Yes, it is heartening when people show concern and consideration. I’m glad the fellow passengers realized how important it was that this couple saw and said something about the danger, keeping everyone safe. Somehow a glass of bubbly isn’t enough–they really needed to get the accommodations all passengers need when a flight is grounded, at the very least.
We were pretty distraught when our D was on a different different airlines & flight and got to the U where she was supposed to get her orientation, move in and transfer as a sophomore in January. Fortunately S also was yet a different airlines and flight and got there about the same time as D. They were going to try to fob us off and have us fly out in a WEEK (lots of full flights), after classes had started but I begged and they were able to fly us out the next day to join our kids and help D get settled at her new dorm. S and our friends in LA were able to help as well–pick the kids up, feed them and get them to S’s apartment.
I think the thing that concerned the airlines at that time the most was that I was traveling with medical equipment that I used aboard and they didn’t want to mess things up for me too badly.
Just had a rough flight home on Delta, but handled by them decently well. The incoming flight had two mechanical issues, making us six hours late. Six hours! Our late night arrival home became a red eye. Ugh.
What they did right was keep us updated and provide food, drink, and advice. I hate to be strung along, told that no one knows what is happening or that any minute we’ll get a plane when in fact it is pretty darn clear we will be hours late. Knowing that we would be x hours late meant I could go get something to eat at a sit down restaurant, go find a quiet place to take a nap, even rethink whether I wanted to come home on this flight or start again in the morning.
A similar thing happened on the same flight (just three hours late!) a few weeks prior and we were not as well informed or cared for. Maybe Delta paid attention to the survey answers we sent them?
Passengers behaved decently for the most part. I didn’t see anyone get angry or freak out. (Maybe they did it when I was eating or napping.) I did notice that a few people acted like they were starving refugees, though, and took way more food and drink than needed and put it in their luggage.
Last spring while dealing with a family emergency in Arizona and extending my stay, I was also treated very kindly by the Delta phone rep. I had anticipated a $200 change fee, and they asked for pertinent information on the emergency and then worked with me to find a flight with no additional cost. It means a lot to have someone be kind and understanding at a difficult time.
Flew Frontier for the first time last week for a short flight to a somewhat local city. Despite all the bad publicity this airline gets I had no issues whatsoever and very good customer service.
Yes, Jet Blue really messed up that one. However, who puts a person with Alzheimer’s on a flight by themselves and counts on the airline/airport employees to take care of them? You would have to be nuts to do that, anything could go wrong. If you can’t afford to send someone to go with her, Grandma doesn’t get to visit. At least when someone puts a child on a flight alone (which I wouldn’t do unless they were older and responsible enough), it is obvious they are children. One can’t look at an adult and tell they have Alzheimer’s disease.
D2 had a good experience with United in May. A bunch of flights going into the New York area were delayed because of the weather in NYC. I had a feeling that because the delayed flights were stacked, D2 might be able to get on an “earlier” flight (i.e., earlier than her scheduled departure, not necessarily earlier than actual departure) if seats were available when she got to the airport and talked to a human being, and that turned out to be true.
Agree with @Busdriver that it’s important that only people mentally and physically able to handle everything with flying should be flying alone. This is the reason many of us insist another adult fly with aging relatives to help smooth the way. The alternatives are unattractive and scary.
i do think it’s all random, and comes down to individual employees.
i had a great experience with united - in chicago ORD the same afternoon that the big ruckus happened when they pulled a passenger off the plane. I too had a boot and scooter from my broken ankle. United and the airport staff were amazingly kind and helpful to me. but - there were no stressful situations/over booking/ maintenance troubles going on around me either . . . .
At first I thought it was just one of United’s many glitches, but if she was enroute from Guatemala to DC she would have checked into all legs of her flight earlier that day. However glitchy your system is, it shouldn’t list someone as cancelling a flight mid way.
It’s hard to credit the unnamed Texas congressman with being correct that he has witnessed Jackson Lee bully her way into first class 3 times. That seems a stretch, even for United, lol. But if you have a passenger who has literally paid for seat 1A, you shouldn’t try to brush them off with BS excuses!
Hmm, I don’t know. Doubtful she accidentally cancelled the leg herself, could be a weird glitch. Or did the ticket agent cancel it…a flight attendant couldn’t. The ticket agent has control over the upgrades, they could upgrade someone out of order. But is the congresswoman a top level premier member…if they had one seat open, that’s who should get it. United should be able to figure this out exactly, certainly if the upgrades were in order. Someone waiting to upgrade who was monitoring the list would know, was she first on the list or did she get moved ahead?
It’s possible it really was just a glitch and the congresswoman was a high status flier, first on the list. Easy to untangle. If she’s a high status flier, she could get upgraded all the time, but I can’t imagine they’re bumping paid first class passengers for her.
Seems like a strange ‘coincidence’ that a ‘glitch’ cancelled one leg of the flight and it just so happened that a congresswoman got her seat.
No matter what the case, United gets more bad publicity because I think most people will not believe United’s explanation after that man was dragged off the plane.
Wonder if a person with higher airline status could bounce someone, even if they (the lower status flier) paid for the first class seat. Would think the higher status person is guaranteed a seat, just not one already occupied by a person who paid for it, and not necessarily in first class. . Now if someone had been upgraded to first class and then a higher status wanted it… wonder what would happen? Seems to me the person who was upgraded for free could be bounced back if a higher status person wanted the seat.
Next Friday is supposed to be another really busy flying day. I hope we don’t get booted out of our first class seats, even though we paid only $20/seat to upgrade. It’s not on United, but still…
I don’t think that would/should happen. If you paid for the seat, you should have the seat. They would only upgrade someone if there was an available seat. If you already were upgraded, they wouldn’t put you back into coach for a higher status person. Not that gate agents couldn’t do that.
Alaska did make a person who was upgraded into my seat move back to coach once, though. I had checked in, had a first class seat, but was very delayed getting to the gate and they had released my seat. They made the guy give up my seat…I could tell the flight attendant was unhappy and I almost said I’d take his seat. But I’d worked all day and it was a 6 hour flight. I longed for Chateau St Michelle red wine, so I took my seat. The lady next to me said I was crazy for even thinking about giving it up.
It sounds like that’s what happened here, only the original passenger wasn’t late, she just boarded in a later group because the congresswoman was seated first. Then they discovered their error. I would be angry at that treatment too.
Couldn’t they have announced, “searching for passenger Smith”, before giving away her seat since they knew she boarded in Guatemala? Where would she have gone?
" I longed for Chateau St Michelle red wine, so I took my seat."
@busdriver11 - that wine is good. I once flew a late evening flight to SJC, and a guy in row 1 got really pissed that due to turbulence all service had to be stopped. He was sooo looking forward to trying that Indian Wells red! To add insult to his injury, he could see from his seat the FA pouring the opened bottle down the sink! I was sitting behind him and got to hear all of his moaning and complaining. Geez dude. Just buy yourself a bottle!
