Skybus 'nightmare' sours local family

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Skybus 'nightmare' sours local family
By Shir Haberman

[email protected]

July 24, 2007 6:00 AM

PORTSMOUTH - Years ago, at the end of a commercial for Yuban coffee, an old geezer with the solid Yankee name of John Arbuckle would somberly intone, "You get what you pay for."

For the Hunter family of Stratham, the lower fares and close airport proximity that Skybus Airlines offers are not worth the anxiety, frustration and anger they went through when the airline canceled a scheduled flight to Portsmouth last Thursday.

Hilda Hunter was supposed to be on that flight, and what went on due to that cancelation is indelibly etched in the minds of her family.

"It was a nightmare," said Nancy Hunter, the 75-year-old Cincinnati woman's daughter-in-law.

Hilda was among the 144 passengers scheduled to take off on the two-hour evening flight from Port Columbus, Ohio, to Portsmouth International Airport on July 19. Fog along the Seacoast that night first delayed take-off from Columbus, then forced the flight to land at Bradley Airport in Hartford, Conn.

The passengers were held on the plane without access to their luggage at Bradley for several hours until the airline made the decision to have the flight return to Columbus.

The plane landed in Columbus at 5 a.m. on Friday, and those passengers who wished to continue to fly with Skybus were booked on an extra flight scheduled to take off for Pease at 8 p.m. Friday night.

The scheduled two-hour trip wound up taking about 28 hours. Hilda Hunter's flight landed around midnight on Friday.

While delays and cancellations are common in the airline industry, the problems created were exacerbated by Skybus' limited information network and nonexistent backup infrastructure.

"When they got back to Columbus, there was nobody to communicate what was happening," Nancy Hunter said. "The airline didn't offer the passengers anything - not a cup of coffee or something to eat. They were just told to sit and wait.

"And there was nobody at Pease," Hunter said.

Skybus spokesman Bob Tenenbaum called what happened to Skybus' Portsmouth flight on Thursday "the perfect storm."

He said it was a combination of bad weather and an inoperable flight tracking system that the company has been working on for months that would have allowed those waiting for the flight here in the Northeast to know its status.

"The concerns (of people like the Hunters) are legitimate," Tenenbaum said. "There is supposed to be a flight status update system on the Skybus Web site, but it is not working properly."

Tenenbaum said the decision to have the flight return to Columbus was made to accommodate the majority of the people on the flight.

"At least half the people were from the Columbus area," he said. "It was better for them to come back to a place where there were Skybus people who could help them then be dropped off at an airport where they were not supposed to be."

However, there were some passengers aboard the flight who felt the problems on Thursday were systemic.

"They had no Plan B," Linda Cargill of Canal Winchester, Ohio, told The Columbus Dispatch. "It was kind of one of those things where you keep thinking, 'I'm just going to wake up and this will all be a dream.'"

As for the Hunters, this experience has soured them on Skybus.

"We have friends who bought Skybus tickets for December," Nancy Hunter said. "I'm worried for them.

"God forbid, there's (bad) weather," she said. "They're up the creek."

Hunter said her mother-in-law will never fly Skybus again, nor will any other member of her family.

"They lost not only my mother, they lost me and my husband, and he has told all the people at Osram, where he works, about it," she said.
 
Is anyone really surprised by this? I'm sure its just the first of many many more "problems" to come. I don't feel badly for anyone on that flight or anyone who chooses to fly with this so-called airline. As stated, "you get what you paid for", and in this case it was nothing. What kind of "brainless person" thinks that a company doesn't need a phone number to be contacted by or back-up options in case of weather or mechanical delays. Loser-Air plain and simple.
 
When people FINALLY learn the lesson "You get what YOU Pay for" I will show a little empathy for them. I get real tired of the travelling public expecting NORDSTROM service at WalMart prices......IF YOU Are Not Willing To Pay UP, don't expect the employees to Roll Over and GIVE UP (as in pay and benefits) so Y-O-U get a GOOD DEAL. (This incident concerning Skybus will be but ONE horror story........I lived in Columbus and the Winters are NOT so pleasant and IRREGULAR OPERATIONS will become Quite REGULAR for them as well........and having no phone number to communicate is plain STUPID, THEY'LL Learn.
 
if this is true, how come US gives me crappy service and charges me up my butt?
:rolleyes: Hey now.............I give AWAY the House and you probably wouldn't be able to keep up with all MY Gin and Tonics.............and I'll make sure you get a lime in every glass! Be nice and maybe a lemon too! :lol:
 
"Perfect Storm" Huh? That seems to be a popular phrase among the typically jerk airlines management these days. The jerks who run SKYBUS KNOW that there's no backup and no customer service and to be honest, any customer who has an IQ above Idiot-level should know that too.

If you buy a ticket on an outfit like Skybus, you deserve what you get. If everything's perfect, enjoy your $50 ride. If there's weather or a mechanical delay, then enjoy buying a very expensive last minute ticket on a real airline to get you where you're trying to go, or enjoy sitting in a hotel in some *hithole city and going to the airport everyday (since there's no phone number to call) to try and get out.

And to be more honest, with the very high load factors and lack of backup deliberately manipulated by the legacy airlines, the chances of the same thing happening during a weather event might be similar.
 
Heh. This is with their A-319s with 144 seats. Wait until they load em up to almost 160 seats.... Not only will it be harder to turn the plane with an extra 15 people (theoretically), but there will be more people flying SX, hence more complaints floating around out there.

I think the pax have to remember something;

1. You are flying between Boonies Regional Airfeild and Middle of Nowhere International Airport -- problems will arise.

2. Everyone is outsourced, even their PR folks - so no one has that "ownership" feeling over their job. No one have a lot of allegiance to SX.

3. You paid peanuts for your seat - YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR.

4. You have $9/hr F/A's and $65/hr folks in the flight deck - don't expect a smile and a call for the above and beyond.