US Airways

As any frequent reader of this blog knows, when I travel I have an... interesting... time of it. It is always an adventure, whether (rarely) good or (often) bad.

Yesterday, my wife and I traveled to Orlando. The trip was an adventure. The set path had us flying out of our home airport at 9:40 and arriving 45 minutes later in Halifax. An approximately 7 hour layover there and then we were on the 2 hour flight to our second stop, in Philadelphia. A two hour layover there and we were off to our final destination of Orlando.

The flight out of our home airport was delayed approximately 2.5 hours, departing at about 12:15pm rather than the 9:40am flight time. Since we had the long layover at the next airport, that wasn't so much of an issue. However, there was no notice of it prior to our leaving the house, so we actually sat at the tiny little airport for that entire time.

In Halifax, US Airways announced the next flight was delayed by approximately 1:15. We learned later this was caused by the original plane having issues which caused them to order a replacement plane to take the flight, which they then had to wait the hour and a quarter to arrive, get the passengers on board, and off to Halifax. Since we had a 2 hour layover, we weren't overly concerned about this at first. It would be tight, especially since we already knew we were landing at the end of the F terminal and flying out of the end of the A terminal in Philadelphia. That's a long haul, but there is a shuttle, so we didn't think it would be an issue.

After pushing back from the gate, the bad news came: there was an electrical issue with the generator that supplies power to the AC unit and some of the rear electrical. It took them about 20 minutes to figure it out, fix it, and get us moving again. If the pilot could not "make up" time on the flight down, that left us with only 25 minutes to go from gate to gate in Philly. Serious issue now, as that was not enough time to cross the sprawling airport, even with the shuttle.

There were a total of eleven people on board that US Airways flight (including us) who all had to make the same absurdly tight connection in Philly to the Orlando flight. When asked about it, the best advice the US Airways personnel could give us was "You'll have to run."

And this is where I have an issue. The plane we were on had a radio. The ground personnel had radios. US Airways has computers that can track this sort of information. Why couldn't our flight crew radio ahead and say, "Look, we're running way late and we have 11 people who need to make this flight. Make sure the plane holds off departure for 10-20 minutes." Or, another tact could be, "We're running late and we have 11 people that need to make the Orlando flight. Can you have airport crew ready with carts to help them get across the airport (from gate F27 to A24)/get to the shuttle?" There are any number of ways in which radios and computers could be used to convey the message that 11 people need that flight, hold it and help them get there!

There were many things the US Airways (or any flight crew/airline) could do in these situations to be saviors and help their passengers have a better experience under trying times, yet in every situation like this I find myself, the usual response is to make it the passenger's problem. This is exemplified by the "You'll have to run" advice we were given. One look at their database of passengers would show them that the flight was delayed (their issue caused it), a further mechanical issue created another delay (again, their issue), and that eleven people on the manifest had to make the last flight out to Orlando in an extremely tight timeline. In order to avoid having the airline need to put us all up for a night in the hotel (the reason we would be missing the flight was mechanical, so their own rule says they have to put us up at their expense), the system should flag someone and issue an alert to hold the outbound flight. It is both cheaper for US Airways to hold the flight and makes them look all kinds of good doing so, which is a PR bonus for them.

As it is, we got off the plane, we hooked up with a woman in a pink sweater who knew what she was doing and where to go and also needed to make that flight. We stumbled on another woman who was an airline/airport employee who gave us some advice, and we managed -- out of breath and with literally no time left -- to make it across the entire airport and to the (new) gate our flight was out of. My wife ran ahead, determined to make them hold the gate open for me, as I limped my way along behind at as fast a walk as I could muster (was not having a good arthritis day and simply can't run like that any more).

One last caveat: the original information we were given, and confirmed by the fight attendant just before we landed, was that our gate was A20. However, the airport/airline had moved it to A24. However, when we got there, there was no notice or indication of this move (even though, according to one of the other passengers who had been there well before us, it had happened about 2 hours prior-- so our flight attendant should have known). We had to ask someone what happened to the flight and get directed to the new gate even farther down the concourse -- yet another delay which could have proven costly and made us miss our flight.

I am disappointed in the advice, reaction, and inability of US Airways as a company and the specific individuals with whom we had contact to use their heads, think not very far outside the box, and help the stressed and harried passengers by either getting us to our gate or calling ahead to keep the gate open a little longer. This disappointment stretches to all the airlines, none of whom seem able to take ownership of the responsibility they have to their customers. A small bit of effort on their end would create so much goodwill on the passengers' side that they may have loyal customers for a long time to come.

Moral of the story is: the passengers banded together, all walked fast/ran to the gate, and all arrived out of breath, upset, and frustrated. But we all made the connection and got to Orlando