Jun 132007
The Very Unfriendly Skies of United, Part II
The Very Unfriendly Skies of United, Part II
In Part I, I described United’s horrendous customer service as it holds its customers hostage to pay an extra $44 to get out of a complete unsittable seat into a slightly better seat at 6 a.m. in the morning for no good reason.
Tonight, I am pleased to report that I have landed at LaGuardia on United, an hour late already and nearly 1 a.m., only to have them tell us that we have to sit on the tarmac for an hour because they can’t get their act together and open up a gate for us.
Boy, is this fun. Frontier, anyone? Jet Blue? Even American with a connection in the dreaded O’Hare?
You’re not alone. I, as well as +20 of my fellow passengers, suffered the same UAL discomforts in my recent TPA-DEN and TPA-SAN trips. UAL seems consistent in their mode of not assigning seats until the last minute and/or forcing you to pay the $44.US for a Ecomony Plus upgrade. I’ve complained sufficiently to garner myself an Elite status. We’ll see how that pans out on my next UAL endurance event. My return trips were better seats without a need to deal with the last-minute purchase silliness.
–dio
As a frequent flier on United, I got disgusted at having to pay a premium for the dismal service. So, I have been trying to patronize other airlines. Unfortunately, I have found the other airlines just as bad! Delta seems to be picking over everyone else’s rejects as customer service personnel. This past Friday, I flew USair into Manchester NH and, although we were an hour and a half late, we had to wait 20 minutes at 1 am for the ground personnel to open a gate. This involved moving two planes (I was sitting at a window seat). Since it had taken two hours for us to fly up from Charlotte, you can’t convince me that our arrival was a surprise, the airport crew just didn’t care…
Perhaps we need to start a blog of lousy travel experiences.
http://spamfighter666.blogspot.com/2007/06/challenges-of-internation-travel-pt-i.html
there are four parts – but don’t despair – part four ends on a happy note. Travel isn’t always bad!
http://spamfighter666.blogspot.com/2007/06/challenges-of-international-travel-pt_04.html
By the way, you DO know what the travel industry insider term for ‘passengers’ is, don’t you?
Self-loading cargo. For real.