US Airways is the devil.

We had the best vacation ever, and I'll put the good stuff up soon. For now, I'm on a mission to tell as many people as possible that US Airways SUCKS. If there is a hell, I am positive that it is run by their gate agents. We all know, traveling's never hysterically fun. We miss the occasional plane, or lose a  bag. But overall, things run pretty smoothly. Unless you are on the Musical-Chairs-On-Crack airline that thinks it's funny to oversell their flights and watch their passengers fight for their seat.

I know times are tough for the airlines. My brother in law, who was on the trip with us, used to fly for United. He said statistically, 10% of people don't show up, so it's common to sell too many tickets. That is like me showing up to  70% of my photo sessions. Or double-booking them and making people toss a coin for who gets the shoot. I thought it was illegal to sell an imaginary product. BUT WHATEVER...most airlines apparently make it work. Except (again) for US Air, who oversells HALF THE PLANE. On our way home there were literally THREE people (I'm not even joking), with seat 14F, standing in the aisle. The attendant said (non-chalantly) "Go to the back and we'll try to work something out." Which really means, "Get back there and we'll play paper/rock/scissors for who gets to go home."

So I thought it was bad on the way to Oregon when Jason had to fly stand-by with a paid ticket. But I had no idea how much worse it would get. This was our day yesterday. We got up at 3am for a 5:30 flight from Eugene to Phoenix. We had 30 minutes to  make our connecting flight, on the other side of the airport. Lugging 2 kids, all our bags, and a toddler who had to poop, we make it to the gate with 15 minutes to spare. Only the door is closed, and they've given our seats away. AS OUR PLANE SAT FOR FIFTEEN MINUTES, the lady basically said, "Too bad, so sad. We announced the last call." And we said, "Are you kidding? That is our plane. SITTING THERE. We still have FIFTEEN MINUTES until it's scheduled to leave." And she said, "When is my lunch hour? Should I have Pizza Hut again? And how many more minutes until my smoke break?"

So I get over wanting to punch her in the face and figure we'll just take the next flight out. We tried, Austin, Dallas, even Houston thinking we could rent a car and drive home. But EVERY SINGLE FLIGHT they had going into THE STATE OF TEXAS HAD BEEN OVERSOLD BY 15-30 PASSENGERS. The next flight they could confirm wasn't until 7:30 PM. So we spent TEN HOURS in the airport yesterday. With three children. At first we tried to make them behave. They played every game, watched every movie, colored every book. Then about four hours into it, we lost the will to fight (live), and just let them run hog wild. "Mommy can we play on these?" "Sure, but if you're going to be loud, make sure you play around the ticket agents."

Jason. He thought boot camp was hard. Forget the desert and push-ups. They should institute "Prolonged Airport Training With Toddlers" including hazardous pay, of course. Only then it would be so hard, no one would EVER make it into the military.  :) 

Ahh, it's good to get that off my chest.

NOW, if you're sick of my bitching, and you want to read something totally different, I'm also at Shutter Sisterstoday. Come over and say hi!

Comments

[boho girl]

argh!!! that is so fricken frustrating, dude.
i will never fly with them...EVER.
wow.

i'm so sorry you had to deal with that!
xo

[Melissa Jill :)]

That is unbelievable Maile. So sorry you had to go through that. Check out this post on David Jay's blog for a horror story about United: http://opensourcephoto.blogspot.com/2008/07/united-airlines-is-terrible.html Guess we need to boycott all airlines starting with a U. Southwest has been really good to me lately and I'm flying Delta in a couple weeks. Fingers crossed.

[MelodyA.]

AHHH. NO! We also HATE US Air. We just flew them to Cali a few weeks ago after vowing never to use them again (Greg booked the flight, not me). No details here, but it was a mess again. Thinking about flying just seriously stresses me out.

Glad you had a great trip otherwise.

[Stephanie]

Missed you and glad you are back. I hate flying!!!!!

[Cindy]

That is UN-BELIEVE-ABLE! I don't understand how they can do things like that and get away with it.
Thanks for sharing your story....it did make me laugh...loudly. Which is unusual for pre-10:00am.
Glad you made it home. :)

[k]

THEY DIDN'T EVEN COMPENSATE YOU FOR ANYTHING??? I cannot stand the airlines...every part of them SUCKS especially if they are UNION!! (Which is pretty much all of them.) Southwest is the best because they aren't.

I'm so sorry you had to go through all that. I know exactly how you feel down to the 10 hour crap. Remember when we lost a whole day in Hawaii because of the lovely friendly skies?! What ever happened to good old common sense?!

Glad you're home...miss you already.

[Rochelle]

How did you refrain yourself from punching her? I totally would have! Its probably cuz the kids were there.

[mary beth tyson]

I despise US Airways! I thought it was just me but I'm noticing a lot of people are saying the same thing. Flying isn't like it used to be but US Air makes it miserable!!!

I could go on and on but I'll stop now. :-) I have many stories about this horrific airline.

[Paul]

That picture of Jason sitting there staring into the abyss is classic! It's like he was at a casting call and the director said, "Now show me sitting in an airport for ten hours with three kids under the age of 8 on one hour of sleep." Welcome back to big Tex!

[Amy]

Maile,

I'm laughing outloud at the picture with the kids in the wheelchairs. That is just hilarious! So funny.

[Jana]

SOOOOOO happy to come here and find you frustrated w/US Air rather than Southwest since my hubby sort of flies for them an all but I'm sorry you guys had such a crappy experience. Same thing happened to me this past weekend if that makes you feel a teensy bit better. Damn it's good to be home, isn't it?

[Jen smith]

OMG, that is so terrible, as if traveling with kids is not bad enough! Glad you finally made it home safely!

[Jason]

At the moment that picture was taken; I was thinking…”I wonder what would be a faster way to die…throwing myself out the window onto the tarmac or letting my kids run over my neck with the wheelchairs?”

[Kristy]

That is OUTRAGEOUS! As far as I knew, airlines held flights for late connections. Must have been the middle ages.

[Robin]

Glad you make it home safe, and very sorry you had to go through that flying HEll.

[Tom]

That is exactly the reason I quit the airlines. You think they treat passengers poorly, they treat their own employees ten times worse. Try flying the piece of crap jet around, with a bunch of bitchy passengers complaining about: the delays, the weather, the poor customer service, how small the pane is, etc... and then when your done dealing with the that for four days, go sit in the airport for 10-12 hours hoping there's an open seat so that you can sit for another four hours to go home for 30 hours and then start the whole nightmare all over again. I feel your pain sista.

[Sandee]

Don't you feel like you've earned a girl scout merit badge for surviving a day on the airlines? What a hellish experience. Almost makes staying in Texas over summer seem like an option (I said ALMOST). Glad you are back.

PS: my brother used to fly for America West (which is now USAir). He says to come over to Southwest where he is now,where they actually try to treat people like PEOPLE.

[Shanan]

Oh honey! I can relate. My daughter and I were stuck at La Guardia, by ourselves for 14 hours. All the flights that day were cancelled! Why, you ask? Oh, the winds were too high for American to fly. Every other airline was flying out without problems, but American cancelled. They were rude, unsympathetic and sarcastic. American Airlines is the devil! Continental finally saved our asses and got us home. They were so nice and helpful. Needless to say, it will be a very long time before I fly again. Glad you made it home.. I need to buy some pictures now.

[Rachel Brooke]

You poor soul. Airways are completely nuts.

[Jennifer W]

I think punching her would have been worth it.... :)