I hate American Airlines
Jun. 20th, 2002 12:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joflasherSo travel yesterday was a pain. Going to the presentation wasn't that bad. Flew down on a 6 AM AirTran flight. AirTran is a nice little airline. It has comfy seats, polite people, full cans of soda, and all the little things a good airline should. Which is probably why I had so little patience with the fucknuttery that AA pulled on me for the return trip.
Get to checkin 1.5 hours before flight leaves. Get told by checkin that they'll assign me a seat when I get to the gate. I, being distrustful, ask "are there still seats left unassigned?" and checkin dude says "sure, lots of them".
Go to gate, ask for a seat. Get told "we're not assigning seats yet, come back later". Go get celebration drink with coworkers. Come back 0.5 hours later and ask for a seat. Get told in a snotty voice, "Standby passengers won't be assigned seats until plane is loaded". I politely point out that I'm not a standby passenger. They say "oh, okay, come back in 25 minutes, we'll have a seat for you then. We just need some time to do this bookkeeping". Come back and get the standby thing again. Point out once again that I am not a standby passenger. Note, this is all still with the same gate keeper person, who has looked me in the eye at every encounter. After waiting another 15 minutes, at which point the plane has started to board, coworkers included, she finally tells me that the plane is overbooked and since no one has offered to volunteer a seat, I was SOL. I point out that the two guys in front of me who also weren't assigned seats at checkin and who had just run in at the last minute were assigned seats and I had been waiting on her for the last hour. Why did I not have a seat and people who hadn't been waiting did, especially since she had taken my name at each of our meetings? Was told "there's nothing I can do about it now, they have their seats and the plane is full."
Get fed up with apparent incompetance of this gate keeper. Go talk to the other gate keeper, explain what has happened and ask, still politely, how was AA getting me back to Boston. That guy offers to put me on the next flight out (2 hours away) and to give me a voucher that can only be used with AA. Since the boarding has closed by this time, I accept, get my new boarding pass, insist that they give me a seat number this time, even though he tried to pull the "you'll get your number at the gate" trick again, and call home to let Boy know I would be late. Go through security AGAIN to get to the side of the airport that the next flight will be boarding at. (note to self, never wear those nice new sandals to an airport. They made me take them off and run them through the scanner every time).
Fast forward two hours. No plane. Another 30 minutes, 20 minutes past when the flight should have left, first announcement about bad weather and assurances that our flight will go out. 30 minutes later, yay, plane. Boarding starts. The gate keeper, the same one from the last flight, calls my name over the loud speaker. I go up and ask if there is a problem. She says, while looking right at my face, "this flight is overbooked and no one is offering to give up their seats. I'm afraid we're going to have to schedule you for the next flight, which leaves at 6 AM tomorrow."
Normally, I am a very polite person. Normally I never take my anger out on the individual when I think it might be the corporations fault. Hell, the worst I ever do to telemarketers is to hang up on them after telling them to remove me from their calling list. But even I have limits and this situation went sooo far past them. I was supposed to be home by 7. Here it was, going on 9 and I was still talking to the same damn gate keeper who didn't put me on the last flight.
Needless to say, I got home on that flight. And I still might carry through with that letter to AA explaining how their gate staff could use some customer relation skills and some general intelligence. Have already told secretary to not book me an AA flight again unless all other flights to the destination city have been shot down by flying pigs.
On the up side, the fact that I got in after midnight permitted me to guiltlessly skip the 8 AM meeting today.
Get to checkin 1.5 hours before flight leaves. Get told by checkin that they'll assign me a seat when I get to the gate. I, being distrustful, ask "are there still seats left unassigned?" and checkin dude says "sure, lots of them".
Go to gate, ask for a seat. Get told "we're not assigning seats yet, come back later". Go get celebration drink with coworkers. Come back 0.5 hours later and ask for a seat. Get told in a snotty voice, "Standby passengers won't be assigned seats until plane is loaded". I politely point out that I'm not a standby passenger. They say "oh, okay, come back in 25 minutes, we'll have a seat for you then. We just need some time to do this bookkeeping". Come back and get the standby thing again. Point out once again that I am not a standby passenger. Note, this is all still with the same gate keeper person, who has looked me in the eye at every encounter. After waiting another 15 minutes, at which point the plane has started to board, coworkers included, she finally tells me that the plane is overbooked and since no one has offered to volunteer a seat, I was SOL. I point out that the two guys in front of me who also weren't assigned seats at checkin and who had just run in at the last minute were assigned seats and I had been waiting on her for the last hour. Why did I not have a seat and people who hadn't been waiting did, especially since she had taken my name at each of our meetings? Was told "there's nothing I can do about it now, they have their seats and the plane is full."
Get fed up with apparent incompetance of this gate keeper. Go talk to the other gate keeper, explain what has happened and ask, still politely, how was AA getting me back to Boston. That guy offers to put me on the next flight out (2 hours away) and to give me a voucher that can only be used with AA. Since the boarding has closed by this time, I accept, get my new boarding pass, insist that they give me a seat number this time, even though he tried to pull the "you'll get your number at the gate" trick again, and call home to let Boy know I would be late. Go through security AGAIN to get to the side of the airport that the next flight will be boarding at. (note to self, never wear those nice new sandals to an airport. They made me take them off and run them through the scanner every time).
Fast forward two hours. No plane. Another 30 minutes, 20 minutes past when the flight should have left, first announcement about bad weather and assurances that our flight will go out. 30 minutes later, yay, plane. Boarding starts. The gate keeper, the same one from the last flight, calls my name over the loud speaker. I go up and ask if there is a problem. She says, while looking right at my face, "this flight is overbooked and no one is offering to give up their seats. I'm afraid we're going to have to schedule you for the next flight, which leaves at 6 AM tomorrow."
Normally, I am a very polite person. Normally I never take my anger out on the individual when I think it might be the corporations fault. Hell, the worst I ever do to telemarketers is to hang up on them after telling them to remove me from their calling list. But even I have limits and this situation went sooo far past them. I was supposed to be home by 7. Here it was, going on 9 and I was still talking to the same damn gate keeper who didn't put me on the last flight.
Needless to say, I got home on that flight. And I still might carry through with that letter to AA explaining how their gate staff could use some customer relation skills and some general intelligence. Have already told secretary to not book me an AA flight again unless all other flights to the destination city have been shot down by flying pigs.
On the up side, the fact that I got in after midnight permitted me to guiltlessly skip the 8 AM meeting today.
