Has anyone had a horrifing experience flying Us Air

[Maggie_May]

We left Orlando Int’l airport at 6:45pm on Friday June 8th. We landed in Charlotte, North Carolina at around 8:15pm. We had just enough time to run to our connecting flight (the flight out of Orlando was late). When we arrived at the gate that our connector was leaving from, we were informed that the flight to Columbus was canceled. Now, I understand that there will always be interruptions in schedules, and I am sympathetic to that fact. We were told to go to the Customer Special Services desk at another gate. Fine, I thought, they’ll get this straightened out and we’ll be on our way. No problem. We arrived at the desk to find a line of around 250 other travelers who had also been “inconvenienced”. There were exactly two people working the desk. After standing in line for the better part of an hour, and seeing no more than 10 people make it past the desk, one of your associates came out and made an announcement: “Sorry, folks there are no more flights out tonight so you will have to find a hotel and wait for tomorrow”. Understandable, it was late and I realized that the routes couldn’t be adjusted quickly enough to absorb all of us. I asked the woman what hotel they were going to put us up in and she said “The cancellation wasn’t our fault; you are on your own to find a hotel”. Excuse me? I am in a strange city, at 10pm at night, traveling with my family and you are not going to even give us a voucher for food and/or a hotel room?
We then asked where we could pick up our luggage so that we could go to the hotel. “You can find them in baggage claim” was the very rude reply. “Exactly where in baggage claim?” my wife asked. “IN BAGGAGE CLAIM” came the same reply. So, off we headed to baggage claim. After standing in another line for almost an hour, where we met a lovely couple who had saved up for a trip to Paris that US Airways had “interrupted for at least three days”, another of your associates made an announcement: “Sorry folks, your luggage is already being re-routed to the next flight. “Can we get it “unre-routed so that we can change our clothes and get our toothbrushes?” “If you’d like to wait, we MAY be able to get it to you in 2 or 3 hours, but I wouldn’t count on it”. Great, just great.
We found a hotel off of the airport, spent $20 for a cab to get there (sans luggage) as none of the shuttles were running that late, paid $100 for the room, $30 for dinner and we went to sleep hoping tomorrow would be a better day.
DAY 2:
We woke up on Saturday in a hotel room (we had expected to be waking up in our own beds this morning). I went down to the business center in the hotel to print out my boarding passes. No luck, there was an “error in the process”. No big deal, we’ll get them at the airport. We arrived at the Charlotte Airport at 11:30 am for a 1:15pm flight (another $20 cab ride). We stood in another long line where there were, again, two people working behind the counter (do you have some rule about that?). After standing in line and being kept on hold on your “Customer Help Line” they got the error fixed so I could use the check–in kiosk. I finally printed my boarding passes with about a half hour to rush through security and race to the gate. Sorry, wrong gate. So we headed across the airport to the new departure gate. We finally make it to Philadelphia to catch our connector to Columbus. Once again, after several gate changes we made it to the departure gate. Sorry, flight’s been cancelled. We ran to the customer service counter to beat out the 100 or so other people to see if we could get on another flight. Understand that it is now around 6:00pm, I have been wearing the same clothes for over a day and a half and I have an 8 year-old in tow who is getting cranky and wants to get home. We make it to the counter before everyone else and are told that there is an 8:15 flight to Columbus. BOOK IT! Oops, sorry not quick enough (total elapsed time 7.8 seconds). I ask to see the manager. Wait 15 minutes while other passengers are booked on the 1:40 pm flight on Sunday. I wanted to see the manager to request a refund. There were several passengers who were willing to pitch in for a rental van to drive the eight hours to Columbus (funny aside – had I decided to drive at that point, I would have gotten home only an hour and a half later than I ended up getting there). Wait another 15 or 20 minutes for the manager. At this point I am LIVID. If you’ll recall from the top of my letter, I fly quite often for business. Guess what I do for a living – Customer Service Manager! I have never seen such inattention to customer’s needs in all my life. Just as the passengers were about to mutiny, due in no small part to the fact that it was discovered that, once again, the cancellation was not your fault and all expenses would be borne by the traveler, the ticketing agent pulled me aside and gave me 3 seats on the plane that was supposedly full not 25 minutes earlier. Not only did he give me three seats, but they were 3 in a row. The agent all but told me that I was riling up the other customers with my story of the previous canceled flights and he was giving me the tickets to get rid of me. Fine by me. The flight was delayed (big surprise) because we did not have a flight crew. Almost an hour after the scheduled departure time the crew showed up. A big sigh of relief and a standing ovation greeted their arrival. We went wheels up just before 10 pm (this was for an 8:15pm flight). We arrived home over 24 hours late.
I can appreciate the fact that things don’t always go according to plan. It happens. What I cannot tolerate is the way that we were treated throughout this ordeal. We were shuffled around to multiple gates to find out that the flights were canceled. We were treated rudely by US Airways employees time and again. We were surrounded by dozens of other people who were in the same position we were in.
People like the 4 soldiers and navy officer who were trying to get back to their bases. The people I mentioned earlier who were in tears because their “lifetime adventure” to Paris had been ruined. People like the woman who was traveling with two infants and had no luggage and had been at the airport for 9 hours. People like the sports agent who travels a million miles a year who received a free ticket from you to find out why he should fly US Airways again after he quit flying US Airways because of the trouble he had with interrupted flights.

[alarimer]

1. How can cancellations NOT be their fault, unless it was weather?

I had heard that there were a lot of delays this last weekend because of weather and a "computer glitch".

I have had similar experiences. Each time I have flown for the last two years they have lost my luggage. There have been delays because of weather. I understand that but I do not get why the employees have to be so damn rude and why they sometimes even LIE to the passengers.