SevenFiftySeven.
25th Jul 2001, 06:28
Firstly I am REALLY sorry about the length of this post, but I wanted to get all the fact straight.
Also, I know that this forum isn't really the right place for a complaint of this nature, but I am hoping you won't mind my indugence seeing as I have helped a few of you in the past with computer issues (and some jokes)
I wonder if any of you can give me some advice/moral support about a complaint I have regarding a major US airline.
Last Friday myself and 2 friends flew down to New York from Appleton for the weekend. We had a fantastic time until the Sunday night when we had to fly home.
Basically, we were booked to fly on the 6pm (eastern time) LGA - ORD and then the 9.15pm (Central time) ORD - ATW.
We checked in at LGA at 5pm and they checked us all the way through to ATW. Due to storms that closed ORD for a few hours, we didn't actually t/o from LGA until 10pm and arrived ORD at 11.13pm.
This is nothing to do with our complaint, weather is something that can't be controlled and I would rather arrive late than not at all. Infact we had a great flight, mostly due to the captain who kept us all entertained with his announcements. He was one of the old school who definately came across as loving the job he did and kept us informed all the way with his funny PA announcements! :cool:
The nature of our complaint lies in what happened at O'Hare.....
Basically
1. we landed at ORD and the first thing we did was look at the monitors to see if there were still any ATW flights due to leave that night. There were none listed,
2. So we went to the main United desk at terminal 1 where we asked if there were any flights to ATW. We were told that there weren't, and was advised that the earliest that they could fly us was on the following nights flight at 7.25PM.
3. Obviously hanging around at ORD for another 18 hours was not something we wanted to do if we could help it, so we asked if there is anything else that United could do, for example send us in a taxi or hire us a car (as it's only 160 miles to ATW) The lady at the counter said that as far as United was concerned, we would have to go to terminal 2 to ask as the flight was operated by United Express. The lady switched our tickets over to the following days flights anyway, so we had a fallback plan if we couldn't get anything else.
4. We went directly to terminal 2 and explained the situation to the CSR at the desk. I have to say that she was extremely rude, didn't even look at the computer and said that if the following days flight was what the other lady found then it's tough - that must be all there was. :mad:
5. I wasn't happy with this, so we moved to the next stand which (as coincidence had it) was the actual stand that the ATW flights go from. The lady we saw here was more friendly and was some help. She found us a flight to GRB next morning at 8am which was better, so we accepted. We were also told that this was the only ooption United would pay for - hiring a car or taxi might result in a refund of the tickets, but every ticket is diffferent and we would have to attempt to claim it back later.
6. We asked about United giving us accomodation and she said that there was none available, so we would have to sleep in the airport. We also asked if they could provide food (as we hadn't eaten since lunchtime almost 12 hours back) and perhaps blankets and pillows so we could try to be as comfortable as possible. We were told that United could not provide any of them, but we could get some food (at our own expense) from the international terminal 5. :rolleyes:
7. After eating, we walked back to terminal 2 where our morning flight was going from. During our walk back, we noticed that the terminal screens were showing the Monday mornings flights. The first flight that was listed was flight 5514 to ATW with the original time listed as 9.15 and a status of departed. This was our flight! We asked at the desk why it was on the screen now (it was now approx 1.45 am by this point) and we were told that the flight had departed just previously. Indeed checking United's website yesterday shows a landing at ATW at 1.32am meaning the flight took off approx 1am - ie. an hour and 20 mins AFTER we were first told that there was no more flights. To make matters worse, it was our original flight - the SAME flight number and we had still been booked on it!
Needless to say, this didn't help our moods as we layed there on airport seats trying in vain to grab even a few minites sleep. :mad: :mad:
8. The next morning we went to the Great Lakes Aviation desk to see if we could be put on the reserve list for the Oshkosh flight as I felt that most people who had been bumped onto this would possibly have hired a car instead. We were right and managed to get on this flight (which was great fun by the way - a 20 seater beech 1900 that had to do 2 go arounds at Oshkosh before managing to land on the third attempt! Due to the EAA stating the next day, there were Microlights below us, Cessnas above us and a scared woman sitting in front of me worrying that we were going to end up in little pieces in Lake Winnebago. I even managed to photograph my house from the air ... 3 times! But I digress!)
Well, today, we phoned United's Customer Relations department to complain that;
1. Upon landing at ORD, there were no Appleton flights listed on the United boards (which United confirmed at the time and also confirmed that they are responsible for updating these montors)
2. That because of the above, we asked no less than 3 United employees if there were any such flights. All 3 said no there weren't.
3. That only by chance did we eventually discover that our flight was still operating - and indeed daparted a full hour and a quarter after we were told that it didn't exist.
4. We believed that we were Involuntarily Denied Boarding this flight as were were checked in for it, presented ourselves at the gate over an hour before flight only to be told that the flight didn't exist.
5. Due to above we had to spend a very uncomfortable night in the airport, United wouldn't provide even basic essentials such as blankets and coffee/food. Infact there were families with young children who were shivering and couldn't get any help from United WHICH I THINK IS ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING.
6. Because Monday was a work day, we couldn't wait a further 18 hours for the next available ATW flight, taking instead a flight to Oshkosh and spending $45 on a taxi in order to pick up the car from ATW.
We feel that United were negligent in telling us that our flight had been cancelled (3 times) when it had not. Because of this, we were involutarily refused boarding the very aircraft we were booked on. We feel that United should reimburse our ticket costs, taxi fare costs and dining costs due to the severity of their own incompitence.
All we were offered by the CSR on the phone was a $50 travel voucher each. We were told that we were shown as a noshow for our ATW flight. When asked why we would be down as a no show when a United employee had changed us over to the 9.15pm Monday flight after telling us that the specified flight was cancelled, a full hour and a quarter before this flight pushed back, we were told by the service agent that she couldn't get that information out of the system. We asked to speak to the agents Manager but were refused, saying that Management don't handle phone calls, only written complaints.
I think our treatment is disgusting - I appreciate that weather affects air travel and delays are inevitable in order to provide safe travel, but our complaint is nothing to do with weather - it is down the the incompitence of United procedures and employees. I suspect that due to flight cancellations, and subsequent rebooking of people on later flight, we were dumped off the flight and then lied to regarding it's status. Fine, but they should reimburse us for our trouble and expenses (I had to take a day's holiday on Monday due to no sleep on Sunday night) Personally I would be satisfied if United admited that they screwed up, instead of suggesting the whole thing was our fault due to not showing up.
My question is, am I going to get any satisfaction writing to the Customer Services Dept? Should I threaten to write to the airport itself or even perhaps the FAA? Should I threaten legal action and noise in various newspapers? If I proceed with legal action, can I expect to get any satisfaction?
Hopefully, those of you who know me, know that I have been a member on these forums for over a year (my joining date is inaccurate due to me accidently deleting my own PPrune account a few weeks ago!) and know that I am not a complainer. I have never had cause to complain officially to a company, but I am absolutely disgusted with the way we have been treated. I fly internationally many many times a year and have never been treated this way before. This is the type of treatment I would expect from EasyJet (sorry if any EasyJet pilot's read this), not a major US airline.
Hope someone can give me useful advice and not just flaming!
Once again - apologies for the long moaning post.
Many thanks everyone! :)
SevenFiftySeven - rocket with wings! :cool:
[ 25 July 2001: Message edited by: SevenFiftySeven. ]
Also, I know that this forum isn't really the right place for a complaint of this nature, but I am hoping you won't mind my indugence seeing as I have helped a few of you in the past with computer issues (and some jokes)
I wonder if any of you can give me some advice/moral support about a complaint I have regarding a major US airline.
Last Friday myself and 2 friends flew down to New York from Appleton for the weekend. We had a fantastic time until the Sunday night when we had to fly home.
Basically, we were booked to fly on the 6pm (eastern time) LGA - ORD and then the 9.15pm (Central time) ORD - ATW.
We checked in at LGA at 5pm and they checked us all the way through to ATW. Due to storms that closed ORD for a few hours, we didn't actually t/o from LGA until 10pm and arrived ORD at 11.13pm.
This is nothing to do with our complaint, weather is something that can't be controlled and I would rather arrive late than not at all. Infact we had a great flight, mostly due to the captain who kept us all entertained with his announcements. He was one of the old school who definately came across as loving the job he did and kept us informed all the way with his funny PA announcements! :cool:
The nature of our complaint lies in what happened at O'Hare.....
Basically
1. we landed at ORD and the first thing we did was look at the monitors to see if there were still any ATW flights due to leave that night. There were none listed,
2. So we went to the main United desk at terminal 1 where we asked if there were any flights to ATW. We were told that there weren't, and was advised that the earliest that they could fly us was on the following nights flight at 7.25PM.
3. Obviously hanging around at ORD for another 18 hours was not something we wanted to do if we could help it, so we asked if there is anything else that United could do, for example send us in a taxi or hire us a car (as it's only 160 miles to ATW) The lady at the counter said that as far as United was concerned, we would have to go to terminal 2 to ask as the flight was operated by United Express. The lady switched our tickets over to the following days flights anyway, so we had a fallback plan if we couldn't get anything else.
4. We went directly to terminal 2 and explained the situation to the CSR at the desk. I have to say that she was extremely rude, didn't even look at the computer and said that if the following days flight was what the other lady found then it's tough - that must be all there was. :mad:
5. I wasn't happy with this, so we moved to the next stand which (as coincidence had it) was the actual stand that the ATW flights go from. The lady we saw here was more friendly and was some help. She found us a flight to GRB next morning at 8am which was better, so we accepted. We were also told that this was the only ooption United would pay for - hiring a car or taxi might result in a refund of the tickets, but every ticket is diffferent and we would have to attempt to claim it back later.
6. We asked about United giving us accomodation and she said that there was none available, so we would have to sleep in the airport. We also asked if they could provide food (as we hadn't eaten since lunchtime almost 12 hours back) and perhaps blankets and pillows so we could try to be as comfortable as possible. We were told that United could not provide any of them, but we could get some food (at our own expense) from the international terminal 5. :rolleyes:
7. After eating, we walked back to terminal 2 where our morning flight was going from. During our walk back, we noticed that the terminal screens were showing the Monday mornings flights. The first flight that was listed was flight 5514 to ATW with the original time listed as 9.15 and a status of departed. This was our flight! We asked at the desk why it was on the screen now (it was now approx 1.45 am by this point) and we were told that the flight had departed just previously. Indeed checking United's website yesterday shows a landing at ATW at 1.32am meaning the flight took off approx 1am - ie. an hour and 20 mins AFTER we were first told that there was no more flights. To make matters worse, it was our original flight - the SAME flight number and we had still been booked on it!
Needless to say, this didn't help our moods as we layed there on airport seats trying in vain to grab even a few minites sleep. :mad: :mad:
8. The next morning we went to the Great Lakes Aviation desk to see if we could be put on the reserve list for the Oshkosh flight as I felt that most people who had been bumped onto this would possibly have hired a car instead. We were right and managed to get on this flight (which was great fun by the way - a 20 seater beech 1900 that had to do 2 go arounds at Oshkosh before managing to land on the third attempt! Due to the EAA stating the next day, there were Microlights below us, Cessnas above us and a scared woman sitting in front of me worrying that we were going to end up in little pieces in Lake Winnebago. I even managed to photograph my house from the air ... 3 times! But I digress!)
Well, today, we phoned United's Customer Relations department to complain that;
1. Upon landing at ORD, there were no Appleton flights listed on the United boards (which United confirmed at the time and also confirmed that they are responsible for updating these montors)
2. That because of the above, we asked no less than 3 United employees if there were any such flights. All 3 said no there weren't.
3. That only by chance did we eventually discover that our flight was still operating - and indeed daparted a full hour and a quarter after we were told that it didn't exist.
4. We believed that we were Involuntarily Denied Boarding this flight as were were checked in for it, presented ourselves at the gate over an hour before flight only to be told that the flight didn't exist.
5. Due to above we had to spend a very uncomfortable night in the airport, United wouldn't provide even basic essentials such as blankets and coffee/food. Infact there were families with young children who were shivering and couldn't get any help from United WHICH I THINK IS ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING.
6. Because Monday was a work day, we couldn't wait a further 18 hours for the next available ATW flight, taking instead a flight to Oshkosh and spending $45 on a taxi in order to pick up the car from ATW.
We feel that United were negligent in telling us that our flight had been cancelled (3 times) when it had not. Because of this, we were involutarily refused boarding the very aircraft we were booked on. We feel that United should reimburse our ticket costs, taxi fare costs and dining costs due to the severity of their own incompitence.
All we were offered by the CSR on the phone was a $50 travel voucher each. We were told that we were shown as a noshow for our ATW flight. When asked why we would be down as a no show when a United employee had changed us over to the 9.15pm Monday flight after telling us that the specified flight was cancelled, a full hour and a quarter before this flight pushed back, we were told by the service agent that she couldn't get that information out of the system. We asked to speak to the agents Manager but were refused, saying that Management don't handle phone calls, only written complaints.
I think our treatment is disgusting - I appreciate that weather affects air travel and delays are inevitable in order to provide safe travel, but our complaint is nothing to do with weather - it is down the the incompitence of United procedures and employees. I suspect that due to flight cancellations, and subsequent rebooking of people on later flight, we were dumped off the flight and then lied to regarding it's status. Fine, but they should reimburse us for our trouble and expenses (I had to take a day's holiday on Monday due to no sleep on Sunday night) Personally I would be satisfied if United admited that they screwed up, instead of suggesting the whole thing was our fault due to not showing up.
My question is, am I going to get any satisfaction writing to the Customer Services Dept? Should I threaten to write to the airport itself or even perhaps the FAA? Should I threaten legal action and noise in various newspapers? If I proceed with legal action, can I expect to get any satisfaction?
Hopefully, those of you who know me, know that I have been a member on these forums for over a year (my joining date is inaccurate due to me accidently deleting my own PPrune account a few weeks ago!) and know that I am not a complainer. I have never had cause to complain officially to a company, but I am absolutely disgusted with the way we have been treated. I fly internationally many many times a year and have never been treated this way before. This is the type of treatment I would expect from EasyJet (sorry if any EasyJet pilot's read this), not a major US airline.
Hope someone can give me useful advice and not just flaming!
Once again - apologies for the long moaning post.
Many thanks everyone! :)
SevenFiftySeven - rocket with wings! :cool:
[ 25 July 2001: Message edited by: SevenFiftySeven. ]