9 ms·

I've had a terrible time because of this. Nothing seems to work well when stressed. I had a flight with one layover. At the airport my first flight was delayed

by aimor 5y ago

I've had a terrible time because of this. Nothing seems to work well when stressed. I had a flight with one layover. At the airport my first flight was delayed an hour, making the connection unlikely. I asked the customer service what I could do. Most alternative fights were booked, so I took a flight the next day with one very long layover. They said that because this issue was out of their control they were not obliged to provided a hotel room or anything else. I called the travel agency from my work and booked a flight from my original layover destination with a different airline. I then talked to customer service and changed my booking back to the original itinerary, thinking that the second flight may be delayed as well. Then the first flight was delayed by another hour, making the connection impossible. Thankfully I had a confirmation number with the alternate airline for the second leg of the trip. I flew to the layover destination. In flight I checked the Southwest schedule and saw the original connecting flight had been cancelled. When I landed I went to the other airline customer service desk to print my boarding pass. They said my ticket had been cancelled. I called the travel agency and they said that the airline was trying to avoid overbooking and was not letting any third parties buy tickets. There was another flight available with another airline, but the same thing: they wouldn't let the travel agency buy the ticket. I went back to the customer service desk and bought the ticket myself without any problems other than having overpaid for a flight for reasons beyond my control. I'm currently sitting here, and will be for the next 7 hours waiting to go home. There was a man with schizophrenia shouting earlier about needing to get home and not having his medication, and many minutes later I heard him screaming in the distance. Later there was another man shouting about masks. I also met a woman who was with her family trying to get to New Orleans, another couple going my way without a clue how they were going to get there, an old man and woman also going to New Orleans who were told their 30 minute layover (before the second delay) wasn't going to be a problem, and a young man who took it all pretty well and just took the next day rebooking and left to go find a hotel.

atatatat 5y ago
Everyone looks at me like I'm insane for driving myself long distances... I never have to deal with this bullshit, though. Insane, it seems, to take your life in your hands in this way.
- aimor 5y ago
  I found this funny because I did very briefly consider driving to the layover airport. Agency is a great thing to have, and I think it's much more important for a happy life than efficiency, but there are limits. My limit is apparently somewhere under 7 hours (the time for the drive to the first airport).
- vmception 5y ago
  Because this doesn't have to be the general experience? I often think about how my air-travel experience is different and stress free from others. As someone that doesn't drive to the airport and can basically just walk through empty security lines, only books direct flights and doesn't have to wait till the holiday to travel, the stress is non-existent. The worst common thing I encounter is my plane landing early at the destination and having to wait on the tarmac longer because the gate isn't clear yet. In comparison, many others are driving to long term parking, taking long shuttles, have packed inefficiently resulting in long lines, rebalancing at both the baggage check area and at security, and have to compound the flight promptness gambles with short or long layovers. Can't tell which one is worse. Now that I think about it, many people likely don't have a way to get their ticket available easily either. The stress compounds on itself. Did I mention the airport lounges? The discovery process can be nice.
  - syshum 5y ago
    First I am 90% sure your experience is not the "general experience". Aside from my fundamental problem with security theater at the airports, the actual experience in the airport is not terribly bad but I have been stranded in places due to flight cancellations, I have experienced long delays, etc Also I am a Big AND Tall person, for which the airplane itself I believe has been designed to purposely torture Big AND tall people, anything over a 2 hr flight and my knee,s and legs are in serious pain, the worst is then having to sit for 45mins at the other end "waiting for a gate" Further given my location and my destination the majority of my flights are on small regional jets for which there is no "business class" to get a larger seat or more leg room, and "exit row" in these small jets is laughable No, when ever possible I drive
  - 5y ago
dkarp 5y ago
I don’t understand how they can say the issue is out of their control. They choose the weather software and could have redundancies in place? If a plane has a fault, then they’d have to put you up for the night. Someone at Southwest must have looked at how much this was going to cost and panicked.
- aimor 5y ago
  I don't believe the customer service people knew what had happened. They were chatting about how there was a "service disruption" and that it was from "American Airline's system" not theirs so it was "out of their control". Maybe they were just trying to get the blame off of them, but they definitely weren't telling people flights were being cancelled. I really think they were in the dark and I speculate (tell me if I'm wrong) the default response is to admit no fault until someone higher up says to. What I really don't like is that I didn't receive any notification about any of this. No email or text or phone call from Southwest or the travel agency. Had I checked HN I would have found out before returning the rental car.
  - dkarp 5y ago
    You're probably right about the default response. The gate agent somewhere like Southwest is more likely to get in trouble for giving away too much free stuff than too little. I already check HN when a big web service is down. The time has come where we should check HN if our airline/train/public service is down too!
- jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
  Doesn't matter the delay the desk will aways try to get out of it being their fault to save on hotel costs, etc. I loath it but this is one of the few circumstances where you should go full assertive. Don't take it out on the desk staff, they're having a far worse day than you, but stand there and make clear you are a problem that isn't going away until there's some resolution. Suddenly the hotel voucher will appear. I want the whole system reformed. I've had to do this with United several times now and hate it so much I'll quite literally spend $500 more just to avoid them.
syshum 5y ago
thank you for validating my position that I will not be flying anywhere in 2021. if I need to travel it better be in driving distance or postponed until 2022... no Air Travel for me this year

by aimor 5y ago

atatatat 5y ago

Everyone looks at me like I'm insane for driving myself long distances... I never have to deal with this bullshit, though. Insane, it seems, to take your life in your hands in this way.

aimor 5y ago
I found this funny because I did very briefly consider driving to the layover airport. Agency is a great thing to have, and I think it's much more important for a happy life than efficiency, but there are limits. My limit is apparently somewhere under 7 hours (the time for the drive to the first airport).
vmception 5y ago
Because this doesn't have to be the general experience? I often think about how my air-travel experience is different and stress free from others. As someone that doesn't drive to the airport and can basically just walk through empty security lines, only books direct flights and doesn't have to wait till the holiday to travel, the stress is non-existent. The worst common thing I encounter is my plane landing early at the destination and having to wait on the tarmac longer because the gate isn't clear yet. In comparison, many others are driving to long term parking, taking long shuttles, have packed inefficiently resulting in long lines, rebalancing at both the baggage check area and at security, and have to compound the flight promptness gambles with short or long layovers. Can't tell which one is worse. Now that I think about it, many people likely don't have a way to get their ticket available easily either. The stress compounds on itself. Did I mention the airport lounges? The discovery process can be nice.
- syshum 5y ago
  First I am 90% sure your experience is not the "general experience". Aside from my fundamental problem with security theater at the airports, the actual experience in the airport is not terribly bad but I have been stranded in places due to flight cancellations, I have experienced long delays, etc Also I am a Big AND Tall person, for which the airplane itself I believe has been designed to purposely torture Big AND tall people, anything over a 2 hr flight and my knee,s and legs are in serious pain, the worst is then having to sit for 45mins at the other end "waiting for a gate" Further given my location and my destination the majority of my flights are on small regional jets for which there is no "business class" to get a larger seat or more leg room, and "exit row" in these small jets is laughable No, when ever possible I drive
- 5y ago

dkarp 5y ago

I don’t understand how they can say the issue is out of their control. They choose the weather software and could have redundancies in place? If a plane has a fault, then they’d have to put you up for the night. Someone at Southwest must have looked at how much this was going to cost and panicked.

aimor 5y ago
I don't believe the customer service people knew what had happened. They were chatting about how there was a "service disruption" and that it was from "American Airline's system" not theirs so it was "out of their control". Maybe they were just trying to get the blame off of them, but they definitely weren't telling people flights were being cancelled. I really think they were in the dark and I speculate (tell me if I'm wrong) the default response is to admit no fault until someone higher up says to. What I really don't like is that I didn't receive any notification about any of this. No email or text or phone call from Southwest or the travel agency. Had I checked HN I would have found out before returning the rental car.
- dkarp 5y ago
  You're probably right about the default response. The gate agent somewhere like Southwest is more likely to get in trouble for giving away too much free stuff than too little. I already check HN when a big web service is down. The time has come where we should check HN if our airline/train/public service is down too!
jasonwatkinspdx 5y ago
Doesn't matter the delay the desk will aways try to get out of it being their fault to save on hotel costs, etc. I loath it but this is one of the few circumstances where you should go full assertive. Don't take it out on the desk staff, they're having a far worse day than you, but stand there and make clear you are a problem that isn't going away until there's some resolution. Suddenly the hotel voucher will appear. I want the whole system reformed. I've had to do this with United several times now and hate it so much I'll quite literally spend $500 more just to avoid them.

syshum 5y ago

thank you for validating my position that I will not be flying anywhere in 2021. if I need to travel it better be in driving distance or postponed until 2022... no Air Travel for me this year