Originally Posted by
johnsmith
I had a similiar experience as the OP at IAD a few months ago--I was in the boarding area on my phone and the gate agent decided not to use the microphone to announce the RJ boarding--only 8 or 9 people on the plane and they boarded quick and jetted out (had been a delay that was moved earlier).
I could see the podium (not the gate area) where I was standing and well after the plane left (at something like 5:05 pm), the podium still said delayed until 5:30 pm. When I realized the plane was gone I calmly explained why I was annoyed to the agent and then snapped some pictures of the podium display showing the plane should have been delayed another 20-25 min.
A few minutes later, some of Virginia's finest showed up because the gate agent tried to claim I was creating a security risk by taking pictures in the gate areas. The cop and I had a good laugh and the CO IAD station manager came over and gave me $100 travel cert as an apology.
Here's an example of the opposite, this happened with UA.
TWICE (same flights two weeks apart) at SDF the UA GA called "Final boarding" for a flight and gave all of the horrendous consequences--forfeiture of your seat, paying fees to reconfirm, public pillory and flogging, etc--and I RAN to the gate and handed him my boarding pass thinking that I had somehow missed the call. He told me to sit and boarding would start shortly. Thinking that I was having a brain fart of epic levels and somehw I didn't really hear this oaf call "final boarding", I sat down. Two weeks later the same schmuck on the same flight at the same gate did the same thing. This time I confronted him and asked why he would call final boarding when they hadn't yet started boarding. He said "It gets people here so I don't have to wait for them." I called the statoin manager and the airline and they both could not have cared less.
This is the kind of inexcuseable incompetence that runs so rampant at my "hometown airline" that I shudder to consider what CO will be like if the UA attitude infects it--and I oppose the "partnership" with UA for that very reason. I am worried that othewise good and competent CO employees will see UA employees getting away with this lazy, imbecilic and unprofessional behavior that is clearly sanctioned by UA and decide it's easier to be like them. I hope that CO's people are better than that and that CO will come down on them if they start to get infected with United Incompeto-bacter.
--PP