liberty805

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?