America West FlightFund (Discontinued Program) - Service at HP

I want to let everyone know this is my first post and I am not sure if I am doing everything correctly. I have learned a lot from FT and hope to be a great contributor in the future.

I have read several post about the service on HP so I thought I would share my story. I am generally a non-complainer and enjoy just getting to my destination in one piece. I usual let most things slide. I must say I have never been so disappointed in an airline as I am now with HP.

Several months ago I took HP gold challenge and book 6 first class round trips. I know this might be a little dumb, but this summer, time was more important then money. I completed the last trip on August 15. How did HP do on my six trips? Two out of six I needed to take a different carrier, sometimes not getting home until the following day. I know mechanical failures happen so I was not upset about the cancelled flights. I was upset about the way these cancelled flights were handled after they were announced. Taking sometimes four hours to rebook and first class handled last. At least in my case. I have tried to get the credit posted to my account for these cancelled flights, but have had no luck. I am told only one person is authorized to handle this types on claims and it is not my turn yet. I have since taken several other flights, also to have a canceled leg. I have learned that my last flight was diverted to SAN because they needed a plane there. Hours at the LAS airport, then early morning back home. To date I have receive several vouchers for compensation, but I have not been posted my gold status.

To some things up, IMHO service is inconsistent at HP. There have been some wonderful people I have been able to meet in HP. It seems that the message about customer service and HP policy has not been received by everyone or interpreted in a different way. It is hard to tell if anyone really has authority to solve problems our just the ability to pass the buck.

I am sorry for rambling so much for a first post. Happy flying to everyone.

Welcome to FlyerTalk, rci98! You did everything fine. :)

I'm really sorry to hear about your initial experiences with HP. Based upon my own experiences, you really have had a bad run of luck. I will exceed 100,000 actual miles YTD here soon and I have had exactly one situation where a flight was cancelled. Now I've had a handful of weather, crew rest, mechanical and other delays here and there, but none of them resulting in cancellation or huge delay and I would venture to guess that 90+ percent of my flights have gone off as planned. That's as good as any airline I've ever flown.

I know this is anecdotal evidence, compared to your actual experience, so I hope you take it in the spirit intended. I'm pretty quick to call HP on their crap when I think they deserve it, but operationally, I think they're doing a pretty solid job. (You should have been around a few years ago! :eek: ) I'm really sorry your experience has been so contrary.

According to the stats, you have about a one percent chance of having your AWA flight cancelled. That's also about the industry average, btw.

AWA also internally measures "service completion," which is getting you to your destination within one hour of scheduled arrival time. That seems to average about 93 to 94%. I haven't seen comparable stats for other airlines, but I suspect it's fairly similar.

Bottom line is that AWA runs a pretty average airline operation these days. I would think that, over time, if you fly the airline often, your experiences are likely to fall close to these statistics.

I want to let everyone know this is my first post and I am not sure if I am doing everything correctly. I have learned a lot from FT and hope to be a great contributor in the future.

I have read several post about the service on HP so I thought I would share my story. I am generally a non-complainer and enjoy just getting to my destination in one piece. I usual let most things slide. I must say I have never been so disappointed in an airline as I am now with HP.

Several months ago I took HP gold challenge and book 6 first class round trips. I know this might be a little dumb, but this summer, time was more important then money. I completed the last trip on August 15. How did HP do on my six trips? Two out of six I needed to take a different carrier, sometimes not getting home until the following day. I know mechanical failures happen so I was not upset about the cancelled flights. I was upset about the way these cancelled flights were handled after they were announced. Taking sometimes four hours to rebook and first class handled last. At least in my case. I have tried to get the credit posted to my account for these cancelled flights, but have had no luck. I am told only one person is authorized to handle this types on claims and it is not my turn yet. I have since taken several other flights, also to have a canceled leg. I have learned that my last flight was diverted to SAN because they needed a plane there. Hours at the LAS airport, then early morning back home. To date I have receive several vouchers for compensation, but I have not been posted my gold status.

To some things up, IMHO service is inconsistent at HP. There have been some wonderful people I have been able to meet in HP. It seems that the message about customer service and HP policy has not been received by everyone or interpreted in a different way. It is hard to tell if anyone really has authority to solve problems our just the ability to pass the buck.

I am sorry for rambling so much for a first post. Happy flying to everyone.

Unfortunately it sounds like most of your flying came during the recent months where HP was still smoothing out the wrinkles with 'Utilization' which caused some very poor performance for a few plus months. Things have been adjusted and are now back to a normal level. Your future flying should be much smoother.

In addition I think in the near future you will see a better re-booking system being used in the event of any flight interruptions. :-:

Good luck with your future flying.....Keep us posted!