I no longer like U.S. Airways.
I was heading out of Greensboro to (eventually) FL. I had a little hopper flight between Greensboro and Charlotte (the flight is like 25 minutes from take-off to landing). The weather had been yucky that day. Windy and rainy. I was prepared for delays. I am ok with weather delays. You can't do anything about weather delays....cause...it's weather.
So I get to the airport. Get my ticket, go through security, settle down at the gate. So far there is no word of our flight being delayed. The weather isn't bad at this time. They change the gate I am leaving from, that's ok...it's right next door, I can continue reading my book. I can see the plane I will be going on sitting there--I see them filling the fuel tank, starting to load some luggage into it. I just keep reading.
Another flight is boarding their plane at a nearby gate. I hear some gate agent say something about a flight to Charlotte being delayed. I perk up. Some guy sitting closer to this random gate agent person (not associated with the gate I am leaving through) asked what she said. And yup, over her little walkie talkie I hear some mystery person say that Charlotte has delayed our arrival. Now, I know we are delayed...but they have not announced it at the gate.
About 15 minutes later, they finally announce that our departure time is delayed an hour because Charlotte was allegedly shut down earlier in the day and they are trying to get back on schedule. They even say if you have a connecting flight before a certain time that you need to rebook your connecting flight because you won't make it. My connecting flight was abut 30 minutes later than their cutoff, so I was ok for the time being.
I called my parents to let them know that I was delayed, but as of then I would still arrive in Jacksonville on time (barring any other delays) and that I would call back if something changed. I talked to my mom for a little bit and then it was time to board the plane.
We board. We are sitting there. The cabin door is closed. We are still sitting there. I start wondering why we are not backing away from the gate. I look at my watch. It is a little before our departure time...so maybe we have to wait a few minutes. We sit waiting some more. I look at my watch...uh...shouldn't we be leaving? We sit some more. I hear the little alarm/bell thing of the walkway from the gate to the plane coming back towards the plane. That's not good. The cabin door is opened, some guy in the front row gets off. Ok, that was random. We sit there a bit more. Finally a flight attendant announces that we are delayed again and that if anyone is going to miss their connecting flight and don't want to get stuck in Charlotte they can get off the plane now. A lady about 5 rows in front of me yells to know what time we are leaving so that we can know if we will miss our connecting flights (she didn't yell in an angry way...it was more in a "so the flight attendants all standing at the front of the plane can hear me" way...and really, it was a valid question, because at this point we were supposed to leave about 15 minutes ago). Two people from the back of the plane decided to just get off the plane so they went to the front. The yelling lady stopped one of them and asked them to ask the flight attendants what time we were leaving so that people could know if we would miss our connecting flights. The two people get to the front of the plane. They are standing there for a couple of minutes...then get sent back to their seats. On the way back the guy told the yelling lady that they had no idea when we were leaving. Another 5 or so minutes later the flight attendants announce we are having mechanical issues and that should be repaired "shortly." Had we left on time (on time being from our delayed time to begin with) we'd already be in Charlotte at this point.
The lady behind me is calling the airline to see if her connection is on time and to see if she can get her name on a list for a later flight in case she misses her connection (because we still have no idea when we are leaving). The airline tells her that she will have to wait to get to Charlotte, see if she misses her connection...and if she misses it she can rebook then. Oh, fun. This woman's connecting flight was 10 minute before mine and her flight was delayed about 10 minutes. So I figured mine would also be delayed a little bit. And at this point there was nothing I could do because I was stuck on the plane and had no idea when we would leave.
We finally leave (about an hour after getting on the plane). We get into Charlotte. The flight attendant says that if your connecting flight was at x time or earlier, you may or may not have missed your flight. My connecting flight was at time x. At a gate on the opposite side at the airport. And it may or may not be there. Thanks for your wealth of info! As I am getting off the plane I get a text update about my connecting flight saying it is delayed 15 minutes. Which...gives me 15 minutes to try to get on the plane!
I get off the plane and am running barefoot through the Charlotte airport (I had on flip flops and they don't just lend themselves to running). I'm sure I looked crazy, but it's that crazy "that girl is trying not to miss her flight!" I get to the gate--there is one guy who got there before me and he just says "flight to Jax?" and the gate agent says (without ever looking at us or the about 6 other people who had also gotten to the gate right after me) that it has left and we'll need to rebook. So we all head to the line to rebook. (turns out that text message was wrong and my flight had left on time). In line we are talking and one guy says that our connecting flight was overbooked, so even if we had got there before it actually left all of our seats had probably been given to standby passengers. That's nice. Luckily, there is one more flight for the evening--otherwise there is not one until almost 11am the next morning. A group of 6 going to Jacksonville are right ahead of me in line--they all go together to rebook. I get up to the agent he asks "what?" and I tell him missed my connecting flight to Jax and I need to rebook. I hand him my boarding pass and he types away. Never saying a word. The guy behind me in line (who is also going to Jax) goes to the agent that just dealt with the group of 6. He tells her where he needs to go and she says "oh...there might not be any seats left--I think the last ones were with that group of 6" I'm thinking "NO!!!!WHAT?!?!" The agent dealing with me is still typing away...doesn't even make a sound. I am feeling defeated at this point...then he hands me my new boarding pass with a seat number...I got the last open seat on that plane (the guy behind me who got put on standby was able to get on the flight as well).
At this point I have about an hour to kill, so I go and get something to eat. It was horrible tasting, but it was food. We get on the plane, I am in the middle seat in a row of three, there is a lady at the window. There is a lull in the boarding so we think that maybe the flight isn't full, so as soon as I move over to the aisle seat, another wave of people come, so I move back into the middle. Eventually a girl takes the aisle seat and she is panting and out of breath. She also did the crazy person run across the airport. They held this flight a little longer, but I think it was because it was the last flight to Jax for the night and they were being nice and letting some late arrivers get there. Luckily the flight went by quickly since the three of us in our row chatted the entire time. So that was a nice thing!
I finally get to Jax, about 2.5 hours after my original scheduled time.
I figured my return flights would be ok, because the weather on both ends was great. My morning flight out of Jax was full, which they told us every 5 minutes over the PA. They wanted you to know that you had to board with your assigned zone. That if you were carrying on 2 bags, to put the larger bag in the overhead and the smaller one under the seat in front of you. Etc etc. But we got all boarded and were on our way.
I get to Charlotte, leisurely walk to my gate (no sprinting this time, wee!). It's getting to that time when we should be boarding. There is no plane at the gate. Finally a plane gets to the gate--those people get off, they start refueling the plane and the new flight crew gets on. Ok, we should be boarding soon. We are supposed to leave in about 20 minutes. In 10 minutes. NOW. I finally got up and went to the bathroom. As I was walking back to the gate, the gate now says that we are leaving later. Thanks, for announcing this gate people. We are waiting even more. The time for our delayed departure time comes. And goes. They have not said another word. I happen to look out the window and there is now a guy working on one of the engines. The man sitting next to me at the gate happens to see this at the same time and says "I guess we're not leaving any time soon..." I happened to look across the terminal and see there is another flight leaving for Greensboro in about 1.5 hours. I make a joke that maybe that later flight would get us into Greensboro faster. The man looks over, gets on his phone and he's considering rebooking on that flight! Hee. Before he can decide whether to rebook or not, the gate agent announces a gate change for us. yay! We don't have to wait for the plane to be fixed! The mass of people all go down to the new gate...but there isn't a plane there. Some other random guy goes "uh...did they realize there is no plane at this gate?" So we sit down and about 10 minutes later they announce that the flight that was originally supposed to leave out of this gate has now moved. So a handful of people get up and go. About 10 minutes later a plane comes up to the gate. They get off, we wait. And wait and wait. The flight crew walk across from the old plane to the new plane. Then some other random flight crew comes up. The gate agent comes out to them with some papers, points to some stuff and the random flight crew head to the broken plane. They finally start boarding. I am so happy I am in row 2 so that when this sucker lands I am off the plane immediately. We load and then we sit and wait longer because there was some issue with the number of passengers scanned on the plane and the number of people on the plane...and a couple of people tried to get on the wrong flight. The flight attendants were saying nasty things about the gate people being stupid. Finally, they close the cabin door. The guy sitting next to me is like "well...that's a good sign" I wanted to say "last time that happened on this flight we sat on the plane for an hour...." We wait a bit more. I make a joke about the later Greensboro flight and our flight having to race to see who could get to Greensboro faster. (hey...I liked my joke! hee...but seriously...the later Greensboro flight was most likely boarding before we took off)
We finally move. We get to Greensboro (about 2 hours late). I all but run off the plane and out of the airport. I am seriously irritated with U.S. Airways. Not for the delays,
per se, but the fact that they didn't tell us ANYTHING. They would tell us we were delayed after we sat there wondering what in the world was going on for 20 minutes. When we could find out we were delayed from other sources except the gate person. And also, when 1/2 of my flights (over the span of 3 days) have mechanical issues with the planes, um...that's not a good record. Especially when those were not the first flight of the day and those planes had recently landed from coming from elsewhere. I've been delayed on other airlines, but they generally try to let those people know or have someone at the gate to answer questions right when you get off the plane as opposed to letting you run across the airport in a futile attempt to make a plane that left 10 minutes ago. I need to call the company I booked my flight through (that provided me with flight updates) to see where exactly they get their flight updates from and how come I only got 5 flight updates the entire trip (four saying that all 4 flight were leaving on time as well as the one (wrong) update saying a flight was delayed). And then to call U.S. Airways to tell them that they need to actually keep passengers informed of what is going on when there are delays so that we all aren't just sitting there wondering what the hell is going on and getting frustrated because we don't know anything (but I'll be nice about it). I had less than 3 hours of total flying time and about 4.5 hours of delays.
I know that this is a mild flying frustration. I know there are worse stories, but this is one that didn't need to be frustrating. And
that frustrates me. But rant over!
