bwicoplat

Was scheduled on the 6:30p departure BOS-BWI. arrived at airport at 5:15pm and saw there was a 5:35pm flight. Asked at counter to change seat. Was told to go to gate. Ge to gate at 5:25pm and aircraft just starting to unload. I ask the agnt if I can get on standby. She tells me I'm supposed to do that at th ticket counter. I tell her try sent me to the gate. She asks if it was the tall guy. I sad yes. She rolls her eyes and says "Moron. I will see what I can do for you. Standright there and don't move."oookkkkk.
Then two "supervisors" show up and say "let's go". The GA calls boarding while the plane is still unloading. The. Passenger says "we can't get on". On supervisor looks up and says "get on the plane or we will offload you." so people are unloading and boarding at the same time. That was entertaining.
So they hae one seat left. Now there are 40 empires in the plane, but becase w aren't on the list (there are three o us now" they can only clear us if three people don't show up. At this point the other supervisor start yelling "make final boarding call w are closing the door in thre minutes and we'll pit atragglers on the 6:30pm. ...???
So one lady doesn't show and one of the other stand-by is grabbed by the supervisor and says "go.". I looked atthe GA and said, "how does that work?" she just shrugged.
So I'm on the 6:30pm. I fly all over the world and this as close to third world ghetto as I've ever seen. Next time it's WN OR Jetblue. Three LCC between BWI-BOS. I don't need this.

UNHBuzzard

That's messed up, the Boston team has always been professional despite some Boston-esque abrasiveness. I do know that if they have a number of flights leaving at the same time they can get stretched thin, but I've never seen anything like that. I hate to say it but you may have to give them another shot. Howard Rhone is/was the station manager there if you want to try to get in touch w/ him.

RajonRondo

That seems unusual to me. I've flown BOS to BWI a lot in the last year and the gate agents are usually pretty good at Logan. Sometimes a little disinterested, but nothing too egregious.

The AirTran gate, however, leaves much to be desired. I always try to hang out at Jerry Remy's in the terminal until I need to head towards the gate, since there's almost nothing past security.

saltydog

I fly BOS-BWI often and have seen the gate agents do strange things. One time there were people boarding at the same time as we were unloading, what a mess. I have had much better luck with BWI gate agents.

bwicoplat

I fly AirTran from BWI-BOS and BWI/MCO or PBI with the family. The BWI agents are always great and helpful. PBI and MCO are great too. But last night in BOS. WOW. So I wrote the OP from the gate area. As we were boarding the other displaced woman was UG (she was Elite + and they still did that to her on the previous flight). The supervisor looked at her and said, "You are Elite + and were upgraded. Why didn't you say something before, we could have gotten you on the other flight." The lady said, "The other supervisor made it very clear that unless there were no shows, that wasn't going to happen." To which the supervisor said, "Ok. Well, I understand because if the flight is even one minute late then we have to write-up a reason why and we both really want to get out of here tonight and didn't want to deal with the extra paperwork."

So there you have it. And to finish off the experience the two F/As working the Y cabin met at Row 18 (where I was sitting) and proceeded to talk about how the flight time was just under an hour and could they get away with just saying that because of high winds in Baltimore (10 mph per the captain) and the short flying time, if they could sit in the back and just relax and not deal with this. Went on to say how they had one more flight and then started talking about where they were going out drinking after they landed. At this point I was staring right at them. The male F/A looked at me and said, "Do you need something?" I just smiled and said, "Yeah, to get home." He looked at his ID badge, flipped it over, looked at his partners badge flipped it over. Looked at me and said, "Well, yes we would all like to be home right now." And walked away. When they served drinks he passed by my row and said to her "Don't forget 18". This was after he served 19, 18AC and then asked 17 what they wanted.

Unreal.

jbpegasus

That experience should not go unreported. You should call or e-mail customer service and demand a reply. Be sure to include gate and flight numbers and names if possible. Those F/A's probably worked for the now defunct ATA where that attitude was the norm.
I have no experience with AirTran at BOS but my experience at BWI,ATL,MCO,IND and MKE has been great.

jdawg

Boston is hit or miss .... my very first experience I was running late for a flight and a gate agent insisted I had to gate check my bag - I was fine with it until I got to the plane and saw it was half full and there was a ton of overhead space!

The worst part is he knew I was an elite, as he had to give me a new Business Class upgrade. One drink later I was over it.

saltydog

Overall the Boston staff is subpar at best. My suspision is Airtran may pay less than others.

About a year ago on a flight from ATL to IAD, I sat next to a guy in the front that worked for Airtran. In talking to him he was in charge of hiring gate agents and support staff for certain airports. He was on his was to interview at IAD.

To cut to the chase, he explained that he was having trouble hiring quality staff in certain airports, IAD being one due to the pay. So bottom line is that you get what you pay for. In Boston, NY and DC you need to pay more than in Atlanta, Orlando or Indianapolis.

I have flown SWA, Jetblue and Airtran out of Boston and by far SWA staff is the most helpful and well trained. And they are the new guys on the block in Boston.

Starting this week I will give the Airtran staff in Portland a try, and fly PWM-BWI instead of BOS-BWI. Hopefully they are better.