cammie31
11-23-2004, 02:00 AM
Well, everybody, I'm back from Las Vegas in one piece, which is always a pleasant surprise for me when I take a plane trip!
Actually, I have to admit that this time the actual flying wasn't so bad. Anticipatory anxiety is still the big issue, and I'm not a fan of take-offs and probably never will be, but coming back home (once I actually GOT a flight) was pretty easy. Perhaps because by that time I was exhausted and all I wanted was to get the heck home -- I actuallly sat at a window seat on both flights back and looked out the window whenever I wasn't sleeping (also a first, being able to sleep on a plane is usually way behind me, as it is hard to sleep when the heart is going 150 bpm!)
Anyway, as for the title -- and length -- of this post, OH MY GOD will I never fly America West again. This is my opinion only, of course, and you all warned me that while their safety record is great, their service SUCKS and boy, were you all ever right. Here's the story -- flight out was fine, on time, although we had to wait for jetway availability in Las Vegas because there was a maintenance problem with the plane at the gate we were supposed to be at. (This, perhaps, I should have taken as a sign).
The flight back, well, it never got off the ground. It was supposed to leave for JFK at 10:55pm on Saturday, they started boarding, and then suddenly, they made an announcement that said "We've been told to stop boarding. That's all the information we have, but we'll give you more information when it becomes available." Then they stopped boarding the flight to Atlanta at the next gate as well. Well, you know, this is a plane full of New Yorkers (some of whom, like me, were witnesses to 9/11) and I don't know about anyone else, but an announcement like that with NO real information gets my imagination revved up -- is there a problem with this flight? Bomb threat? Did something happen? Is everybody being grounded? -- I really wish that the airlines would be more careful about what they do and do not say. Can't they just announce "there's a mechanical problem" or SOMETHING beyond "we don't know why we're not boarding?"
Anyhow, at about 11pm, the folks who were already boarded (the first class folks and the like) were shepherded off the plane, looking rather glum, and the gate agent announces that they'll have more information at 11:30pm. The flight to Atlanta next to us starts boarding again, so clearly, the problem is with our flight. At 11:10 they announce that "if you do not have checked luggage on this flight, we can rebook you onto the 11:53 to Newark." Well, I'm apparently an utter moron, because I checked my bag even though I could have carried it on (lesson learned. I'll never check again...) Clearly, this flight I'm supposed to be taking is going nowhere anytime soon. So I walk up to the gate agent and I said, "Look. I have checked luggage on that plane but I'll gladly go to Newark. We both know this plane isn't leaving, so could you get my luggage off the plane and get it on the flight to Newark?" She gives me a pissy answer saying that they're not going to take the luggage off the flight yet. Um, hello, ridiculous? They're re-booking passengers but not unloading the luggage on this plane that's CLEARLY not flying? So I'm stuck. And then, to top it all off, and to really make me nuts, the friend I've travelled with, who was my co-presenter on a paper at the conference in Vegas, and who didn't check her luggage turns to me and says, "Well, I don't know what you're going to do, but I'm going to be on the 11:53 to Newark" and proceeds to get herself re-booked on the flight to Newark. I couldn't believe it. I think that's the one that really put me over the edge -- she knew I'm not a good flier, we were travelling together, and then she bolts when things go downhill. I was (and, as you can tell, still am) upset at her, since this is someone I've been friends with for 7 years now and I never in a million years would have guessed that she'd walk off like that. Perhaps I'm being oversensitive. Perhaps I need new friends. Need to figure that one out (Monica, what do you think??) !
So she walks off for her gate, leaving me standing there with all the other strandees. Around 11:30, they cancel our flight and tell us to go back down to the main America West ticket counter and they'll re-book us. So I'm really upset by this time -- I admit, I'm on the verge of tears, I can't get home, my "friend" just decided that sticking it out with me wasn't worth it to her, America West clearly does not know its ass from its elbow when it comes to service (and still, by the way, hasn't explained and doesn't seem to know WHY the flight was cancelled), and now I get to stand on line with 180 other ticked-off New Yorkers and try to get booked out of Vegas on a Sunday flight,the day everyone's leaving Vegas.
I do the only thing I could think of that was even slightly rational: I go talk to the woman who's closing up the JetBlue ticket counter. She couldn't have been nicer, could tell I was really upset, and told me that there was room on both the Sunday night flight and the Monday morning flight, and I should call their 1-800 number and try to get booked on one of them. So, while on line to see what America West is going to try to do for me, I book myself on the Monday AM JetBlue flight, just in case America West wants to stick me in some flea-bag motel and route me through Antarctica back to NY. Then I go wait on the America West line. Turns out that the guy in front of me was already boarded on our plane when the incident that cancelled our flight occurred. The incident was this:
The guy driving the sanitation cart backed the cart up into the plane's engine, denting it, and leaving the plane un-flyable.
I thought that sounded crazy, until the other folks around us who saw it happen agreed with him. Said the pilot went out to inspect it and all.
I guess I'm glad they didn't try to fly it anyway, but, um, I think someone has to have his poop-cart license revoked!
I get to the front of the America West line at 2:45 (yep, 3 hours on line). They tell me that they've rebooked me on an America West plane to LOS ANGELES!!! at 5pm Sunday (it's now the wee hours of Sunday AM) and then a flight from LA to NY at 11pm Sunday that will get me in on Monday AM. I admit this is where I start considering the horrible service we received that night, and I got completely nasty, and told them something along the lines of, "If you think I am going to go ONE MILE further WEST on your airline when I'm trying to go EAST, you're out of your mind. I want to fly on a different airline and I want to head in the right direction. If you can't do that, I have a JetBlue ticket Monday morning and I'll fight with your home office to get this flight refunded." So they find me a Delta flight to Cincinnati with a connection to NY, which leaves at 7:15AM Sunday. They give me a voucher for a hotel (scary, flea-bag) and tell me to get a cab (voucher, but not every cab takes vouchers) and be back at the airport by 5:30 because the Vegas airport is a zoo on Sundays.
I think about just sleeping in the airport, but it's practically deserted, and now I'm a young woman travelling alone, so I have all of those concerns, rational or not. There are no cabs at the airport to take me to the hotel. A few people stand there for a half hour until a cab finally shows up; makes sense, the airport is more or less closed and the strip is hopping.
I go to the hotel, shower, turn around, get in another cab, and head back to the airport. He asks me why I'm leaving so early. I tell him I my flight was cancelled. Without even missing a beat, he says to me, "Oh. You were on America West, eh?" I ask him if he had ferried some other strandees a few hours ago, and he says, "No, no, it's happened four or five times this week. They cancel flights all the time. The other day there were 400 people waiting for a cab at 2 in the morning."
So I fly back on Delta, and Delta has won itself a fan. Totally uneventful flights with pilots who were just the right amount of chatty (they even gave us the football scores at one point, hmm, how did they find that out over Erie PA?), connections that the flight attendants announced how, where, and when to make, and two 757s that had..ahh...leg room and as I said, for the first time in my life, I actually slept for an hour on the plane. Probably the combination of anti-anxiety medication and extreme exhaustion, but, hey, it worked.
I guess the moral of my story is that the worst part of flying seems to be the part on the ground!!!!! And that America West, while I'm thankful they cancelled the flight if they thought the plane was unsafe to fly, totally lost me by being neither communicative nor particularly helpful with its passengers, while Delta and JetBlue (without me even flying it) have gained a fan, and the flight home really wasn't that anxiety provoking. I actually am considering flying again soon to try to get over this, because, hey, now I have a voucher from JetBlue, since I cancelled my res on their flight once Delta got me home...
Thanks for putting up with my venting on the long post,
Cammie
PS -- My friend who took the flight to Newark told me I was lucky not to be on that flight, as they were rocked by turbulence from thunderstorms for about 2 hours and she was seated next to a belligerent drunk who not only fought with the flight attendants but punched her in the arm as well.
Actually, I have to admit that this time the actual flying wasn't so bad. Anticipatory anxiety is still the big issue, and I'm not a fan of take-offs and probably never will be, but coming back home (once I actually GOT a flight) was pretty easy. Perhaps because by that time I was exhausted and all I wanted was to get the heck home -- I actuallly sat at a window seat on both flights back and looked out the window whenever I wasn't sleeping (also a first, being able to sleep on a plane is usually way behind me, as it is hard to sleep when the heart is going 150 bpm!)
Anyway, as for the title -- and length -- of this post, OH MY GOD will I never fly America West again. This is my opinion only, of course, and you all warned me that while their safety record is great, their service SUCKS and boy, were you all ever right. Here's the story -- flight out was fine, on time, although we had to wait for jetway availability in Las Vegas because there was a maintenance problem with the plane at the gate we were supposed to be at. (This, perhaps, I should have taken as a sign).
The flight back, well, it never got off the ground. It was supposed to leave for JFK at 10:55pm on Saturday, they started boarding, and then suddenly, they made an announcement that said "We've been told to stop boarding. That's all the information we have, but we'll give you more information when it becomes available." Then they stopped boarding the flight to Atlanta at the next gate as well. Well, you know, this is a plane full of New Yorkers (some of whom, like me, were witnesses to 9/11) and I don't know about anyone else, but an announcement like that with NO real information gets my imagination revved up -- is there a problem with this flight? Bomb threat? Did something happen? Is everybody being grounded? -- I really wish that the airlines would be more careful about what they do and do not say. Can't they just announce "there's a mechanical problem" or SOMETHING beyond "we don't know why we're not boarding?"
Anyhow, at about 11pm, the folks who were already boarded (the first class folks and the like) were shepherded off the plane, looking rather glum, and the gate agent announces that they'll have more information at 11:30pm. The flight to Atlanta next to us starts boarding again, so clearly, the problem is with our flight. At 11:10 they announce that "if you do not have checked luggage on this flight, we can rebook you onto the 11:53 to Newark." Well, I'm apparently an utter moron, because I checked my bag even though I could have carried it on (lesson learned. I'll never check again...) Clearly, this flight I'm supposed to be taking is going nowhere anytime soon. So I walk up to the gate agent and I said, "Look. I have checked luggage on that plane but I'll gladly go to Newark. We both know this plane isn't leaving, so could you get my luggage off the plane and get it on the flight to Newark?" She gives me a pissy answer saying that they're not going to take the luggage off the flight yet. Um, hello, ridiculous? They're re-booking passengers but not unloading the luggage on this plane that's CLEARLY not flying? So I'm stuck. And then, to top it all off, and to really make me nuts, the friend I've travelled with, who was my co-presenter on a paper at the conference in Vegas, and who didn't check her luggage turns to me and says, "Well, I don't know what you're going to do, but I'm going to be on the 11:53 to Newark" and proceeds to get herself re-booked on the flight to Newark. I couldn't believe it. I think that's the one that really put me over the edge -- she knew I'm not a good flier, we were travelling together, and then she bolts when things go downhill. I was (and, as you can tell, still am) upset at her, since this is someone I've been friends with for 7 years now and I never in a million years would have guessed that she'd walk off like that. Perhaps I'm being oversensitive. Perhaps I need new friends. Need to figure that one out (Monica, what do you think??) !
So she walks off for her gate, leaving me standing there with all the other strandees. Around 11:30, they cancel our flight and tell us to go back down to the main America West ticket counter and they'll re-book us. So I'm really upset by this time -- I admit, I'm on the verge of tears, I can't get home, my "friend" just decided that sticking it out with me wasn't worth it to her, America West clearly does not know its ass from its elbow when it comes to service (and still, by the way, hasn't explained and doesn't seem to know WHY the flight was cancelled), and now I get to stand on line with 180 other ticked-off New Yorkers and try to get booked out of Vegas on a Sunday flight,the day everyone's leaving Vegas.
I do the only thing I could think of that was even slightly rational: I go talk to the woman who's closing up the JetBlue ticket counter. She couldn't have been nicer, could tell I was really upset, and told me that there was room on both the Sunday night flight and the Monday morning flight, and I should call their 1-800 number and try to get booked on one of them. So, while on line to see what America West is going to try to do for me, I book myself on the Monday AM JetBlue flight, just in case America West wants to stick me in some flea-bag motel and route me through Antarctica back to NY. Then I go wait on the America West line. Turns out that the guy in front of me was already boarded on our plane when the incident that cancelled our flight occurred. The incident was this:
The guy driving the sanitation cart backed the cart up into the plane's engine, denting it, and leaving the plane un-flyable.
I thought that sounded crazy, until the other folks around us who saw it happen agreed with him. Said the pilot went out to inspect it and all.
I guess I'm glad they didn't try to fly it anyway, but, um, I think someone has to have his poop-cart license revoked!
I get to the front of the America West line at 2:45 (yep, 3 hours on line). They tell me that they've rebooked me on an America West plane to LOS ANGELES!!! at 5pm Sunday (it's now the wee hours of Sunday AM) and then a flight from LA to NY at 11pm Sunday that will get me in on Monday AM. I admit this is where I start considering the horrible service we received that night, and I got completely nasty, and told them something along the lines of, "If you think I am going to go ONE MILE further WEST on your airline when I'm trying to go EAST, you're out of your mind. I want to fly on a different airline and I want to head in the right direction. If you can't do that, I have a JetBlue ticket Monday morning and I'll fight with your home office to get this flight refunded." So they find me a Delta flight to Cincinnati with a connection to NY, which leaves at 7:15AM Sunday. They give me a voucher for a hotel (scary, flea-bag) and tell me to get a cab (voucher, but not every cab takes vouchers) and be back at the airport by 5:30 because the Vegas airport is a zoo on Sundays.
I think about just sleeping in the airport, but it's practically deserted, and now I'm a young woman travelling alone, so I have all of those concerns, rational or not. There are no cabs at the airport to take me to the hotel. A few people stand there for a half hour until a cab finally shows up; makes sense, the airport is more or less closed and the strip is hopping.
I go to the hotel, shower, turn around, get in another cab, and head back to the airport. He asks me why I'm leaving so early. I tell him I my flight was cancelled. Without even missing a beat, he says to me, "Oh. You were on America West, eh?" I ask him if he had ferried some other strandees a few hours ago, and he says, "No, no, it's happened four or five times this week. They cancel flights all the time. The other day there were 400 people waiting for a cab at 2 in the morning."
So I fly back on Delta, and Delta has won itself a fan. Totally uneventful flights with pilots who were just the right amount of chatty (they even gave us the football scores at one point, hmm, how did they find that out over Erie PA?), connections that the flight attendants announced how, where, and when to make, and two 757s that had..ahh...leg room and as I said, for the first time in my life, I actually slept for an hour on the plane. Probably the combination of anti-anxiety medication and extreme exhaustion, but, hey, it worked.
I guess the moral of my story is that the worst part of flying seems to be the part on the ground!!!!! And that America West, while I'm thankful they cancelled the flight if they thought the plane was unsafe to fly, totally lost me by being neither communicative nor particularly helpful with its passengers, while Delta and JetBlue (without me even flying it) have gained a fan, and the flight home really wasn't that anxiety provoking. I actually am considering flying again soon to try to get over this, because, hey, now I have a voucher from JetBlue, since I cancelled my res on their flight once Delta got me home...
Thanks for putting up with my venting on the long post,
Cammie
PS -- My friend who took the flight to Newark told me I was lucky not to be on that flight, as they were rocked by turbulence from thunderstorms for about 2 hours and she was seated next to a belligerent drunk who not only fought with the flight attendants but punched her in the arm as well.