I know I complain about this a lot BUT what ever happened to Customer Service?? I’m sitting in the airport in Raleigh-Durham, NC waiting for my flight…but here’s the way it all went down.
First, Cindy has been battling a bad sinus infection for more than a week. We were taking this trip to see my parents in Arkansas and spend some time away from the office. She just wasn’t feeling well enough to fly so she told me to go on by myself. She said she’s going to be sleeping for the next few days anyway, so I might as well go. So, I drove to Raleigh last night (about 3 hours) and spent the night in an airport hotel. My flight was scheduled to leave at 8:10am for St. Louis, connecting into Little Rock with an 11am arrival. I would have the entire day to spend with my family, in addition to the next few days.
As it turns out, I checked in and sat at the gate for a while when the Gate Agent finally announced, “We’re sorry to announce a delay in the flight. The crew is still in New York at LaGuardia Airport.” Somehow two hundred passengers were able to make it to the airport, get checked in and sit at the gate but 3 people couldn’t seem to get here from NYC on an airplane! With this news, I realized that I was going to miss my connection into Little Rock so I took off for the service counter to see if I can make a change. Well, turns out ALL the flights into Little Rock are booked today on American Airlines and the soonest they can get me in is tomorrow around 5pm. I’m not sure if they really understand how absolutely ridiculous that sounds! Like they expected me (and everyone else) to just say, “Sure. We don’t have anything better to do than to sit around in Raleigh for two days while you guys find an open flight. No problem.” If I had wanted to be in Little Rock on Tuesday, that’s when I would have booked my flight. I thought Monday might be better so I paid American Airlines money to confirm a seat on an airplane that they couldn’t guarantee they would have a crew to fly – how stupid does that sound?
After more than 30 minutes on the phone with American, they finally put me on a Northwest Airlines flight that leaves around 12:15pm for Memphis, connecting into Little Rock with a 4pm arrival. They told me I would have to go to baggage claim and pick up my luggage so I could re-check it on Northwest. I left the gate, went to baggage claim only to be told that my bags were on the plane and they would not take them off. Now, there’s no crew for the plane yet but the bags are ready to go! They refused to remove my bags so, I’m assuming, they are on their way to Little Rock via St. Louis on a flight that I’m not on because they didn’t have room. Hmmm…what about that security thing of all bags must have a passenger with them?
As I sit here at the Northwest Airlines gate, I hear CNN announce that Northwest pilots didn’t show up for 111 flights last night. Are they on strike? Or is this just an “organized sickness” to make a point at the expense of the customers who gave them our money? I guess when you purchase a ticket on an airlines it doesn’t really guarantee you anything. And the best part is (1) you can’t get your money back, and (2) if you change your ticket, they charge you $100. They make the rules without regard to the customers. Customer service – yeah, right.