| Back in Columbus |
[Jun. 16th, 2007|06:15 pm] |
Tuesday was a long day.
Spent the morning cleaning out the remainder of my room, canceling my phone service, returning my health insurance card, and paying my roommate for my portion of the month's utilities. Then I had to figure out how to get me, a backpack, a laptop bag, two big duffel bags and a suitcase to the airport. Ended up taking a taxi to the station, and taking the limousine bus from there.
So I get to Narita, get my bags checked, get through security, get on the plane fine. No problems. Plane arrives in DC about a half hour late, which is cutting things closer than I wanted. Because I had under two hours anyway till my next flight, and I still had to get through customs, get my bags re-checked, try to exchange currency, etc, etc. Customs and all that wasn't bad. But I was pressed for time, so I skipped exchanging money. I get to my gate just as the plane should be boarding.
Except that it isn't. They apparently were missing some crew member. Just didn't show up or something, so they had to get another one. So they board us half an hour late. Damn - I could have used that time to exchange money if I'd known. So we board the plane. Then they announce that we're overweight, so they ask for volunteers to get off the plane. Hell no. I'd already been on a plane for 12 hours - I wasn't giving up my chance to be back home in just another hour. Nobody else volunteered either. So they picked a random passenger name. It was a guy sitting a few rows up from me. They asked him to get off the plane. Then as he's reluctantly getting off, they realize he's traveling with somebody else, and they only meant to kick one person off. So they let him back on.
Just then, the storm rolls in. The runways get shut down, and they have us sit in the plane at the gate for an hour and a half. Eventually the storm clears away, but there are still storms in our flight path, so they wouldn't let us take off. They send us back to the terminal to wait, and once we get there, they promptly cancel the flight.
And have nobody at the desk at that gate to try to get people new flights. Nobody. The line to the customer service desk spanned four gates, so I found a line at one of the other gates. Much shorter line. But there was only one person at the desk, and the line was moving very, very slowly. There had to be more United people somewhere they could have sent to man the computers and get people new flights. But no, they didn't even try finding more people to help. So I wait in line.
I tell the guy at the desk that I need to get to Columbus, and that my last flight was canceled. He types at his computer for a few seconds and tells me I'm now on an 8:30 flight the next morning. I ask if there's anything sooner. He types away for a little bit, and realizes that there is a flight that night. Leaving from the very gate he's manning, no less! Brilliant, huh.
At this point, it's about 9:45pm (my flight was originally supposed to have left at 5:20pm). He tells me he can't get me on the flight because it's locked out - they do that ten minutes before the flights are scheduled to leave. And indeed, the flight was originally scheduled to leave at 9:50, but by this point it had already been delayed to 10:30. Why did they still have it locked out!? He tells me to go stand in some other line to talk to this other guy. I do that, and surprisingly, the line is moving at a decent pace. I get myself a boarding pass.
The plane gets delayed another couple times, and doesn't end up leaving until some time after midnight, I think it was. Arrive in Columbus, and my family and a number of my friends are there waiting for me. I was really surprised to see so many of them there. If it was 6:45pm like I was originally scheduled to get in, it wouldn't have been so surprising. But that they all waited up to meet me at 1:30 or so - whenever it was that I finally did get in to Columbus - it was really touching.
Of course, the airline lost my two duffel bags. I file a report with them. The guy says they should be delivered in the morning. Morning comes and goes. I call their 800 number to ask about my bags. The Indian guy on the other end of the line says they have no record of my missing baggage report. He takes a new report. The bags do eventually make it, about 7:30 that night.
In short, I'm never flying United again. I realize shit happens. Storms and such are outside their control. But it's completely unacceptable how little manpower they had towards getting people rerouted. They had to have been more people available. Plus, if the entire crew had been there on time, we could have taken off before the storms moved in in the first place. Losing baggage happens too. And while I'm a bit annoyed by that, it really pisses me off that the report I filed with them at 2am didn't even make it into their system.
I'm never flying United again. Their service sucks. Avoid them if you can. |
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