I'm sitting at the Asheville Airport, waiting for my 9:45 am flight to leave. Currently the time is 11:15 am. My gripe isn't that snow has caused air traffic on the East Coast to grind to a halt. Instead, my problem is the lack of information. I tried most of the night to reschedule my Delta flight but they don't answer email in a timely fashion. All of their phone lines were busy, including their international line (yep, I tried that too).
So, with little information, I went to the airport, only to be met by a mob at the ticket counter. There is no real line... just a mob and no one has any information. Two earlier flights have been canceled. The flight after mine has also been canceled. Folks are upset. The only thing that people need is a little information and I don't think you can get today. "All passengers for flight xyz line up over here... " Something. It'd just crazy.
This is why we need government regulation. We need someone to set standards.
Update: I'm now safely in Dallas. Getting through the maze of confusion and obstruction in Atlanta was almost more difficult than getting through medical school. In medical school, the terrain was rough but the path was clear. Getting from Atlanta, where I had missed my flight because we left Asheville 3 hours late, to Dallas was anything but clear. As soon as we landing there were multiple options presented by the flight attendant. My first question, we live in 2009, why doesn't she have all of the updated information. If she starts with my information is 2 hours old then I don't need to hear anything that she has to say. Most people checked their flight information on a PDA/Cellphone/Laptop just prior to boarding. Her information is an hour older than mine. Why?
We land in Atlanta and the airport is packed. It looks like the week before Christmas. All of the restaurants are packed. The stores are packed. Every official airline agent has a line of 10-15 passengers in front of him/her. Everyone is talking at once (because no one is getting decent answers). In this chaos, we are suppose to either go to the gate where the next flight for Dallas-Fort Worth is taking off or go to the nearest ticket counter and ask for help. Now, I know that airline travel has had a rough time since 9-11. I thought that customer service would be something that the airlines would be stressing. Why wasn't there a fleet of airline folks with a laptop on some type of rolling stand waiting for these passengers? Then everyone could get timely information in a short period of time. Sending passengers on some type of wild goose chase is simply wrong.
So we trek through the Atlanta airport until we get to one of these ticket counters. A lady takes my ticket for the flight that I just missed and passes it under a scanner. A new voucher pops out of the ticket thingy. Sweet. My next flight leaves tomorrow at 4:30 pm. What? My wife's ticket gets scanned and she is on the same 4:30 pm flight but 20 rows behind where I'm sitting. What? Come on. It is 1 pm EST in Atlanta and I have just been handed a voucher for a flight 27 hours from now. I'm traveling from Atlanta to Dallas. There are tons of flights per day. What am I (we) supposed to do with this? The lady representing Confusion Airlines comforts me and my wife by telling us at least we have a flight. What the feezy (slang word used in some circles represent a four letter word that starts with F)? This is where I want to have superpowers. I want to turn into the Hulk and start smashing things. I didn't turn into a green monster nor did I tell the lady that she was not being that comforting. In times pass, airlines used to bend over backwards to help you. They work hard to find a flight and would EVEN CALL other airlines for you. Not now. Dude, you are on your own. I was told that I get a voucher for a Hotel that wasn't the Ritz and a voucher for a meal that wasn't at Atlanta's famed City Grill.
Now, I get to stand in line, again to talk to an agent. These poor agents have been dealing with unhappy travelers for hours. No one that comes to see them is happy. Something has to go wrong for you to have see an agent in the middle of a terminal. These four people could have been wardens for death row. They were sad. They were tired and looked like they need a week or two on the sandy beaches in Jamaica. The agent was humorless but was able to put me and my wife onto a flight that left in an hour. We were flying standby but it looked very promising.
I type all of this to say THIS is what we need government for. To make our lives a little easier. I don't think that the government needs to tell industry how to flight airplanes but government should say this isn't any way to treat paying customer.
A few suggestions:
- Accurate up to the minute information should be available on-line.
- More phone lines must be opened at times like these to accommodate the surge of information poor, anxiety rich customers.
- In-Flight attendants should have up to the minute information at the time of take off and landing.
- If there are flight delays/cancellations for whatever reason a team of agents should meet every plane. They should have knowledge and timely information. They should be able to rebook passengers immediately. They should work in the customers best interest and not the airlines.
- Airlines should start working together again in the interest of the customer.