TomBascom

He said that it should be enjoyable.

He's right and it's worth fighting for. Anything less is victory for the bad guys.

deelmakur

Airline managements, like those of sports teams, seem to consist of the same people, moving fom place to place. Generally, this does not contribute to innovative thinking. Firstly, these guys can do anything they want. Look at Delta, which posts the number of remaining open first class seats, and sells them right at the gate. Seondly, and in my mind more importantly, the real culprit has been the loss of discretionary authority by the line employee. After the customer, management has decided the employee is the second biggest enemy. In the midst of the fear and loathing the companies have created, you find this kind of counterintuitive behavior.

ibrandsguest

The lesson of this as well is that you can't just follow every word a gate agent says and follow every instruction given, since at least sometimes what you are told is just to make the employee's life, not yours, easier, and is sometimes incorrect. If the "guards" in front of the kiosks don't want you to go to a ticket agent, stand your ground until you win. If the gate agent tells you some piece of idiocy that will inconvenience you, stand your ground until you win. People on flyertalk.com probably know the US Airways rules better than some employees do. You can be firm yet polite and win in these kinds of situations. And at airports other than LGA (and PHL), usually the frontline people will bend over backwards to help you- LGA and PHL are the exceptions.

gnaget

I can't believe that people are splitting hairs to defend US. I was expecting the topic to be something like "I fly UA regularly and now with the codeshare I tried US -- it has filthy, disgusting planes with worn out seats." Would you be defending US on this issue as well?

I remember as recently as 7/2001 I walked up to a CO gate at EWR and purchased a ticket for $$$$. The good old days, I suppose, and to view this as a security threat is silly. Also in 2001 I recall purchasing 800 milers on US at the gate when my UG cleared so that I could enjoy one of those wonderful grey vinyl seats with the pen marks and encrusted dirt.

FlyerAl

FWIW, I've always had better experiences dealing with gate agents in PHL. Sure, Philadelphia doesn't breed the "warmest" of customer service staff but when it comes to finding solutions, the PHL agents are more more competent than the ones in PIT - at least based on my experience. PIT seems to have an abundance of grumpy elderly folks who could care less if you're protected on a later flight or if your upgrade is confirmed, etc. Except for the staff in the PIT Clubs...those folks are friendly.

LGA_UAL

HA does, at least for intra-island flights. They have a "Standby Line," and basically they count seats and start boarding from this line of people and take essentially whatever travel document you have.

TomBascom

Exactly. PHL is far and away the best place to get a tough situation resolved.

danM

While that may be true, it probably would have taken her even longer than going back to the ticket counter...

[This message has been edited by danM (edited 06-23-2003).]

chemist661

I flew UA this past weekend. I wanted to come back early on Saturday & was able to standby for no charge.

When I fly US, I am aware that there is a $25 charge to standby & I usually don't pay it. If I arrive early on a connection, I will just stay in the club instead of paying the $25. What do they gain from me? Nothing.

Boraxo

Can we all agree:

(1) The $25 fee is an idiotic policy, in light of the fact that it provides a disincentive to take a seat that would otherwise fly empty?

(2) The policy is not competitive with other airlines (e.g. UA) and therefore provides a disincentive to fly US Air?

I think United got it right by going with a fee to CONFIRM a change, vs. a free standby change. The USAir policy will not incentivize business travelers to buy higher fare tickets; rather it will encourage us to fly other airlines which do not nickel and dime us on our travel.

StSebastian

I think the issue comes up because people that would have bought more expensive tickets for a certain time of the day instead were buying cheaper tickets for later that day and going to standby for earlier flights (buy a V class and then standby for the Y1 V0 plane that was 2 hours earlier). I'm not saying that it is the right thing, but US does lose something by not being able to sell that seat to the original person for the higher amount, which is probably why they want the $25. Not that I'd ever pay it. I'd just wait for the later flight and hopefully get bumped.

It still seems to me like you'd want to let someone on earlier because it opens up a later seat on a perishable resource that could potentially be sold to another person coming up for the later flight. But that's probably why I'm not in the airline business doing capacity assessments and fare rule decisions.

geo1005

Yes! 100% agreement here!

PineyBob

IMHO episodes like the original post continue to reinforce my point that the major airlines only need look in the mirror to see the single biggest reason for their current situation. Sure 9/11 and the resultant debacle known as TSA are not helping, but when you continue to view your customers as the enemy or much worse sheep to be sheared or lambs led to slaughter then it should come as no surprise to senior management that the average traveler hates them and business travelers turn into scamming cockroaches like me, working and leveraging the system in every way possible.

JS

That doesn't make any sense. If a flight has seats for sale, anyone can buy one. If people don't want to pay full fare, they don't have to, and I don't blame them.

If you buy a ticket with a time restriction (off-peak), you have to pay a fare difference to take a peak flight.

Not necessarily. If I have a ticket leaving three weeks from now, I would love to standby for the flight leaving in 30 minutes. Even if there more empty seats than occupied seats on the plane, the airline is not going to let me on just to open up a seat on my originally scheduled flight three weeks from now. That's why they have yield management systems, so that there is almost always a seat available for sale at full fare.

There are times when flying out earlier is helpful to the airline's operations (e.g., an approaching thunderstorm), but that's pretty rare. In most cases standby travel benefits only the passenger, not the airline. The $25 makes up for that difference.

Kramer1

I have never been charged a stand by fee with US Airways. I have no special status directly with them, I always use my United Premier Executive account. At least twice a month, I fly out of CLT to TPA. I usually pre-book the 4PM, but always get to the airport early and catch either the noon, or 2pm. Now, I do check in for my normally scheduled flight, and change it at the gate.