral arrangements....

"His voice straining to hold back the tears.....He said he called the airline to change his tickets....He said he was told to "Throw Away Your Old Tickets!" "You can buy 2 "New" tickets for about $600.00 apiece = $1,200..... "

The host Bob Logue with disgust, "What have we become today?...Is there no compassion? Is there no humanity?...Only the desire for money!"....

(( I do not know for a fact that is was USAIRWAYS, but with almost all other airlines, now relaxing ticket change policies to change within 1 year, it is obvious to me which airline it is.....))

I felt sick in my stomach to hear this...My hope is that someone in Management with U, reads this....thinks deeply about this...and other customers who have had similar tradegys and have called us to "Help Them"! I believe to deny a passenger to apply a ticket purchased already towards a desperate, emergency situation is thoughtless and greedy...Allowing him to use his tickets( that he puchased to celebrate his new grandchild's birth) which cost him a total of $500.00 towards 2 breavement tickets costing $1,200, would have meant adding $700 to $900 dollars with change fee to his current puchase, and gave us some "Goodwill" which is "Priceless"...

 

[bassin]

WOW!!! How low is that. You don't even know if the passenger was one of U's or not and you still belittle the company that puts food on your table. That is about as low as whale dung. That makes me ashamed to even admit I work for U. If thats what people have sunk to, then they need to get a life and move on. Of course you probably won't be happy no matter where you work. Please at least have some proof of your accusations before you do the accusing. :angry:

 

[TomBascom]

WOW!!! How low is that. You don't even know if the passenger was one of U's or not and you still belittle the company that puts food on your table. That is about as low as whale dung. That makes me ashamed to even admit I work for U. If thats what people have sunk to, then they need to get a life and move on. Of course you probably won't be happy no matter where you work. Please at least have some proof of your accusations before you do the accusing. :angry:

Even if it wasn't US this time it could be next time. And even if it wasn't you can bet that listeners either thought it was "all airlines" or knew that "There's only one 'major' airline that has that policy" and filled in the blank.

It's a stupid policy that inevitably leads to disasters like this. It has obviously failed at its purpose of steering business travelers to unrestricted tickets. So why keep it? Just to set yourselves up for this kind of publicity?

 

[Seatacus]

Be wary of what you here on the radio...there is no way of verifyng or knowing the truth of the caller. It could just be made up or true ...no one knows for sure. Could be someone who has got a beef with US and just wants to cause harm. <_<

 

[Reservation Agent]

You have got to be kidding...What kind of person are you Bassin?...If you think that there should be no consideration for a person who's daughter just died...and bought $500.00 worth of tickets and is told to throw them away, without any kind of compassion is unexcusable.....A young mothers death during childbirth is very rare...Especially for a family expecting a joyful celebration of a new grandchild...

I am ashamed of you as a person!...As a human being!...And as a representative of this airline with your attitude!....I hope you don't work for us with that attitude...

You are probably 22 years old, selfish and dumb as dirt....Don't call me when your mother is in a car accident, near death and you need to get a flight home....

From what you say, I doubt if she would expect you to come visit her in the hospital.....If you normally non-rev and flights are full, you can always buy a ticket on Delta...

 

[tadjr]

I think Bassin was saying that since US wasnt mentioned specifically, you jumped to the assumption that it was US, and he was appalled that you would think US, your employer, would do something like this, not that the person didnt deserve consideration. I find it hard to believe that this would happen too since I've seen some changes for some pretty lame excuses in records. Maybe they didnt explain the situation completely before they were advised to "throw the tickets away"? I've seen many tickets allowed for reissue. The throw the tickets away is for NOT using them by the travel date, not for changing them in advance. Something just doesnt seem right with this...

 

[Light Years]

Um, if its PIT to DEN its US. No one else serves that route unless United started doing it in the last week or so. Of course they could have neen connecting somewhere.

 

[Twicebaked]

As sad as this situation is, it is not any airlines fault. I know of many unfortunate families that lost daughters giving birth. That is an unfortunate risky part of human nature. My heart goes out to the family. You cannot sit there and badger and airline (s) for a policy. Do you know how many people "claim" to have lost a loved on to get the discounted rate of a ticket? Do you know how many people lie about their childs age so they can have them as a lap child? I am not saying anybody lied about this unfortunate situation. NOBODY ever expects a death during child birth. If an airline gave leniency to everybody trying to get home for their daughter giving birth.... You get my point.
It IS so sad, but where are the facts?

 

[TomBascom]

As sad as this situation is, it is not any airlines fault. I know of many unfortunate families that lost daughters giving birth. That is an unfortunate risky part of human nature. My heart goes out to the family. You cannot sit there and badger and airline (s) for a policy. Do you know how many people "claim" to have lost a loved on to get the discounted rate of a ticket? Do you know how many people lie about their childs age so they can have them as a lap child? I am not saying anybody lied about this unfortunate situation. NOBODY ever expects a death during child birth. If an airline gave leniency to everybody trying to get home for their daughter giving birth.... You get my point.
It IS so sad, but where are the facts?

I know that this "the customer is the enemy" mentality is a downward spiral that won't fix the airline's problems.

A while back I met a flight attendant who was quite sure that I was lying about my son's age. He was a perfectly legal 22 month old lap child at the time. The eye rolls from the FA were out of this world. A birth certificate wouldn't have budged her opinion. Another time you turkeys wanted $1,300 each from us when he couldn't travel as scheduled due to puking his guts up all night (guess what? I put him on the plane and we puked our guts up there instead...)

You guys who think your customers lie all the time need to chill out. The cost of being wrong about that is a lot steeper than you think. There are plenty of ways to track and target real abusers without penalizing the whole population through sweeping and indiscriminate rules, restrictions, policies and opinions.

 

[bassin]

go back and read my post again reservation agent. All I said was I was disappointed in your accusations. I feel bad for the family. It's a tragedy anytime something like this happens. I have 4 kids of my own. It was your actions that I was disappointed in.

 

[Severed-N-Happy]

Speaking only for myself, if I had just lost my child and grandchild to a sudden death, I would be too traumatized and way too grief stricken to be listening to a nonstop often senseless chattering talk radio station let alone calling,dialing,redialing with busy signals, into such station to complain about it that very same night. Seems fishy to me. There is no consolation of grief for me in exhibiting such behavior, but I guess to each their own. And I too have heard all the stories you could write a novel on and could not do a thing about it, as hands were tied.
However the policy of use it or lose it has always sucked and I can't believe a year later it is still in effect.I'm surprised passenger loads aren't at all time lows from defection instead of the respectable numbers I often read that are over 100K many days a week.

 

[thepoohbear]

The news blows everything out of proportion.And we bend over backwards to help people with BRV and MED proplems. Of course we don't know if it was a bulk tkt from one of those Great internet travel sites.And if it was there is no way to put it towards another tkt.

 

[Dea Certe]

Tom,

Was your 22 month old child on your lap and not in a car seat? It's a safety issue and I'm sorry the F/A didn't explain that to you. The flight attendants have been trying to get the FAA to change the rules from age to weight.

Your child will be safer in a car seat in the event of a abrupt stop, severe turbulence or accident. Tiny children and infants can be badly injured should the aircraft get tossed around, they will literally fly right out of the parents arms! Even belted in a regular seat, they can be hurt by the seat belt.

With us, it isn't about the ticket. We worry about the child's safety. Again, I'm sorry this was explained to you in a polite manner. I hate that eye-roll stuff too.

Dea

 

[USAirUnited]

Add Collect / Change fee apply.

 

[TomBascom]

Tom,

Was your 22 month old child on your lap and not in a car seat? It's a safety issue and I'm sorry the F/A didn't explain that to you. The flight attendants have been trying to get the FAA to change the rules from age to weight.

Your child will be safer in a car seat in the event of a abrupt stop, severe turbulence or accident. Tiny children and infants can be badly injured should the aircraft get tossed around, they will literally fly right out of the parents arms! Even belted in a regular seat, they can be hurt by the seat belt.

With us, it isn't about the ticket. We worry about the child's safety. Again, I'm sorry this was explained to you in a polite manner. I hate that eye-roll stuff too.

Dea

The lap child thing was a bad idea and I've long since mended my ways... thankfully nobody had to get hurt for me to see the light. It finally dawned on me that if I bought him a ticket he could be earning miles ok, that last was a joke...

The FA wasn't even slightly interested in the safety side of things. She made it amply clear that in her opinion he was probably 3, maybe 4 and that I was in the process of pulling a fast one. (In her defense he is a big kid, I'm 6' 6" and it shows in the kids, everyone always thinks they're older than they are -- not that that's much of an excuse... one look at me should be sufficient explanation.)