Incompetence at Every Level

 
Old Mar 26, 2007, 9:31 am
  #1  
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Incompetence at Every Level

Yesterday I’m on flight 3484 IAH-PHL. Scheduled to depart 5:50 PM. Scheduled to arrive 10:10PM.

At 4PM before heading to the airport, both the website and the 800 number assure me flight 3484 is “on-time.”

I arrive at IAH at 4:30PM. All of the airport monitors show US 3484 to depart on time at 5:50 PM.

I go through security and eat dinner before heading to the gate. I arrive at the gate at 5:20 PM and the monitors still show flight 3484 “on time” for 5:50 PM. There is no plane at the gate. I checked the arrivals monitor and it shows flight 3455 arriving FROM Philadelphia “on time” for 5:15 PM.

Twenty minutes later, 5:40 PM, still no change to any of the monitors. Clearly the inbound plane is delayed. Finally at 5:45PM the Gate Agent makes the announcement that the inbound plane is delayed and should arrive at 6:10. This was a three hour flight from Philadelphia. They knew three hours ago this flight would be delayed and that our outbound flight would also be delayed, yet still no friggin update on the monitors or at the gate display (or at the 800 number). PHL is my final destination so it doesn’t really matter to me, but clearly there are people with connecting flights and one by one they approach the gate agent to inquire about their connections. And one by one the gate agent tells each of them 2 lies. They first tell them that our flight will “make up the time” and land close to on schedule. They then tell them not to worry; their connections "will wait for them."

Finally around 6PM the various display monitors are updated showing our new departure for “6:25.” HA! Even though this is an Embraer 170, who’s kidding who that US will be able to turn the flight around in 15 minutes?

Of course 6:10 comes and goes with no plane. The airplane finally pulls up to the gate around 6:27 PM and the passengers with connecting flights are still being told not to worry, we will make up the time and their connecting flights will wait for them. Clearly these Houston gate agents want this to be Philly’s problem, not theirs.

The turn-around takes over half an hour and we depart at 7:05PM. Its 3 hours to PHL and obviously we are going to be an hour later than our scheduled 10:10 arrival and I’ll be surprised if any of the connections, all scheduled for between 10:40 and 10:55, are still waiting.

As we descend to PHL around 10:50 PM the flight attendant makes the announcement on board that the connections are waiting and gives all the connecting gate information. Yeah right! We land a little after 11 and pull right up to our gate, but as is oh so typical on US, there’s no one to operate the jetway. I can’t tell you how many times this has happened to me but it is absolutely infuriating. If it had happened once I might say, ok a forgivable mistake, but these days it is the norm and it is unacceptable. We wait 15 minutes for someone to show up to operate the jetway. If the connecting passengers ever had a chance it is surely lost now. I complain to the flight attendant and a pilot who was riding in the back and they agree this is unacceptable but this is the norm these days for PHL. The pilot told me I should write to management. I told him I have and they don’t care to which he agreed. They don’t.

As we finally get off the plane the connecting passengers are given the news that none of their connections waited for them. In fact they didn’t even pretend to wait. All those flights departed on time. They are told to go to Customer Services for rebooking.

Even though it was late and I could just head for home, my curiosity got the best of me and I too headed over to Customer Services to see how these passengers were treated. WOW! No respect whatsoever. Quickly the line formed to over 20 passengers with just two agents working the desk. Normally this might not be so bad, except each agent took forever and a day to help the passengers. After 45 minutes, and I’m not exaggerating, the line had not moved and the first two passengers who had gotten in the line were still working with the agents. 45 minutes. It was close to midnight before the line moved even 2 people. It looked like the passengers were getting hotel rooms and there was the typical crap of USAirways employees showing up for a minute or two, distracting the agents, walking away, etc. Man I hate seeing this whenever I am in a line. I hung around long enough for a manager to come out and tell people that if they were going to Hartford or Providence, they’d be better off getting a car and driving.

Wow. And to think this was just one delayed flight on a fairly routine day. I felt so bad for the people who were 10 or more back in the line. For all I know they are still there.

So my questions are: How can USAirways not update the flight status for a flight when they clearly know the inbound plane is delayed? How can the gate agents not know that the connecting flights WON’T WAIT? (I know this). How can the flight attendants actually give connecting gate information on board when those connecting flights have already departed? How can there not be a person to operate the jetway waiting at the arrival gate? How can the airline have so few people working the Customer Service desk when they know they have a planeload of unhappy customers on a delayed flight? AND HOW ON EARTH CAN IT TAKE OVER 45 MINUTES PER CUSTOMER TO REBOOK THEM AND GET THEM A ROOM?
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Old Mar 26, 2007, 9:39 am
  #2  
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The problem stemmed from the agents at IAH - not at PHL, althought PHL most definitely exacerbated the problem.

You put it best when you said the agents at IAH "wanted this to be PHL's" problem. That's exactly the answer to your question. It would have been "too much trouble" for the agents there to rebook 20++ passengers on other airlines, or put them up in Houston.

Also, the complete lack of updates to the monitors, 800 numbers etc, is very common with most airlines, although US is particularly bad at it. It's common practice for the "on time" departure time to come and go with no plane at the gate. I've learned to add 15 - 20 minutes to whatever time the GA announces, so if the incoming flight it "scheduled" to arrive at 6:10, it's actually arriving more around 6:25 ... and since it's "arriving" at 6:10, they post a departure of 6:25!
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Old Mar 26, 2007, 10:20 am
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Originally Posted by Jumpgate
Also, the complete lack of updates to the monitors, 800 numbers etc, is very common with most airlines, although US is particularly bad at it. It's common practice for the "on time" departure time to come and go with no plane at the gate. I've learned to add 15 - 20 minutes to whatever time the GA announces, so if the incoming flight it "scheduled" to arrive at 6:10, it's actually arriving more around 6:25 ... and since it's "arriving" at 6:10, they post a departure of 6:25!
I find that most other airlines are fine about FLIFO on their mainline equipment and wholly owned express operators, much less so with the contract express operators.

I find US (particularly the website) to be worthless anymore. flightaware.com is more accurate than most sources of information from US.
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Old Mar 26, 2007, 10:44 am
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Originally Posted by liberty805
Even though it was late and I could just head for home, my curiosity got the best of me and I too headed over to Customer Services to see how these passengers were treated. WOW! No respect whatsoever. Quickly the line formed to over 20 passengers with just two agents working the desk. Normally this might not be so bad, except each agent took forever and a day to help the passengers. After 45 minutes, and I’m not exaggerating, the line had not moved and the first two passengers who had gotten in the line were still working with the agents. 45 minutes. It was close to midnight before the line moved even 2 people.
You stayed for 45 minutes to watch the rebooking line? I like watching train wrecks in slow motion as much as the next guy, but that seems a bit excessive.
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Old Mar 26, 2007, 10:47 am
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To the OP - You did a good job of documenting what you observed. I really would urge you to send that in an email to the VP's in charge of Cust Service East and West. You might have to dig around a bit to get thier email addresses or the email addresses of thier admns. They should read what you wrote. Both the Managers on duty at IAH and PHL that night should be spoken too in my humble opinion.

Providing misinformation , in my mind, is far worse than no information. Ideally they just should have been honest with the folks in IAH.

45 minutes a person for rebooking is ridiculous. Maybe thier hope was that the others in line would grow tired and just leave.

What was the cause of the delay in the first place? I'm thinking something under the airlines control if they were offering hotel vouchers. BTW - The FA on board probably just repeated what the GA in IAH told her about connections -why I don't know - trusting sole that she apparently was - and gullible.
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Old Mar 26, 2007, 10:48 am
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This is almost exactly what happened to me in CLT on 3/11.....only the GA came on board on arrival and announced 2 cities that connections left, the rest are either holding or delayed.....ran from the end of B to the end of C only to find out my flight had left 30 minutes earlier. That was the start of a whole evening of lies and miserable US employees.
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Old Mar 26, 2007, 11:01 am
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I don't believe anything the monitors say anymore.
If I suspect my inbound aircraft may be late, I go online to flightaware and try and find out information for myself.
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Old Mar 26, 2007, 11:03 am
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As a consumer, I wish I had the ability to FINE USAirways $100 everytime we pull up to a gate and an agent doesn't come to the jetway within 120 seconds. I think that is fully reasonble and there should be absolutely NO excuse for 100+ folks to misconnect and be stressed to the max about connections due to the inability of PHL's cadre of employees to manage to get to the getways within a reasonable amount of time.

As I understand it, the cabin crews working each flights are paid from the moment the aircraft door closes until it reopens again at the destination. That makes it all the more bewildering that the airline itself doesn't insist on agents' presenting themselves immediately upon aircraft arrival to work the jetways. (i.e. there is a significant incentive for the airline itself to insist on immediate jetway operation for each arriving aircraft, but they still don't seem to put much urgency behind it.)

Truthfully, in my flights with other domestic carriers (or international carriers, for that matter), this is simply not an issue. PHL seems to have the monopoly on this miserable behavior.

What's the deal?!?!?!
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Old Mar 26, 2007, 11:05 am
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Originally Posted by silverthief2
You stayed for 45 minutes to watch the rebooking line? I like watching train wrecks in slow motion as much as the next guy, but that seems a bit excessive.

Well I had befriended someone who was in this mess and I wanted to make sure she got out ok. But yes, it was probably a bit silly too.
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Old Mar 26, 2007, 11:14 am
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Originally Posted by sbtinme
As a consumer, I wish I had the ability to FINE USAirways $100 everytime we pull up to a gate and an agent doesn't come to the jetway within 120 seconds. I think that is fully reasonble and there should be absolutely NO excuse for 100+ folks to misconnect and be stressed to the max about connections due to the inability of PHL's cadre of employees to manage to get to the getways within a reasonable amount of time.

Truthfully, in my flights with other domestic carriers (or international carriers, for that matter), this is simply not an issue. PHL seems to have the monopoly on this miserable behavior.
This is what is so infuriating. In 20 years of flying I can't recall this ever happening to me anywhere (maybe I've been lucky), but in the past year or so its happened to me several times at PHL.
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Old Mar 26, 2007, 11:22 am
  #11  
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Originally Posted by liberty805
This is what is so infuriating. In 20 years of flying I can't recall this ever happening to me anywhere (maybe I've been lucky), but in the past year or so its happened to me several times at PHL.
I agree. I had this experience at PHL last month. My inbound flight from BOS was delayed on the ground in BOS for more than 2 hours (while the flight leaving an hour later went out roughly on time. ). We got to PHL and there was no one to run the gate. It took at least 10 minutes before someone showed up. I ran to the next concourse to catch my connecting flight, the last of the night to PHX, and they were pulling the jetway back from the plane. I missed it -- and spent the night in PHL on my own dime because of "weather."

Had the gate agent met our flight, I would have made my connection -- a US problem. Had we gone out of BOS in order of the schedule, rather than the flight scheduled an hour later going out an hour ahead of us, I would have made my connection -- another US problem. But do you think US took responsibility for anything? (It's a rhetorical question. )
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Old Mar 26, 2007, 11:26 am
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Originally Posted by sbtinme
As a consumer, I wish I had the ability to FINE USAirways $100 everytime we pull up to a gate and an agent doesn't come to the jetway within 120 seconds.
More reason the entire staff at PHL should be fired. Their salaries could then be used to subsidize Jet A to bring back the 27's and D9's with their integrated airstairs.
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Old Mar 26, 2007, 11:27 am
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Originally Posted by VA Maddog
45 minutes a person for rebooking is ridiculous. Maybe thier hope was that the others in line would grow tired and just leave.

What was the cause of the delay in the first place? I'm thinking something under the airlines control if they were offering hotel vouchers. BTW - The FA on board probably just repeated what the GA in IAH told her about connections -why I don't know - trusting sole that she apparently was - and gullible.
And like I said, the 45 minutes is not an exaggeration either. I almost wish I had gotten out my camera and made a video of it--yeah it would be kind of like watching a cut apple turn to brown--just to prove that 45 minutes really went by with the same two customers at the front of the line and everyone else getting more and more restless. The two employees didn't exactly look like like they were 100% proficient (duh) and there were a constant stream of other employees coming and going which distracted them from time to time. Right before I left, they added a third employee to the desk.

As for the delay, the only explanation came from the pilot who told us they were delayed leaving Philly on the flight down because the flights were leaving to the EAST instead of the West and that always causes delays.
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Old Mar 26, 2007, 11:28 am
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Originally Posted by Travels2mch
This is almost exactly what happened to me in CLT on 3/11.....only the GA came on board on arrival and announced 2 cities that connections left, the rest are either holding or delayed.....ran from the end of B to the end of C only to find out my flight had left 30 minutes earlier. That was the start of a whole evening of lies and miserable US employees.
If you ran to catch the flight (which despite what the GA said, had already departed), and you tripped and fell, could you sue the airline?
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Old Mar 26, 2007, 3:11 pm
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I once had a 2002 flight be six plus hours late and we finally landed at 2:03 a.m. but pretty much everywhere at CLT, online and what was eventaully reported to the federal government showed the plane landing 10 minutes early! I actually got an alert when my plane "landed" at MCI EARLY when I'm sitting at CLT, my plane CLT-MCI is still at EWR and is no where close to leaving to come to CLT! But yet the alert says my plane and me and Mr. Zipadee have landed at MCI.
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