Monday, December 17, 2007

Fly The Friendly Skies


Just because you have a ticket with United Airlines,
doesn't mean you're going to get on a plane. Because
of "interesting" occurrences regarding our recent flights
to Denver for our Psych Testing, I can't say that I'm
United Airlines' biggest fan. On the way to Denver,
we had a connecting flight. On our first leg, we
had to wait for a half hour on the ground before
we took off. Obviously this wasn't United's fault.
When we arrived at the connecting airport, our next
plane was leaving in ten minutes. The person at
our arriving gate called our departure gate and told
them we were coming. When we got there, they had
given our seats away! They "found" seats for us, but
our aisle seats that we had boarding passes for, were
no longer ours! How does this work? If I have a
boarding pass, I'm checked in and should be able to
get there any time up until the time they close the
doors. As a result, we got really "comfy" middle
seats. Good thing the flight was only a couple of
hours.
On the way back, we got to DIA in Denver 55 minutes
before our flight. Yes, 5 minutes less than the hour
suggested, but not unreasonable. We then waited in
United's check-in line for 15 minutes. When we got
to a counter, it was now 40 minutes before our flight
and the "friendly" folks at the United Counter told us
that since it was less than 45 minutes before our flight,
we would be moved to another flight and had to go to a
separate line. We went to this line, waited for 10
minutes and then were told we would be put on "Stand
by" for the next flight. Uh No...this was not going to
happen. We had tickets...we were NOT going on Stand
By. We basically made butts of ourselves and raised a
stink, so that the United employee had to call her
supervisor. At that time the supervisor told her to
put us on the next flight. So all was well...for now.

While waiting for boarding to begin, I noticed that a
lot of passengers had large bags they were carrying
on instead of checking. These attached bags were
attached to wheels and are much larger than the airlines
have told us in the past were acceptable. Lynn and I
got on the plane fairly quickly and placed our small
carry on bags in the overhead compartments. The whole
time, the flight attendants are telling us that small
bags need to be placed below your seats so that "wheeled
bags" can be placed in the overhead compartments. The
last time I checked, you were SUPPOSED to have small
bags. So right before takeoff, a flight attendant can't
close the compartment near the one where I placed my bag.
He looks into my compartment and states "Whose bag is
this?" "Mine", I say. "Well, you'll have to put it under
your seat". I tell him that I can't because my coat is
already under my seat (They told us we would have to
hold our coats since they had to make more room for
wheeled luggage). "Is there anything valuable in your
bag?" he asks. I say, "Yes, my computer". "Well, you'll
either have to hold your bag or we'll have to check your
bag and this gentleman's bag". Well, I thought that he
should check the other person's bag. How selfish of me.
So I told him so and he informed me that it wasn't a
chartered flight and I couldn't have everything I
wanted. So much for "The Friendly Skies of United".

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow...Tom got so pissed off, he exploded in mid-sentence! I hope that someone is able to finish the story. It sure sounds like United sucks at customer service these days.

Tom said...

LOL...I was publishing...then we got company and I couldn't figure out how to save without posting. It has a happy ending though as we arrived safe and sound...The End.

Anonymous said...

Good to hear. I hope you have a happy holliday.