You have probably seen the latest United Airlines commercial at the 2008 Beijing Olympics: a woman says goodbye to her husband for a business trip, leaves her heart behind as a token of her love, only to be reunited with her husband, all thanks to United Airlines.

That’s nice.

Anita Cabral’s real-life, horrific story of a family reunion with United Airlines, on the other hand, is heart-breaking.

According to a San Diego Union-Tribune report, Ms. Cabral had hoped to reunite her grown children and her terminally-ill ex-husband:

Cabral had meticulously planned this vacation, built around a family reunion in Hawaii and a chance for her grown children to see their father, Cabral’s ex, who was in a hospice dying of cancer.

Eight people were making the trip: Cabral, her husband, her brother, her son, her daughter and her daughter’s husband and two children.

One year out, they wrote a five-figure check to reserve a five-bedroom, five-bathroom beach house. They bought their tickets from United six months early. They booked a jungle excursion, a luau, a trip in a glass-bottom boat.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime trip, and they had a big investment in it, emotionally and financially. They even had it insured.

And all that planning unraveled in just a few hours.

On the eve before their big trip, according to the report, some members of Ms. Cabral’s family could not check in using United’s website. After making excuses, United finally confessed: they had been bumped from the flight and their seats had been sold to other people. Gerry Braun of the San Diego Union-Tribune wrote:

United - after holding their money for six months and bumping them from the flight on the eve of takeoff - had no plan to help Anita Cabral and her family.

Alternative flights were proposed. But they separated the party of eight into pairs, and staggered their arrivals over several days, and sent them to different islands (leaving them to fend for themselves).

[Ms. Cabral's] 7-year-old [granddaughter] has special needs and had not flown before. Both of her parents wanted to be with her. But that counted for nothing.

In the end, the best United could offer was a flight that arrived five days into their weeklong vacation.

Click HERE to read what happened to the Cabral family.

On Wednesday, 2,500 service workers at LAX will vote to determine whether to go on strike.

The workers, who have been negotiating their contract since May, are employed by airline subcontractors to provide passenger services to several major airlines, such as United, American, and Southwest. A Los Angeles Times story reports:

The union members include service workers employed at both the airport terminals and on planes in jobs such as security, wheelchair assistance and airplane cabin cleaning. The union is pushing for higher wages, improved medical coverage and more training, equipment and staff support, said Mike Chavez, a union spokesman.

He said although workers are employed by contractors, the responsibility lies with the airlines that hire the contractors.

“The airlines need to take some leadership,” Chavez said. “They have a role in saying what their contractors should be doing.”

Click HERE to read the report.

As the U.S. airline industry attempts to use “oil speculators” to draw attention away from the chronically low passenger satisfaction rates and an array of new fees, a new online source, www.TheAirlineOilSpin.com was launched today to encourage the public to see through the industry’s spin on the issue.

The site is a project of the Reaching Higher Coalition, a growing alliance of community groups, passenger rights organizations, clergy, elected leaders, and airport workers who are committed to improving standards in the U.S. airline industry. TheAirlineOilSpin.com will function as an information source and forum to discuss and learn about the airline industry’s role in exacerbating their oil-related dilemmas, while at the same time benefiting from massive public subsidies.

While the airline industry has promoted multiple pieces of legislation that would place limits on some types of oil speculation, many of the bills supported by the industry include loopholes that allow the airlines themselves to continue speculating. At the same time, the industry has benefited from more than $8.5 billion in taxpayer subsidies since 2001, according to a recent report, Shortchanged, while passenger satisfaction levels and job quality standards for airline service workers have remained low.

The site also discusses the ways in which the airlines have failed to prepare for increasing oil prices by continuing to fly older, less fuel efficient planes, unlike many of their competitors in other parts of the world.

In the coming days, the site will ask visitors to send a message to Congressional Leaders, urging them to tie additional support for the airline industry to improved standards for airline passengers and workers.

“J.D. Power and Associates reported that airline passenger service is at a 3 year low and it is no wonder when airlines are creating a ‘race to the bottom’ for front-line service workers who perform critical safety, security and service roles,” said Lily Wang with the Reaching Higher Coalition. “Whether we’re talking about carrying their legislation or doling out more subsidies, Congress shouldn’t be doing any more favors for an airline industry that appears to show such contempt for the American public.”

TheAirlineOilSpin.com will provide news and commentary on the airline industry’s position on oil speculation and what the industry has failed to do to minimize the effects of high fuel costs on passengers and industry workers. Information about the site will be sent to subscribers and contributors of www.HowWasYourFlight.com, an online source for passengers aimed at raising awareness and improving standards within the airline industry.

The Wall Street Journal, in an August 12th piece by Heidi N. Moore, sums up the real problems in the airline industry succinctly. And if you guessed rising oil prices, you’re only seeing part of the picture.

Ms. Moore explains:

Rising oil prices, of course, hurt the airline industry, but those stratospheric costs also provided a sort of cloud cover for the industry’s essential dysfunction. Intense competition, labor disputes, absentee parenthood from Washington regulators - all have combined to put the industry in a position that requires deeper thought.

In addition, the airline industry has a few fundamental issues it desperately needs to address. Various reports have found airlines’ service quality and passenger satisfaction levels to be plummeting. While receiving billions in taxpayer subsidies, airline companies continue to divest from its workforce and pursue outdated, shortsighted business strategies that are ill-prepared for today’s fuel conscious economy.

Ms. Moore, quoting an industry expert, sums it all up:

“No leadership, no policy, no strategy, everyone blaming the other… all circling Foggy Bottom while the industry goes down the Potomac.”

Click HERE to read the entire article.

photo credit: Cubbie_n_Vegas

Delta Flight 4 from LHR to JFK departing at 8:45 GMT arrived into JFK on 8/2 at 3:30. Below is the letter I wrote to Delta about the ordeal and their abysmal reply.

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August 3, 2008

Dear Delta,

Cannot tell you how disappointed I am with the way flight 4 on August 1 (moving to include August 2nd) has been mismanaged. Since we made the news, you may have heard about the 24 hour journey between LHR and JFK with an uninterrupted 20 hours of aircraft confinement at one point (between 7:45 am GMT or 2:45 am ET and 10PM ET, with a stay at Boston Logan until 2 am on 8/2 and ultimately arriving around 3:30 am into JFK).

Let me summarize the highlights:
3 mechanical problems
3 crew changes (2x with unavailable crews)
1 weather delay
2 refueling
1 diversion

It seemed to start out bad. We sat for three hours (8:45 to 11:45 GMT) on the tarmac at Heathrow (not including boarding time) awaiting repair of a mechanical problem and were offered nothing other than the
complimentary drink in business tarmac until 7pm ET (elapsed time excluding boarding 15.5 hours) waiting for a new crew to arrive and also food and drink which we had run out of hours earlier except for some left over bread from the business class breakfast and some ad hoc chips and a few odd chocolates that had been rescued from the lunch tray (some five hours earlier). We received very little communication from Delta except that we were not able to disembark because Boston could not allow us to clear customs. Around 7pm our second crew arrived and we moved to the runway and sat for an hour again without communication.
Meanwhile I had contacted my elderly parents and asked them to travel out from eastern Long Island to pick me up, because public transportation was no longer a reasonable option and taxis are cost prohibitive for a journey that long. At 8 pm (16.6 hours on the plane elapsed excluding boarding) we were told there was another mechanical delay and we were going back to the gate. The pilot of the second crew (the one who was very informative) said he was going to ask that the flight be cancelled, however we later learned that it would not be cancelled. I called my parents to abort the one way 75 mile journey (which would be 125 round trip because they were nearly at JFK) from eastern Long Island, that they could have avoided if Delta had been honest with us as to why we were still sitting on the tarmac (another mechanical problem). I also apologized for not being able to see them. I had purchased a separate ticket from JFK to SFO because I was stopping in New York to see my father who has a terminal illness, before returning to SFO. However with the 16 hour flight delay it no longer made any sense to head to Long Island for a visit that would not be more than 7 hours including time to sleep, so I lost a trip to New York on top of the absurdity of a 16 hour delay .

We continued to sit on the tarmac told that the plane would be fixed in about an hour. They were waiting on a part. We were getting use to Delta saying something would be done soon or in an hour and nothing happening for hours. The joke became that to Delta all time is flexible. We were told during this wait that the plane had actually experienced another mechanical/electrical failure while we were flying over the Atlantic. At this point, three mechanical/electrical failures later, we were not really interested in staying on this plane. None of that seemed to matter. Delta seemed hell bent on getting that plane to New York with the passengers. Finally at around 10 pm (19 hours elapsed time excluding boarding) we were told that we would be allowed off the plane to clear customs but we were to head back through security and over to gate A3 where there would be provisions and we would be departing within the hour.

I was the first one to return through Security, following Customs. They had no knowledge of the diverted Delta flight and couldn’t imagine how I thought I could get through security with a boarding pass from LHR to JFK. I walked them through what was going on and they promptly verified it. (Shouldn’t Delta have done this?). After 30 minutes in the international terminal (E) at gate EA3 and not seeing anyone from Delta. I called the 800 Delta number. They told me I was in the wrong terminal and I needed to go to the A terminal and Gate 6. I ran over to this terminal. When I got to security the TSA person told me there were no more flight leaving from this terminal tonight. I went to the Delta counter who called a friend that informed us that I needed to go to Gate EB6. So I ran back. (It’s a good 1/2 mile between these terminals.) I got to EB6 and found that there were no provisions, no Delta agents and no notification of our flight. Indeed there was no one from Delta until around 12:30, when one fight attendant and someone else arrived with some pizzas, but still we had not one communication about what was going on. From time to time one of us would call Delta who would provide us with the erroneous information of the hour. At 12:30 I asked the lone flight attendant when we were leaving and she said that they only had half a crew and further the plane had still not been cleaned. Great we are now going to have an additional delay because the plane hasn’t been cleaned yet. We started boarding the plane around 1:30. It took a very long time because the agents were checking our names off on a paper manifest. We finally arrived into JFK at 3:30 am and were ushered to the fully manned Delta desk. I was fortunate to be in the front of the plane. It took about 20 minutes for them to issue me a few vouchers (none of the agents had instruction on how to create the Delta dollars voucher) and to give me my rebooking. I got to the hotel at 4:30 am in time to take a shower and change and head back to the airport, since I would no longer be visiting in NY.

So I spent 24 hours of pure misery and experiencing the apex of incompetence and missing a treasured visit to see my parents. The compensation you offered was $400 in travel vouchers, not even enough to compensate for the lost ticket to New York.

As several of your employees said during this ordeal, we aren’t proud of how Delta had treated you throughout this ordeal. You may want to consider offering an apology that more fairly represents this incredibly botched performance, not too mentioned in my case a completely missed stay. This one has left a long and lasting bad taste for how Delta feels about their passengers.

>From Delta

Thank you for your e-mail describing the inconvenience you experienced due to flight irregularities. We apologize for the difficulties you encountered.

Your time is valuable, and operating on schedule is equally important to us. In the process of providing air service over many different routes each day, we sometimes encounter mechanical problems, adverse weather, crew delay, and other unavoidable interruptions. These are situations faced by all airlines and no carrier can guarantee that all flights will depart and arrive as planned. We?re sorry you were inconvenienced.

We regret any inconvenience you experienced due to an unscheduled flight diversion. When your flight was dispatched, we expected it would be able to land at the destination as scheduled. Unfortunately, conditions
changed and it was necessary for the flight to divert to another city to ensure the safety of all onboard.

Our flight attendants are expected to always be responsive and offer accurate, thorough information and assistance. Our goal is to make sure your flight is enjoyable, and training is provided to our employees to
ensure a consistent and pleasant travel experience. We regret you were disappointed with the service you received.

Considerable importance is placed on offering the highest possible standard of service to our customers traveling in first or business class. We try to provide maximum comfort in seat and cabin design. Additionally, our flight attendants are expected to give more personal attention to each individual. We certainly want to make traveling in one of our premium cabins an enjoyable and relaxing experience, and it is unfortunate you were disappointed.

Our goal is to make your travel experience as smooth and enjoyable as possible, and we regret you didn?t receive the high level of service we strive to provide. Our airport representatives are expected to always be
responsive, and offer precise, complete information. It sounds like that didn’t happen in this case, and we will continue to make efforts to improve in this area.

Delta uses many factors to determine compensation for our passengers who have been inconvenienced through no fault of their own. Our information indicates you received the compensation we normally provide in circumstances of this kind. Consequently, we must respectfully decline
your request.

Dr. Brush, thank you again for giving us an opportunity to respond to your concern. We very much appreciate your Medallion loyalty to Delta and look forward to the privilege of serving you again soon.

Sincerely,

Nick M. Reeves
Manager
Customer Care

-Submitted by intek_management

photo credit: Andrei Dimofte

On July 31st my wife had brain surgery in Santa Monica Ca. We flew Us Airways from Kansas City, Mo to the surgery center. We were scheduled to come back to KC on 8-6-08 but the doctor wanted to keep her hospitalized for at least a couple more days. I called Us Airways to try and reschedule the flight and they told me that they do not honor medical request. I then talked to the hospital case worker and she then called them and told them the situation and they told her the same thing. They told me that they could reschedule the flight but it would cost $1100.00 to do so. We paid that for our round trip tickets. That was just for two one way tickets back to Kansas City. We were outraged. The case worker at the hospital said that this was a first, usually airlines honor medical request such as this one especially to this extinct (BRAIN SURGERY). There was also a letter from the doctor stating my wife’s particulars but it meant nothing to the airline. I will NEVER fly this airline again and I will make sure every one I know NEVER flies this airline. This airline is all about money they don’t care about the people that patronize them. On the flight I asked to purchase a bag of potatoe chips for my wife just so she would have something to snack on while being on all of the medication and I was denied. They told me that potato chips were only for 1st class. They then came back and tried to get me to buy a snack box for $5.00 which really was not worth it. All she wanted was a bag of potato chips and they wouldn’t even let me buy a bag! This was our first time flying Us Airways and since this is how they treat their customers we will never use them again. I hope people read our story never use this airline. THEY ARE ALL ABOUT MONEY NOT THE CUSTOMER!

-Submitted by Kingyon

photo credit: Cubbie_n_Vegas

Many sites reported that United flight 888 from Beijing to San Francisco had to return to Beijing because of faulty landing gear on August 3. I have seen no reports that the same flight the next day suffered the same problem. Shortly after take-off on August 4, the pilot reported that the landing gear would not retract and we would have to return to Beijing. According to the pilot, we dumped 200,000 pounds of fuel in order to reach a safe landing weight.

We only learned that the same thing had happened the day before after returning to the airport. Unlike the story reported for the August 3 flight, United did not arrange a later flight for the passengers. They dumped approximately 220 passengers (according to a ticket agent) back in the terminal with no plan for getting them back out. They eventually sent many of us to destinations far from San Francisco, such as Washington DC because they could not promise to rebook passengers on the flight to San Francisco the following day.

Problems with landing gear one time may be bad luck, but two times in a row suggests faulty maintenance procedures. In addition, United did an extremely poor job of getting the passengers to their destinations, telling passengers that a later flight would be arranged for them before asking them to depart the plane, but then telling us nothing was available after we were sent to wander about the terminal. Finally, it seems likely that approximately 50,000 gallons of jet fuel dumped in the air over Beijing by two flights cannot have been particularly good for the already bad air pollution there.

-Submitted by Stephen Schneider

photo credit: lemoncat1

Polly Drew with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recently gave a definition of “Flightmare” in her post:

Flightmares go well beyond the usual perils of airline travel such as crowded seats, lost luggage and food not fit for a dog. A flightmare usually involves lost money, lost opportunities (such as missing a graduation or a funeral) and lost dignity.

An example is her daughter’s recently trip from Boston to Denver with JetBlue, when her flight was canceled for 2 days and the airlines unwilling to provide hotel or food voucher.

Ms. Drew called Kate Hanni of the Coalition for Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights for advice. Click HERE to read the article and find out how her daughter was able to get JetBlue to pay for her hotel room, get food vouchers and confirmed on the first flight to Denver the next day.

photo credit: Bangkok dear Edward

My seven year old son and I were schedule to fly on June 9, 2008 with American Airline on flight 647 departing at 1:25 pm from JFK to San Juan. I arrived an hour and half early to confirm my fly tickets. Once i was in line an American Airlines worker that was directing the line took us out of the short line and sent us to another line. Once I was there we waited for at least twenty minutes.

When it was time to confirm my ticket on the computer scanner. the supervisor told us that we were to late to get on that plane. I told her how can that be possible, if we’ve been standing in line since 12 o’clock and we were taken out of one line and sent to another one. Then, she sent us back to the line that we were in the first place. when we finally got to the desk to confirm the ticket. The lady that was attending us said that the plane was full and that i was not going to be able to board. I tried to explain her how they had us running around from one place to another. She said if you got here at 12:00, the supervisor was supposed to let you on the plane. She said that i did not had to come back to the same line again. We tried to talk to her so that she can put us on the flight and send the luggage later but she said no. So she schedule us for a flight that was seven hour later.

My seven year old son and i had to wait seven hours in the airport. We had to sit for seven hours on uncomfortable chairs and very unprepared for the condition. My son did not had his toys to play with or anything that could entertain him for the rough seven hours of waiting. When I got on the plane and we are ready to take off, we had to wait sitting for another hour and a half because the plane had to much cargo and they needed to take some out. I had people waiting for me and when I arrived i had to get to my final destination on my own.

Finally we arrived in San Juan Puerto Rico, my beautiful island. When I picked up my luggage, I found out that my brand new luggage was broken on the front pocket and missing a wheel. American Airlines broke my brand new luggage!

I’m attaching photos of my luggage.

-Submitted by Mgbebita

A Note from HWYF.COM: HWYF.COM believes that the overwhelming majority of airline employees and contracted airline service workers strive to provide the best services to airline passengers. However, U.S. airlines have continued to make staff cutbacks in recent years that have resulted in the deteriorating performance and customer service received by airline passengers, as witnessed by the recent J.D. Power and Associates survey. While the story below is about a UA employee, it illustrates the implications of an industry’s failure to invest in its workforce and to raise standards for both customers and employees.

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I am writing in regards to my flight with United Airlines on July 20, 2008.

During the flight the passenger next to me became ill and vomited on me. Please note that my dissatisfaction and unhappiness is not from the uncontrollable situation of being vomited on but rather the lack of professionalism and customer service provided to me from the flight attendants.

A few moments prior to vomiting, the passenger alarmed the help button and no flight attendant came. When I noticed the young lady vomiting on me, I stood up and had to tell the flight attendant twice what was happening. I then went to the back of the plane and informed another flight attendant of the situation. I asked for disinfectant wash or spray and both flight attendants didn’t have any, in fact one of the women suggested that I “just use paper towels”. This is extremely unsanitary, especially when I had another flight to board before I reached my final destination.

At this time in the flight, my boyfriend and I were out of our seats at the back of the plane. We attempted to clean up since the vomit was on my bag, arm and leg, shirt and shorts, and we wanted to give the young lady room while she was still vomiting at our seats. As my boyfriend and I were cleaning up we heard the flight attendant say that the young lady was less than nice and a bit rude. Then we heard the other flight attendant say that they didn’t have any hazmat cleaning materials. One flight attendant made a comment to the young lady that it was “ironic that the only seat on the flight didn’t have a vomit bag for the one person who needed it”. I found the disrespect given to the young women to be extremely uncomfortable and unprofessional. I personally did not have a pillow, blanket, or head phones set at my seat and it is not ironic that I needed all three for my flight!

After cleaning myself up I asked the flight attendant if there was another place for my boyfriend and I to sit on the plane. Her response was “There are empty seats on the plane, go look and find one.” Considering this was a red eye flight and the plane was dark, we felt it was unfair for us to have to find our own seats. As the flight attendant gave us this useless response the captain alarmed the seat belt button due to turbulence. The flight attendant had not noticed and after my boyfriend and I walked down the row trying to find seats, we became dizzy. We then sat back in our original seats and put on our belts.

About 15 minutes later a flight attendant came back to our seats and said she thought there would be room for us in row 7. I then asked how much longer we had to land and her response was “I don’t know, I don’t have a watch on. I don’t even know what time it is!”. A passenger sitting behind us (who witnessed this whole situation) said that we only had about an hour left. I then said thank you to her and told the flight attendant that we would just stay there.

About 10 minutes later the young lady joined us at our seats and apologized for getting sick. I told her that “things happen and it was ok”. I then asked her if she was feeling better and she informed me that she was but that the flight attendances were rude to her. I told her that they appeared to be clueless and I was confused as to what their role was on the plane if it isn’t to help the passengers.

Throughout the flight we heard several people complaining and were witnesses to people being forgotten on beverage rounds and given attitudes by the attendants. Also, once the flight was over the attendants were nowhere to be found as we exited the plane. The pilot greeted us and that was it. This was the first flight I have ever been on where the flight attendants were not around for the dismissal of passengers.

I contacted United Airlines and the best that they could do for me was to say “Sorry”. The customer service agent told me that there was no way that someone could call me back to ensure that it wouldn’t happen again but that I should “rest assured that the situation will be addressed”.

Do not fly with United! How did they clean our seats for their next flight without the proper materials?

-Submitted by Jill L. Bassett

photo credit: photographia