I’ve just come back from a long weekend, which was lovely. I didn’t get away anywhere. Instead, I opted to have some time at home to relax and recuperate. I caught up on some TV and watched a couple of movies I’ve been meaning to watch for a while (fortunately, they were available to watch but, had they been blocked for whatever reason, I know I could have gone here and worked around it with a proxy. Whilst I enjoyed it, I think I’ll be making a trip somewhere next time a long weekend comes along. You see, a friend sent me an article that lists things to do in Houston if you’re visiting and I couldn’t help but regret my decision to stay at home. Whether it’s Houston or somewhere else, I’ll definitely be having a few days away next time.
Anyway, after my long weekend I returned to an email box chock-full of stories of travel mayhem, interspersed with brief moments of airlines doing the right thing. I’ll share a few here — both good and bad. Share your stories in the comments.
From Randy Moss, “American Airlines has Bad, Horrible. Terrible, Horrific Customer Service“:
“We sprinted off of the airplane and rode the train to gate C-8 at 5:15 pm Christmas eve when we encountered one of the nastiest, rudest airline employees I have ever met in my many years as a frequent flyer. His name was Lokesh and he declared that our boarding passes were no good since we did not have a ticket. After trying to reason with him he had his assistant Denise slam the boarding door in my wifes face and told us to leave and go talk to someone who cared out in the ticketing area.At that point we met Carolyn who was sweet but not very helpful, and her supervisor whose name tag was as backwards as his ability to be helpful. After hearing that we came in from Colorado he let us know we should be thanking him that we are not in the Denver Airport. It’s attitudes like this that make me wish we could fly on a charter jet. Not only are they quicker, more luxurious but I’m almost certain that their crew is more helpful as well.
At this point I was working up an exit strategy – I to was on the phone with Continental and was getting us re-booked on Delta. Landon was a real help on the phone and got us on the 7:10 pm flight into ATL. There were only 15 or so passengers on the plane and we all got bumped up to 1st class. I can not remember the Delta ticket agents name but she stayed 15 minutes past her shift Christmas eve to help us and really embodies why I fly Delta!”
From Robert Scoble, “Travel Disaster“:
“The lines at Oakland are up to four hours long. I missed my flight and am not yet to the gate. Unbelievable.”
And this one from the news wires, “Frustrated travelers storm airport runway in Brazil“:
“Brazilian travelers responded to chronic delays at one of Sao Paulo’s airports yesterday by storming the runway and blocking a plane from taking off.”
How were your trips?
On my two and-a-half hour flight from Charlotte to Dallas, the plane was packed out with families. And one poor parents fears were realized when their infant cried non-stop for the entire flight. When we landed and were headed towards the gate, the guy behind them screamed, “Can you shut that kid up for two seconds!?!?”
Unbelieveable. I lost it with him and soon the entire back of the plane was yelling at him – two days before Christmas. He even told one kid sitting near him “Hey kid, Santa Clause is dead!” The US Air flight crew did nothing, so the rest of the plane let him have it.
I’m of the belief that you control what you can control in an airport and on an airplane. The rest you just deal with as it comes. Crying babies are a fact of life. And I can’t believe that a grown man would think that those parents wern’t doing everything they could to calm that baby down. What an ass.
holy crap. that’s inexcusable.
skip the trial, straight to execution with that one. have to think the karmic rebate is going to whup him upside the head.
un-be-liev-able.
construction