Why I Will Never Fly US Airways Again
Your ten minute credit card sales pitch couldn’t wait until descent? It had to happen two hours into the flight and two hours from landing? How considerate of your flight crew to wake me up from a MUCH needed sleep (on my hour delayed flight from Charlotte to Denver) to talk about credit cards and frequent flyer miles. Not only do you fail to provide any television service, or snacks that don’t cost $5, but now you take away my sleep as well – the only respite I had from an otherwise cramped and uncomfortable flight.
Whoever came up with this idea needs to be FIRED! No wonder you can’t make money. Do you think FURTHER degradation of your services will fix matters?
I am so angry at having been woken by screeching speakers above my head that I will surely remain awake, hungry, cramped, bored… And fully alert so I can enjoy this experience to the fullest extent. All I can do is write this long post on my phone in airplane mode. If I don’t vent I’ll just get even more angry…
Great job!
Let me put this in perspective. Already exhausted from my trip, I’m looking forward to getting home. But my flight gets delayed by an hour, which means my wife can’t pick me up, which means I’ll need to get a shuttle and a cab, which – combined with the delay and time zone change – means I won’t get home until after midnight, which gives me five hours to sleep off a week of farm work before returning to the office in the morning.
ALL I wanted to do was catch a few hours of sleep. Seeing as how I’m crammed in between two fat asses and have nothing to watch or eat – sleep is all there is to do anyway, except perhaps read. And read I did. For two hours of a four hour flight until FINALY my eyelids felt heavy enough that I could fall asleep sitting practically straight up with nothing to support my head from wobbling around. But OH NO, you couldn’t have that could you? All of your customers need to stay fully awake for the duration of the miserable flight so – JUST as I was falling asleep -your attendant gets on the horn and screeches out a ten-minute credit card sales pitch to his captive, tired, irritated audience.
Anecdotal, yes. But I’m sure I’m not alone and if you hope to survive you’ll fire the genius who came up with this idea right away!
I repeat: I will NEVER fly US Airways again. I don’t care how much cheaper the flight is, or how convenient the arrival or departure time. You have permanently lost a customer, someone who flies several times every year. Do yourselves a favor and STOP this idiotic practice of cross promos in the middle of flights before you lose thousands more.
Also posted on several review sites, social media networks and other blogs.
I make it a point to fly Jet Blue as much as possible.
“I repeat: I will NEVER fly US Airways again. I don’t care how much cheaper the flight is, or how convenient the arrival or departure time.”
-Ah, yes. Yes, you will. Everybody cares about how much cheaper the flight is and how convienant the schedule is. Never is a strong word and at some point you’ll fly them again. Hyperbole be damned.
Ahh…Henry, not so fast. 6 years ago I swore I would never fly US Air either. I worked for a company that provided all of IBM’s IT work for the PGA. I was flying from Jacksonville, FL to Charlotte, NC (which is US Air’s home hub). I forgot to take out my multitool from my bag. I told the security screener exactly what he would find, where it was and requested an US Air representative to escort me down the loading ailse to see that my bag was checked in flight side. Sure enough the screener found the item exactly where it was and called an US Air supervisor. By then I was going to be the last to board. The supervisor said no to my request to escort my bag and have it checked in cargo, NOT IN CABIN! I told him we are 50 feet away and in view of security the whole way. I am not requesting to take the bag in cabin, just watch the loaders take it and stow it in cargo.
No, he would not do this. So I congratulated him on an early Christmas present for his kid and boarded the plane after having US Air steal a $60 gift from my wife and an essential tool to do my job on site at the Wachovia Golf Tournament.
Then to make matters worse, US Air had screwed up their whole hub redesigning it which made it impossible to get back up to section of the airport which contained all of their restaurants. After getting my bag, they had set up a security station at the restaurants and would not allow me to enter with my bag to get a bite to eat before going to the event. I said, “Fine, I ‘ll just leave my bag here, you can watch me walk 20 feet behind you to that Taco Bell, stand in line, get my food, and come back and pick up my bag. I’ll even leave my Driver’s License to boot.”
No, can’t do that.
6 years later, and I’m still not flying US Air. I actually told the person at our company who handles travel to never book another flight for me with US Air or with its subsidiaries.
Never have again….never will.
Yes, I will never again fly US Air again either. I spent over $1200 for the two of us to fly out of Anchorage to Phoenix…and was never even offered a bag of peanuts. The lady sitting next to me was cold and asked for a blanket…the flight attentent offered her one for $7 ….can you believe that?
Then I got to Phoenix for my connection…happened to be one leaving in 15 minutes…the gate agent wouldn’t even talk to me about getting on and wouldn’t tell me where the next flight was leaving out of! He actually turned his back on me!
I feel the same about Delta. I used to fly a lot. One night we were flying Tucson to Seattle, through Salt Lake City. My husband was handicapped. Our flight out of Tucson was delayed, so of course our nighttime arrival into SLC was delayed.
I was worried about catching our connecting flight. Delta announced, after landing in SLC but before deplaning, that our connecting flight was leaving right then. They also told us it was the LAST flight out for the night (to Seattle) AND that there was a huge convention in town so getting a hotel would be a problem.
WHAT?!? They KNEW we were only minutes behind, they knew the connection was the last flight out, they knew there were no hotels, they knew we were stuck for the night… and they let it all happen.
Oh, well, they did offer us like a $25 food voucher. For two people at airport prices. Yippee. (yes, sarcastic)
Hubby went to confirm flight out in the morning, while I went to call hotels anyhow. Everyone else started calling alphabetically from A-Z, so I thought I’d call backwards from Z-A and actually found one room, but the shuttle was at the airport and was about to leave, but hubby was stuck dealing with the ticket agent to get our flight for the morning confirmed. We did get on the shuttle, we did get the room, we did have to pay for it ourselves.
As we left the airport, a very elderly couple was still trying to get things sorted out.
All the Delta employees we encountered that night were rude and not even close to helpful. Have not ever flown them again, will not. Will pay more to fly someone else if need be.
Fuck US Airways. NEVER AGAIN
yeah, after years of similar problems with USAir, I decided to start flying Southwest. I’ve never looked back. The SW people obviously love what they do, and are happy to help. I’ve only had one significant delay with them, and to compensate, they gave me a voucher that bought me four flights before it was used up. Good folks.
Never Never Never again. US airways is the least organized airline I’ve ever flown. I had a flight out of San Jose,ca to Charlotte, NC with a connection in Phoenix. The San Jose flight was delayed they said due to unscheduled maintenance. So by time I arrived in Phoenix I missed my connection by 10 min. What the hell, I and 7 other passengers were supposed to be on that flight. They could hold up that plane for the 15 minutes it would have taken us to get boarded. I wouldn’t have been so pissed if they had another flight but the next wouldn’t be for another 8 hours which gets me out of phoenix at 12:15am. Great, I’m going to have the bloodshot eyes of a 16 year old pot head for my morning meetings. Oh, and to boot I got a whole whopping $5 food voucher. That got me a large coffee, woohoo
I only fly Southwest never had any problems there the best!!!
Amen. US Airways is a joke. I had my flight canceled and the alternative flight they gave me got delayed twice. I eventually gave up flying and it ruined my whole trip. Yet, not a word of apologies from those imbeciles.
I’ve been searching the internet for a place to vent about my flight. I even considered making a website that rates airlines. I’ve read all of the comments and realize that perhaps my situation isn’t horrible, but it is still unacceptable.
My wife and I were coming back home from Austin to Burbank. There was a delay from Charlotte to Austin which left the outgoing Charlotte people waiting. To make up for lost time, US Airways put the waiting Charlotte people on OUR plane and we had to wait for a replacement. I understand, and I know this is standard procedure, and also empathize with the Charlotte folks and am glad they made it to their destination.
However, because of this delay, we were told that there were no flights available out of Phoenix (our transfer) until the next morning. I find this hard to believe since Phoenix is an absolutely huge airport. We waited over an hour in line to talk to someone at the desk but they kept calling people over that had other connections. San Diego. Us Burbank and San Francisco folk were left in the dark. By the time I was only 1 person away from talking to someone, we were told we could board the plane and deal with our issues in Phoenix, or we could stay and risk not having a direct flight, nor a hotel. We had no choice but to comply.
Once we got to Phoenix, we pleaded with the US Airways to get us set up with another airline or perhaps even get us in a very early morning flight to LAX. At this point I was willing to get us a cab from there. No such luck. They ended up putting us up in some really scary hotel. Animals were running around freely and the staff was cold, almost as if they were robots. It was a rough night. We slept in full clothing because the beds were nasty. My wife kept waking up from loud sounds outside. I was a good sport and took the side of the bed that the air conditioning was constantly blasting on (no matter what I did with the thermostat). Basically, we got no sleep.
We finally got a flight back home in the afternoon.
I had an very important morning of meetings where I was “in charge” and there are quite a few of my superiors that are angry with me as a result. Not a good situation in this economy.
My wife missed half a day of work and today she was double booked at the office, so her workmate had to cover for her share of the patients. Not a great situation seeing as my wife is interning and every step she makes is scrutinized. On top of that she nearly missed a meeting with her professor who is going over her midterm with her.
I had to drive her to work so basically I’m home seething.
I realize that flights get delayed. It’s happened to me many times. The fact that US Airways didn’t have their act together and we were left stranded does not sit well with me. I have never had this happen before. At least Southwest treats their customers with respect and tries to do everything possible when something bad happens. The US Airways personnel didn’t care one bit.
Never US Airways. Never.
I will pay 20% more knowing that me and my wife’s career won’t be in trouble.
I travel 200 days out of the year. U.S. Airways has been on my no fly list for years.
#1 reason……Poor customer service. They actually go out of their way to p**s customers off because they themselves don’t even like who they work for. They were all hoping for a United Airlines merge but that failed recently. And now the customer service at USAirways is even worst. I’ve spoken to many U.S. Air employees over the years and they just hated the US West buy out when that happened. They really do go out of their way to cause trouble for the whole company. Especially in Philly, where they are trained by nazi’s I think.
May 17th, 2010 at 10:40 pm
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