US airways is not being fair...
 

I'm at PHL right now, at gate F5.

There's a 22 year-old young man whose flight was cancelled or delayed, and he got separated from his 2 checked bags. He's trying to get on another flight home that has 13 free seats. He's not allowed on the flight because he has 2 checked bags coming in from another flight. The agent says that they are not going to pay for his bags to be sent home (so he can get on this flight with 13 free seats). She also claims that TSA do not allow passengers to board another flight if they have checked bags (which may be true).

Now, they're telling him that they are not going to pay for his hotel. He can only take the next flight in the morning and either sleep at the airport or pay for his own hotel.

He demands to speak with her supervisor. She refuses. He demands the name of her supervisor. She gives him her own name...

I'm not sure what the proper procedures are, but this just seems grossly unfair that there was first a delay to his flight that caused him to have to change flights, and now US Airways are unwilling to let him on another flight, and are not willing to pay for his accommodation on his forced overnight. Granted I don't know the exact details of his original delay, but in any case it makes my own 3+ hours delay seem like a sunny day.

I'm glad I'm no longer a US airways frequenter (not that UA is much better these days).

If it is not a weather delay he is entitled to paid hotel accommodations. Most airlines will allow you to fly without your bag If domestic flight. Wild recommend he call US Airways and politely ask them for help. I don't know if US has a redcoat but if not I would go to another gate and ask them for help or a supervisor.

Turnaround!
 

OK. Now, the agent at the gate was terrible, but the captain and flight attendant (small regional plane) were awesome on my flight!

So there's a tornado warning in Philly, and we had to walk outside to get on the plane while it's pouring harder and harder.

For some reason, a few passengers really don't get that you have to gate-check large carry-ons. A few customers take about 30-60 seconds arguing with the flight attendant but eventually yield (all this time holding up people behind in heavy rain).

Then this ~50 year-old man flat out refuses to gate-check his bag. He argues with the flight attendant for at least 5 minutes, the captain eventually comes out and literally tells him who's in charge. After another 5 minutes, the whole plane is basically chanting "throw him out! throw him out! throw him out!". Surely enough, the captain's seen enough and orders the man off the plane (threatening to get the security involved).

Now that made my day and made me forget about the long delay and poor 22-year old who's still stuck at the airport. :)

If you don't know the details, how can you judge US's decisions? Considering the nasty weather in the Mid-Atlantic today, there is a very good chance that his delay is a weather delay. If so, the passenger is not entitled to a hotel stay or anything else, unfortunately.

As a 1K who sat though a 3 hour delay (with the Phillies game taking a rain delay somewhere in that timeframe), and a tornado warning to boot, it should have been obvious the weather in PHL caused all of this.

As such, US would not be obligated to provide a room.

If there were 13 empties on the flight - and US was not willing to put this guy on the plane, I would think that weather over the whole route must have been the deciding factor. They aren't in the habit of just leaving people stranded for no reason, and my bags have arrived the next day by courier, on US' dime, when weather has separated us.

As far as GA interaction goes - you catch as many flies with .... As you do with honey, but with honey you tend to get a higher quality of fly.

I was traveling between the east coast and west coast this month on a paid first class fare and a very similar thing happened. When, because of a crew delay my regional flight to CLT was delayed and I missed my flight to LAX - I asked special services in CLT for help and they were just clueless. And they assured me that unless my checked bags went with me I would be denied any other routing to get to LAX at a reasonable time. I knew there were plenty of routings but they would not budge because of my checked luggage.

For my benefit, the US reservations system had already rerouted me in FC without even needing the help of a human and I was only delayed about two hours to get to LAX. The baggage thing seems silly but now I know.

After the bombing of Air India 182 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_India_Flight_182) there were a lot more restrictions on separating a passenger from their checked bags. Without knowing the full story on the Philly passenger I can't say for sure, but I'd imagine if he'd misconnected and been reticketed, and his bags associated with his new routing, it may be against the FAA/NTSB/whoever restrictions. I've been on the wrong end of this myself, on another carrier, when I could have volunteered my seat on SAT-DEN-IAD in favor of a SAT-IAD nonstop plus a voucher but had stupidly checked a bag (and what a travel day that turned out to be!). It's sucky for the passenger, but the rules are made outside the carrier, and I find the airlines do all those FAA-related things by the book more often than not.

The bag situation seems like BS. When you do a move up your bags go on the earlier flight even though you may not. Happened to me to weeks ago. The good news is my bags were already at the airport when I arrived.;)

Plus airlines send "misplaced" luggage on flights everyday.

I'm pretty sure you have to do the Move Up before you check your bag, and that once the bag is checked, you can't do a Move Up any more.

My Mr and I just had a hilarious conversation about the hypthetical terrorist blowing up the wrong plane because the airline lost his bags. I think the whole concept is, if YOU want to be separated from your bags (or increase the chances that the airline will do that for you), it's a red flag, but if it's done without the passenger's knowledge or request, it's less likely that you're trying to blow something up and not blow yourself up with it. I'm not saying that logic is right, although that's exactly what happened in Air India 182--- passenger checked a bomb in his bag then no-showed for the flight; it was a bit more complicated as he requested a multiple-carrier interline on two reservations that were not on the same PNR.

My understanding is that positive bag match is no longer required due to all bags being screened.

I was on a BOS-CLT-LAS flight last year. BOS-CLT was cancelled due to MX. I called the CP line and was rerouted onto BOS-LAS nonstop nine hours later. Since I had nothing better to do I walked back outside of security waited in the baggage line and inquired about my checked bag. The lady told me that they could put in a request to have the bags pulled but since they were already screened for the CLT flight it would be less risky to let them go through the process since pulling it might not be successful.

Turns out my bag when BOS-PHX-LAS and was in LAS hours before my arrival. Good service from US as I was highly doubting my bag would be there when I arrived.

OP only knows what he saw/heard and can't possibly know the facts. Perhaps the other pax was a selectee for one reason or another and a positive bag match had been ordered for him (something the GA would not discuss with the pax or in public).

And, as to WX -- which is the most likely explanation for last night -- the pax wasn't entitled to compensation of any kind. It's just a risk of travel that there's bad weather and one is late.

While there was a tornado warning, it didn't really seem like many flights were delayed as a result. My own delay was because the crew couldn't arrive in time, due to a maintenance delay in charlottesville (even though our plane from clt to ewr was ready to roll). The plane the stranded guy (let's call him bob) was trying to get on was also not delayed.

The issue was really that his bags were somehow not with him. May have been that the bags didn't make it on to his original flight, and got delayed on the flight that they were on. If the plane that his bags were on got delayed, would US be liable to pay for lodging in that case?

Anyhow, just seems absurd to me that bob couldn't just get on the plane with the 13 free seats. And then not providing lodging (and no comp) was just kicking him in the nuts while he's down.

I certainly don't know the FAA/TSA policy on positive bag matching, but I was under the impression that the rule, government- or carrier-imposed, applied to those who voluntarily wished to change a flight without obvious need. I would imagine there would be an exception, at least in enforcement, for those whose current booking is grossly delayed or canceled.

It should seem obvious that a pax with a 12- or 24-hour delay is not trying to get on an earlier flight because he wants to avoid a suicide mission. Can reason not win out?

My bags frequently make it to Boston before I do. They end up on the next flight leaving out of PHL that is not quite a legal connection length for me (which I know full well I could make as long as flights are on time)...

Just not true. They won't deliver your bags at no charge to your house.

However, all airports now have positive bag screening and there is absolutely no requirement that you fly with your bags.