Passenger Rant from experienced passenger

Crop Duster said:
Agreed. Wimpy. Post your comment here.
The writer was a little harsh about some of the folks who were probably truly trying to do the best they could. But let's be honest. Playing gate agents is like playing roulette. You get one answer one minute, another the next. One answer from one agent, another from the next. Why does one need tell the most compelling sob story and garner the "correct" rapport with the gate agent to get what one has already paid for? I paid for a ticket... You confirmed me... I'm at the airport on time... Dammit, take me to where I paid to go. Sometimes Wx creates acute problems, but often, as was the case here, it's not really the cause of the cascading problems that beset the airlines. That is due to crappy management and planning.
While his story was waxed vitriolic (how could it not?) his points were pretty valid. I've had two day delays in sunny weather after getting bumped from confirmed tickets...WTF? Then, maybe, you get a voucher which is good only on that airline, has no cash value, and must be used within a year on flight whose price has increased. Even just to get what is legally obligated to you, you've basically got to be have an attorney's knowledge of the laws.
The point is, airlines management (refernence @Seggy 's comments about culture) don't really care about customers and that attitude is permeated throughout the organizations. Airline's management see passengers (and employees) as fungible cattle. If they just followed the Golden Rule, much improvement would be seen. Oh, that's idealistic? These are rugged, free-market competitors who are all about their bonus and increasing stock price? Blah, blah, free market, blah, blah. Yawn. Say what you will about SWA, until recently, they treated customers as, well, customers. I think their profit speaks for itself.
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I agree flying is terrible nowadays, but I think what most of us here are trying to point out is that for the front line employees, it really isn't much better.

We just aren't given the tools to make flying a pleasant experience anymore. So when he goes on a rant about the gate agent who can't accommodate him, or the pilots that are on crew rest, he's missing a big part of the picture. It's not the gate agents fault flights are oversold. It's not the flight crews fault the compsny scheduled them for a ridiculously long duty day, so now they need compensatory rest.

Most of us are doing the best we can. But unfortunately, a lot of the time, all we can do when things go to crap is shrug our shoulders and apologize.
 
In regards to gate agents keeping passengers informed. As the gate agent, I hardly know anymore than you do. I can look on a screen, and it will tell me one of a few reasons the flight is delayed. It's going to be the flight crew arrived late, the equipment arrived late, the plane has a maint. Issue, or there is weather or an ATC delay. That's it, I literally know nothing more than that. I do my best to be honest with passengers, but again I hardly know much more than they do. It sucks, but it's hard to communicate everything that goes on. And I agree, flying is just miserable.
 
gotWXdagain said:
Why is it the customer's responsibility to fix the house the airlines built?
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Because every dollar is 1 vote........as it is with basically every business taking part in western capitalism.......

Refusing to pay a business for bad service is the only way to fix things short of litigation. We all know this is far from happening because the average person is a barely conscious automaton who is so risk averse they will NEVER stand up for themselves.

People will open their mouths and complain all day but when it comes to bleeding a little to make things better, forget about it.

What a lot of airlines get away with should be criminal but it isn't because the cash flow keeps on a'comin!
 
mshunter said:
Now that's cute. No they won't. They'll just oversell at higher price.
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at first yeah. But once people are paying high prices for tickets they won't put up with that junk for long. The reason nothing happens now is because people rationalize their inability to stick up for themselves with ideas like "well the ticket was only 200$".

In short you can't complain about quality when you have not paid for it. Back to the 5$ pizza logic.
 
Crop Duster said:
Yeah, right. But, er, ah, um... You can't sell the same item to two people?
If you did that in any other industry, you would be arrested, convicted, and put in prison.
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Hotels overbook regularly … usually by 5-10% of their rooms on any night they can. I've never seen anybody arrested.
 
TWP said:
at first yeah. But once people are paying high prices for tickets they won't put up with that junk for long. The reason nothing happens now is because people rationalize their inability to stick up for themselves with ideas like "well the ticket was only 200$".

In short you can't complain about quality when you have not paid for it. Back to the 5$ pizza logic.
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The system is so expensive that the average person can not afford to pay for quality. I'd argue that even if you pay 2X, 3X or even 4X for first class you are stuck on the same vessel and first class ain't gonna fix 117, a thunderstorm in Burma or the polar vortex.

Oversold flights, on standby for 2 days? Wow. I'm thinking as a guy who needs airlines to get to the private jet on occasion that I can not actually count on an airline to get me where I need to be. I don't trust the system with my job.

This is where the industry should listen and fix things. I had to abort a flight out of YIP due to heavy snow. We spent the night in the Marriott. I don't feel good about it but it had to be done. I understand that these things happen. You don't leave someone that paid for travel suck someplace afterwards however.

I also understand not being given the tools to help a customer and that sucks.
 
Crop Duster said:
I gotta tell you, you're sounding more and more like those gate agents all the time. And I try, I really try, to be polite to them. Maybe it would be different if we were talking while hanging out drinking a beer.
I'm a pilot. I do know better.
Well folks we're having a rain shower over Burma right now AND... The plane's broke. The pilot's hotel didn't give him a wake up call. The flight attendants are sick. The caterers can't find the food. The tires are underpressurized. The armrest in 2C is broken. The crew bus is lost. A new part is needed but we don’t have one here. We’re waiting for the snow to melt before we can proceed to deicing. We’re waiting for some bags to be transferred. We’re waiting for some passengers from some other delayed flights. The fuel truck ran out of fuel. The pilot/FA forgot his/her passport/glasses/wallet/lucky rabbit's foot. We’ve got a “light” we’ve got to take care of. The mechanics found a part, but now there’s a new light. There’s no one to operate the jetway. There’s another plane in the gate. The luggage tug is broken. We need to clean the airplane. “Well, folks, you see there’s a sticker missing.” The toilet is plugged up. We need to fly in a mechanic from Chicago. The luggage tug just hit the undercarriage. The dog ate the pilot’s manifest. “Folks, we’ve got an issue with dispatch. It’s just gonna be a short 15 minute, 30 minute, 1 hour, 3 hour, 5 hour delay. Ok, folks, we’re all ready to go, but we’re going to need to to deplane and go to gate 23 for a new plane.” Yeah.

Heard 'em all. Usually well after the fact. Rarely does anyone EVER inform you until well after the fact. Some of these are real. But even the real ones indicate poor management and planning. And they almost always include that thunderstorm over Burma, or Chicago, or Zurich, or wherever. Nice get out of jail free card. I want one of those.

Bottom line is your "confirmed" seat magically vanishes. Instead of being put on the NEXT f'ing plane, you're put on standby and get to where you are going TWO DAYS later. That's unacceptable. And should be illegal. It's essentially theft of services. Try getting on a plane without a ticket and see how quick that otherwise logy gate agent perks up. The airlines DON'T CARE. At risk of offending, it sounds like you might not understand how not to be an apologist for the almost spherically flawed airline industry.

I'm done. As the Harley riders say, if I gotta explain it to you, you won't understand.
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Gate agent BS gets to me big time. They are the biggest purveyors of BS out there because they just try to give a quick answer to get people out of their hair.

At my carrier, there is a big emphasis on pilot engagement of customers for that very reason. That way, instead of playing telephone with the agents and hoping they get it right, we give them the information directly, whether that be that the retro encabulator has failed due to a faulty dingle arm and the contract mechanic will be here in about half an hour... or various other reason. We're also not going to just parrot the estimated time for departure that operations throws up on the board which always includes and unrealistic boarding process. We know the overoptimistic BS and it ticks us off, too. That's why the company has pushed for us to step up.

Anyways, that's what we're seeing happen over in widget land. I had a significant compounding delay last weekend due to an endemic mx problem with the plane; the CA did a fantastic job talking with the passengers, explaining what was going on and realistically where things were likely to go from there. Instead of a horde of angry pax, we had a group of people, while inconvenienced, that didn't feel lied to or led on. Granted, we're running the highest reliability and on time in the history of the airline currently, and I know things in UAL land are a far cry from that with the way their management is fumbling things.
 
A few months ago, I'd been assigned a seat to Minneapolis, but on the ticket departing Minneapolis it said "Seat Assigned At Gate". I arrive at the gate and the television says that you will be called when your seat has been assigned so I sit patiently waiting to be called. About 5 minutes prior to boarding, the television now says there are zero passengers needing a seat assignment...umm what about me?

After watching the gate agent tell several people that he won't be able to assign them a seat, I'm convinced I'm screwed. I approach him and politely explain that I've been waiting for my name to be called and now the television says no one else needs a seat. He starts to tell me that there is no more room for standby's. I politely tell him that I'm not a standby. He looks at my ticket and then at his computer and looks perplexed. The ticket says I'm supposed to be on the flight, his computer does not. Miraculously, he finds me the last seat on the plane. Had I just waited my turn like a good little compliant passenger, I would not have been on that flight. I think I'll continue to stand up for myself.
 
Crop Duster said:
Bottom line is your "confirmed" seat magically vanishes. Instead of being put on the NEXT f'ing plane, you're put on standby and get to where you are going TWO DAYS later. That's unacceptable. And should be illegal.
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Well, everyone on that NEXT flight thought that they had a "confirmed" seat too. Not really fair to boot them either.

Flights delay. Flights cancel. My best advice? If you have to make a connection, make darn sure it is through a city you don't mind getting stuck in for a while.
 
drunkenbeagle said:
Well, everyone on that NEXT flight thought that they had a "confirmed" seat too. Not really fair to boot them either.

Flights delay. Flights cancel. My best advice? If you have to make a connection, make darn sure it is through a city you don't mind getting stuck in for a while.
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If the airline told you that you had a confirmed seat, it should be a basic expectation that barring a mechanical or wx, you get put on that flight that you paid for a confirmed seat for. I don't see a problem with overselling standby's, but it is absolutely not fair to oversell confirmed seats, boot the extras, and pocket the cash anyway.
 
gotWXdagain said:
I don't see a problem with overselling standby's, but it is absolutely not fair to oversell confirmed seats, boot the extras, and pocket the cash anyway.
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No air carrier that I know of oversells "standby" seats - they are all confirmed seats that are oversold. It becomes a revenue standby seat when that confirmed seat you thought that you had, is in fact, not available.

If you buy a first class seat and there is an equipment change putting you in coach, do you get a refund? I never have.

I think compensation should certainly be better in such situations, in particular when it is the carrier's sole fault. But to pay for that, ticket prices would need to be higher, which means everyone would have to do it. Not holding my breath.
 
drunkenbeagle said:
Well, everyone on that NEXT flight thought that they had a "confirmed" seat too. Not really fair to boot them either.

Flights delay. Flights cancel. My best advice? If you have to make a connection, make darn sure it is through a city you don't mind getting stuck in for a while.
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That sounds like good advice for people starting in the 121 industry too.
 
drunkenbeagle said:
You get the option of waiting a few days for a first class seat to be available, or going home now. I like the going home option more.
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And that's fine, but you paid for going home now, also in a specific seat. If the airline doesn't deliver due to a circumstance within your control, you should be refunded the difference of the seat you paid for.
 
gotWXdagain said:
And that's fine, but you paid for going home now, also in a specific seat. If the airline doesn't deliver due to a circumstance within your control, you should be refunded the difference of the seat you paid for.
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A full-fare coach domestic seat is usually exactly the same price as one in first, so it hardly matters most times
 
I'm pretty sure that, given the nature of my job and how late I always end up having to buy tickets because of it, that I normally pay first class fare for the worst of the worst economy seats just to not spend 2 grand on flying the wife and I across the country. That truth being said, it is very annoying how un-accomodating the airlines can be in the event of a delay or cancellation for a customer who has paid more than most other passengers and in absolute terms, well over a thousand dollars. I get the reasons, and the cause, but it doesn't make it right from a customer service standpoint.
 
This guy was an entitled tool with an oversimplified, uneducated point of view of how the airline industry works in regards to external events, i.e., weather, for example.

Once he started barking about things *nobody* has any control over- like a guy with uncontrollable vomiting and another having a heart attack- I actually started to enjoy his suffering. Good times.
 
"Entitled," the negative buzzword of the last two years. :rolleyes: When you pay for something, you are entitled to it. Just because politicians try to make it sound un-American doesn't mean it should be used derogatively.
 
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