Blitzjb

You get what you pay for...

Some passengers spent more than 12 hours waiting at Long Island MacArthur Airport on Wednesday night for an Orlando-bound flight that was delayed multiple times.

The Frontier Airlines flight was scheduled for 7:10 p.m. Wednesday but didn’t depart until 7:45 a.m. Thursday, according to information on the airline’s website.

The flight was initially delayed for maintenance, “which then led to a crew issue with the flight,” a spokesman for Frontier said in an email. “Due to this crew issue the flight took an additional delay until a new crew could be moved into place.”

The spokesman said passengers were “informed by our team members at the airport of the delay.”

Passengers were given $15 food vouchers and a $200 flight voucher to be used within 90 days, according to Aaron Charles, who was on the flight.

Charles, 27, of Ridge, was headed to Lakeland, Florida, for a wedding, he said. He arrived at the airport around 5 p.m. Wednesday when he noticed his flight was delayed about an hour. He didn’t think much of it at first, he said, but then the departure was pushed back to 10 p.m., then midnight, and again and again.

“They said it was weather at first, then because of maintenance,” he said. “It was excuse after excuse.”

Another passenger, Hannah Duffield, 17, of Blue Point, said she was upset they weren’t given more information about the status of their flight.

She and her father were flying to Florida to tour the University of Florida and the University of Tampa, Duffield said.

When they first learned of a delay, they decided to hold off on driving to MacArthur and luckily didn’t spend the night at the airport, but were still up all night checking their departure time, she said.

“I think the worst part is that the communication wasn’t there,” Duffield said.

synergistic

This is one of my fears with WN, and all carriers who lack interline agreements. I don't think WN would have been able to get passengers out any earlier if one of their evening flights was unreasonably delayed. Heck, at smaller airports, even interline agreements won't help.

In the 'you get what you pay for' department, though, these passengers paid $20 for a seat and were given $200 in vouchers - I don't know what else Frontier could/should have realistically done for them.

joshua362

I used to love WN at ISP but this can happen to anyone at anytime - and with the same lack of definitive concrete information. At least the flight went off - if WN simply cancelled you might not be able to get out for days even on a $500 one way fare. Price doesn't equate to service, especially at a smaller airport like ISP. At least the local people has a reasonably short ride home, can't say that about a LGA trek. And the media loves to exploit the misery...

Often1

And the likely ticket savings on the dirt cheap NYC-MCO routes on other carriers?

Cheapest ticket does not equate to least expensive trip. Not only are there no alternatives, but F9 does not even interline.

I have no idea what the F9 tickets cost, but to put this in perspective, if this happened right now, there are DL seats tomorrow for $190. F9 can't interline, but the passengers are entitled to a full refund and could then head off to JFK.

WN, B6 (domestic), and F9 don't interline. This is one of their drawbacks and it is why many businesses don't permit employees to use those carriers in most circumstances.

lougord99

I have had American flat out refuse to put me on a UA flight when they were unable to get me onto a Aa flight until tomorrow. I have never understood what the glories of interlining are all about.

birdiedouble

I've flown Allegiant out of SYR and IAG to PIE a few times to simply fly down to drive a car back. Every time I have flown them there have been major communication issues and one time there were people that were hanging out after a 2 day delay with no one in the gate area from the airline. It was pretty ugly. I would never fly a 3 day a week airline if I really needed to be somewhere for something important, no matter what the savings were.

synergistic

DL pulled that on me once, back when they supposedly still interlined with AA. Made me drive down to MCO (from DAB) just to get out the same day, wouldn't cover the shuttle cost because they wanted me to just wait till the next morning to fly out locally. Ended up with a decent service recovery in SM, but I was still all kinds of upset with them for a good while.

DCP2016

AA, B6, and DL like doing this out of DAB, either they want you to wait for the next day or they make you go to JAX or MCO at your cost.

That and I don't get the whole "interline" thing with AA, DL, and UA considering unless you are a serious frequent flier with them, 99.99% of the time they will refuse to put you on another carrier.

synergistic

I haven't had the opportunity to fly B6 out of DAB, but I'm not surprised they pull the same thing. I never minded when AA did it to me, because I'd matched to Plat (later just Gold) and they always gave me a shuttle voucher and either a pile of miles or a chunk of AA spending money. I doubt they were so generous with their kettles.

N830MH

Unacceptable! They don't like delays, delays over, over again and again. This is last warning for Frontier Airlines. They could be worst. They didn't listen to those passengers and something isn't right. They have to be on-time and don't be delays. I think those customers will have find another airlines to fly out of ISP. That's big problems!

tmiw

A lot of people fly solely on cost so I imagine a significant number will continue to fly them despite the issues. Regulation would fix this but I don't see that happening any time soon either.

Blitzjb

We were just about the get on a ISP-PBI flight a few weeks ago. As we were about to board the plane was taken out of service for mechanical reasons. SW had a plane arriving from Tampa in 3 hours. They turned that plane around quickly for us and handed out $100 vouchers---my wife even got one although she was flying as a free companion. They also did't charge for drinks on the flight.

LegalTender

I don't see that - or the F9 case - proving a larger storyline. Both airlines famously try to do more with less. If UA has a ratio of 11 mechanics per plane and Southwest has 3, any cockpit "warning light" is going to take longer to clear.

t325

I don't get why interline agreements even need to be a thing. If things have gone this far south, an airline employee should be able to whip out a corporate credit card and book people on another airline the old fashioned way.

Huh? Delays happen, this could have just as easily been Southwest. I had a Southwest DTW-STL flight last year, scheduled to leave at 8 PM, didn't leave until 4 AM. It sucks, but it happens to all airlines.

LegalTender

The interlining dividend kicks in during a system meltdown outage with 1800 flights cancelled. Giving away revenue to another airline in times of trouble is still done. An interline agreement doesn’t mean the airlines HAVE to accept passengers in all circumstances. In most cases, it should be found revenue.