OPFlyer

InsiderCO

!revresbo detseretni na tsuJ, oN

otralot

actually it seems like late here was a matter of 5 minutes whic should be recoverable of not material.

I do think OP should get milies back on the non-FC portions. They paid for FC and didn't get it. Simple as that.

I have experienced this frustartion before--albeit not with the medical situation--and it is frustrating to miss a flight by 30 seconds or 2 minutes. Once had a flight misconnected in the system when I arrived at the airport before the flight left. I wnet to cehck at podium they told me I wouldnt make it and had been rebooked. Since my flight was not yet supposed to be departing I was a bit miffed. However, I ran to the next gate and sure enough the door had just been closed, Had I not stopped to ask I would have made it. GRRRRRRRRRR.

ralfp

You admit you were not on your best behavior; many people here (and in the real world) don't have the guts to do that. kudos ^ Hope your injury heals quickly.

So the CO RC said that the decision whether or not to call a LEO hinged upon your status. That's only inviting more of the "I'm xxx status with you, so you better kiss my $#! and bow." attitude.

Planes do wait for people. It's not silly or out of line to ask, especially when CO and other airlines do hold aircraft for connecting passengers. Unless you know that the crew never forwards such requests, it was reasonable and prudent to ask.

Regarding the Percocet with alcohol, while it's not the best idea, an otherwise healthy adult male taking a normal dose of both a single time shouldn't really have a problem. Of course the combo makes you loopier than either alone. During regular use I'd be more concerned about the APAP (Tylenol) in the Percocet interacting with the alcohol in a bad way. (I am not a doctor; ignore me).

Seems reasonable to me.

Clearly the OP is insane.

SEA-Risk

Thanks for all the productive comments thus far, and even the unproductive ones.....A few points of clarification:

It is not my intention to rant, particuarly since I don't like unedited ranting in others. I've tried to include as much self critique as possible and have layed out the facts as I see them in support of the question that I posit...As with most adverse travel experiences, there are actually two flights - the factual one in terms of what, when, where, how, why and the emotive one that tends to modify and colour the actual one. I've tried to segregate the "emotional" part from the "actual" part to the best of my ability. If it still seems like ranting, hey sorry, but at least I tried. With respect to some of the more unsavory aspects of my behaviour during that day I will say that I've never, and I mean never, acted towards any CO personnel in that way before. But I think that this instance the combination of the severe pain (as an aside, the total number of broken bones was 8, which have been fixed by 11 screws and 3 plates), the perscription medicine and the frustration acted to create a perfect storm. Again, not proud of my behaviour, but I've seen people completely lose their cool under much less trying cirumstances.

I think that JEdward's comments come fairly closely to what I'm trying to say. Most of the issues in this board are really questions of supply and demand. There's way too much demand for the supply, and how CO allocates these scarce resources, whether they be seats, upgrades, on time departures, PC access, or whatever, in terms of cost benefit, and whether we as consumers (each with our specific points of desire and advocacy) agree with CO's decisions is really the point.

In this instance, I'm saying that I intuitively don't agree with CO in terms of the cost-benefit judgement call for not holding the plane, but I don't have all the facts and therefore am throwing out the issue to the forum. The facts on "my" side of the balance sheet, as I see them in descending order of priority are A. I had a medical emergency that I made CO aware of well in advance (that's my duty as a passenger), B. the missed connection time was only 3 minutes C. the gates were right accross from each other, D. there's no reason to suspect that they wouldn't have made up any lost time in the air (of course I can't verify this) and E. customer loyalty/status. The facts on the other side of the equation are also numerous for the various reasons outlined by other posters.

Clearly, someone at CO makes the judgement calls for hold/release, and if they've got the ability to somehow process and collate all this information and still released the plane, then I think shame on them. If they don't have the ability to take all of this into account, then that's something that we as consumers should strive for CO to perhaps pay attention to in the future. The third option is that there are facts out there of which I'm not cognizant, and that cycles back into my original question....

My specific experience and reaction may seem to some like whining, but you never know when you'll be in the same situation, and I certainly wouldn't want anybody repeat my experience. As such, I hope that there's some benefit, tangential or otherwise, that can be brought to bear from sharing this experience. I mean, after all, is that one of the primary purposes of the forum.

Thanks.

sbm12

The people making the decisions on whether to hold a flight or not generally do not have access to A nor E. Also, A doesn't require them to do anything other than provide a wheelchair. Even if you weren't injured they still wouldn't have held the plane, and your injury shouldn't change that one way or the other. D requires additional fuel burn, which is something that has to be planned for well in advance, plus that costs real money. B and C could factor in to the Ops planning, but that also assumes that they are holding the plane at the gate until the departure time. With the "all passengers must be on board 10 minutes prior to departure" rule, you were actually 13 minutes late, not just 3.

Yeah, it stinks, and being high and drunk all at once probably clouded your judgment, yielding some actions on your part that probably didn't help your case with and of the CSRs you interacted with, but I see very little that CO did completely wrong in this case. Sure, it would've been better if you had been rebooked automatically in F so all you had to do was show up, but that doesn't always work so well, as you found out.

S.

Xyzzy

Actually, they do have access to your elite status. The Ops folks in Houston told us on the tour that that is one of the things they take into account in situations like this!

JetSet78

My understanding as well. If this wasn't the case and travel was completed in F, I can't say that I'd see CO coming through with anything beyond goodwill.

Xyzzy

he was in F on the first return segment. From the first post: "Our seats back on the MIA-IAH (CO 391 - departure time 2:50)and IAH-SEA (CO 667 departure time 5:20) legs were respectively 1A/1B and 2A/2B."

I'd say that a partial mileage return on a goodwill basis would be a nice gesture but is in no way necessary.

While I certainly echo the sentiment that coming clean here regarding being drunk/abusive tells us much more of the story, one can also see how airport personnel would not take kindly to it. I know that if I were placed into that situation I wouldn't.

sbm12

I was in a different session than you on that tour, but I don't remember them mentioning that.

I know that they consider total number of affected pax, but I did not think that the status played into it. Either way, I'm still not surprised that they didn't hold it.

SEA-Risk

You're correct - IAH to LAX on CO was Y. LAX to SEA on AS was also ticketed Y on the connection that I missed in LAX, but since they got me on an irregular ops plane (the redirected OC-SEA plane that isn't regularly scheduled LAX) and I'm AS MVPG I managed to grab open F seat -but I don't think they adjusted my ticket....how this leg is handled in terms of potential miles refund I have absolutely no idea....

JetSet78

I still wouldn't bet on compensation, but I also wouldn't bet that CO knew of the last minute F accommodation on AS, especially if it wasn't wasn't changed in your reservation.

It doesn't hurt to ask, especially if you have the same approach you did here.

FatManInNYC

My sympathies for the OP, sounds like you had a tough go of it. Here's to hoping you are doing it better. ^

Adding to xyzzy's comments: any use of a swear word, even if neither offensive in context nor said above a whisper, will draw a red card. I think this is unfortunate at some level as customers can cause a whole lot more ruckus w/out swearing than that caused by the muted f-bomb. Nonetheless, airline/ airport staff are trained to use any issuance of a curse word as an excuse not to provide service.

Thanks for posting, it's a cautionary tale for us all.

Safe travels!

WineIsGood

Sorry to hear about your injuries

Unfortunately, I think that what would have normally been an annoying misconnect became a more extreme situation given your injuries. In the same painful situation, many of us would have been on not-our-best behavior (kudos to you for admitting it). Had there been more people on your flight making the same connection you were, CO may have held the flight for you, but barring that I wouldn't expect CO to hold a flight because a passenger is injured. Sorry about the rough trip you had to get through

sfogate

Tough situation for everyone. For the most part, the only thing a GA will read is the incoming message, stating that a wheelchair is needed. Unless more is placed in that message (by the departing city GA) we have no idea why you need a wheelchair unless we look into your PNR, and that would also mean that someone would have had to document why you needed a whch, of which they are not required to do.

Being rude is rude. Next time just say excuse me, turn your back and swear. Then the agent knows that you are not "attacking" them, because that is how your swearing and yelling is perceived.

Hope you feel better soon.