My boyfriend and I were flying to Jamaica for a business trip in early March. We flew out on a Sunday and were scheduled to fly back the Wednesday of the same week. On the way to Jamaica from Birmingham, we had a connection flight in Charlotte, which seemed kinda out of the way adding an extra hour to our flight time. But we were content with that no problems. On the way back we arrive at the Jamaican airport and the US Air line is backed up to the door. On the flight monitors there was a scroll reading " Sorry for the inconvienance we are experiencing technical issues" we decide to investigate further leading us to find out their computer systems for only US Air were down. Airline personnel were calling in each passengers passport information along with manually tagging luggage for each passenger on multiple flights. Our connection flight was in Philadelphia, another pointless connection flight, had a three hour layover so using our best judgement at the time we planned we would have an hour to go through security and customs upon arrival. Our flight ended up leaving about an hour to hour and a half late. We arrive in Philadelphia, wait 45 minutes for our luggage to be unloaded from the flight, wait in line at customs - we were expecting that - We then had to wait for the ever so friendly -sarcasm - airline personnel to print our new boarding passes since we were unable to obtain them in Jamaica. Literally running at this point through the airport to the airline security line where we run into even more friendly personnel and another 20 minute line". By this point we had little hope and about 10 minutes to get to our terminal? We begin our run again to arrive at our terminal at 9:44, one minute before scheduled departing time". But to our surprise the plane had left, we asked the employee how long the plane had been gone, he stated "ohh bout 10 to 15 minutes"". Keep in mind this is a business trip most of the passengers on this plane were coming from the same place we were, we were directed to Customer Service, haha again very friendly, we were informed that US Air was not at fault for our delay leaving Jamaica so we would have to pay for hotel rooms and meals! We were however rescheduled on flights leaving at 6 in the morning to Charlotte and finally ending up back home to Birmingham'. Calling the connecting hotels - all being booked for the night - we had to stay in New Jersey for the night'. All guests on this trip were forced to miss yet another day of work/. Overall, a horrible experience with US Air, we will stick to Southwest or Delta!!
0 comments