deelmakur

For some time, I have argued the folly of driving more traffic through the weak spot in the system, Express. Monday night, I show up at LGA for a 5:05 prop job to PHL. Already, it shows 5:45, but I see another flight leaivng in 20 minutes, which I can make. Go to the gate, where two agents, whose command of the English language is such that they can't construct a sentence, are simultaneously berating two customers over something, which seems to have to do with not getting on an originating flight. By the time they get to me, it's down to 10 minutes. She looks at me and says, "it's too late, we boarded, and the paper work is done." She also insists it's 3:55, when it's actually 3:50 (I happen to set my watch with a satellite driven clock). I dutifully go to the Club to see what the situation is with the delayed flight, and the lady says, "well you know they are still boarding the 3:59". I tell her what happened, and she calls the Express manager on duty, who refuses to speak with her when he hears what she wants. I give up, wait, and board the now 5:45 (which actually leaves at 6, and then runs smack into a 40 minute ramp delay). I subsequently check the website, and learn the thing was late in the first place because there was no crew. We eventually land in Philly, an hour late, and come to a screeching stop in a holding area, where the pilot announces there is so much ramp congestion, it will be at least 20 more minutes to get to the gate. By the time we do, there are misconnects. It's a race to the shuttle bus, which is packed fuller than a Tokyo subway, and driven like a ride from Great Adventure, dumping passengers all over the place. as it twists across the tarmac.

So there it is. The "new" Philly. It sort of resembles the old one. I'm sorry, but I don't think they are ever coming up for air on this one. It's just a matter of time, and you don't have to look very far to see why.

kreeft

It does seem that many of the express stations - especially the larger express stations - seem to hire many people who have trouble with the english language. It definitely has been a pain for me on multiple occasions. Never really had a problem mainline though. Although, some of my friends when flying through CLT thought that the southern drawl was a foreign language. Being from Tennessee, I had no problem.

jcooke

Philly was the WORST that I have ever seen it last night.

Be glad your flight made it in.

dcjono

I've never had a very good experience with Express in and out of LGA. Actually, I now avoid it at all costs.
I've always liked the Club staff there, though!

mbmbbost

I got one of the automated phone calls last night informing me that my flight LAX/PHL was 575 minutes late because of air traffic congestion in PHL affecting the inbound plane. Obviously a mistake, that's almost 10 hours! The inbound plane coming from PHL was 3 or 4 hours late though, and my flight was posted to leave at 1:30 AM instead of 10 PM. A great agent in LAX got me on another flight at 10:30 PM through CLT. Incidentally, this was the first time I'd seen LAX without a Preferred or First Class line. Is this routine now? I was sick when I saw the line winding towards the doors.

no upgrade for u

In my opinion, based solely on my own personal experiences in the last couple of months, this is not endemic to Philly, or LGA or express operations, but rather symptomatic of US as a whole. There is no one in a position of authority interested in running an airline, so there is no focus, accountability, performance metrics, etc. to measure results. Thus you have horrific operations, terrible customer service - and soon no customers or airline.

AtlanticBeach

The FC/ Preferred line is there, at least it was on Sunday AM. However, the entry to the line is in the middle of the US counter. The regular line just snakes past it, obscuring the sign.

BTW, if you are a Club member, next time you are there, take the elevator up to security and bypass the regular security line. My guess is that it will work if you flash your Preferred Card, too.

BamaVol

As an aside, I hosted visitors from the UK last year. After checking into his hotel, one told me it was the frist time he had heard the color red pronounced in two syllables, possibly three.

geo1005

the maker of deals is correct...

These guys could over-engineer an orgasm. Passengers show up at LAX (one of the largest airports in the WORLD!!!) and can't find the FC line??? The Express agents won't put a CP on a flight that's sitting right there??? These fools will order an express agent to save three keystrokes to get a flight out on time. In the mean time they are loosing passengers faster than the Lusitania.

Of course... anyone in management who is trying to look at the forest from the trees is blindsided by the unions yelling "full pay until the last day" in one ear while their bean-counter bretheren in the next cubbie are touting how much $$$ they are "saving" by using plastic cups in a first class cabin that, because it sucks so much, no one is willing to pay for anyway!


Slip sliddin' away...
Slip sliddin' awaaaaayyyyyy....

You know the nearer your destination,
the more your slip sliddin' away.... - Paul Simon

ClueByFour

Or, for US' attitude towards it's leisure travel crowd, see http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=329705

mbmbbost

I think last night was probably an aberration (I hope). The signs were there, but not in the usual place. I asked an agent, and she said "there's only one line tonight." She was as nice as could be though, I must say that. And thanks for the tip on the Club/security line. Fortunately this time there was practically no security line at all. I will remember that in the future though when the Southwest hordes are there..

GadgetFreak

Let me summarize:

Make a customer wait 10 minutes because 2 agents are dealing (wrongly with one customer)

Someone from the Club tries to call and the Express person wont talk to them. Im guessing the Express person wast fired, they should have been.

PHL is a mess. Whoever decided to make PHL a hub should have been fired. Well, maybe they already have been if it was Dave.

The people in the Club at LGA are fantastic. When I was flying US and doing a hundred segments a year for year after year out of LGA I had a lot of interactions with them. They are the best. I feel so sorry for them being stuck with this operation. Hopefully it will work out for them once US completes its implosion.

By the way, as I recall LGA will be one of the important US "focus cities" in the future. As if. As soon as I saw more flights through PHL and less through PIT in my future that was enough handwriting on the wall for me. I cant imagine the remainder of flyers out of LGA will be long behind. I was flying on AA a few weeks ago out of LGA and the limo driver kept talking about how happy he was JetBlue was coming to LGA and how US was the worst airline operating out of LGA. I was shocked at the level of hatred, and that really is the word, he had for US. Im afraid that is way to common. He had flown them a few times plus had to wait to pick up passengers from them. It really is a shame they cant do something to salvage the core of employees who care.