After spending 3 glorious weeks in Florida, including a 4 day cruise to the Bahamas, it was time to come home to misreable weather. It was 79 every day down in Sarasota. Today in Milwaukee it’s minus 30 below witches tit.
The hell started in the begining. We were supposed to fly from Ft. Myers at 3:30p.m. to St. Louis, then from St. Louis to Milwaukee and be home by 7:00 p.m… 2 weeks before we went down there they informed us thay their Sunday St. Louis flight was abolished and that we’d have to fly from Ft. Myers to Miami at 6:30 in the fucking morning! On a little Buddy Holly plane yet!:eek:
Then at 11a.m. we boarded a 757 in Miami for Chicago. The plane was on the run way when it stopped! The Captain announces that inclemant weather in Chicago is delaying the flight! Why didn’t they figure this out before we borded? I’d rather have spent the extra hour and twenty minutes in the airport than sitting on that plane on the run way!
Then at 12:30p.m. we finally take off. Roughest fucking flight ever. The weather was awful north of Florida. They really should have canceled the flight and had us stay in Miami. Taking off was a bad decision!
Somewhere south of O’hare I keep hearing this awful grinding noise from below. It grinds for awhile, then stops. Grinds for a while. Then stops.
The Captain announces we’re in a holding pattern over the airport and can’t land yet. We all figure it’s from the delays from the snow. We stay in the air several hours. HOURS!:mad:
The grinding noise starts up again.
Finally we go in for the landing!
(voice of Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons): “WORST, LANDING…EVER!!!”
Jesus Christ! We’re gonna fucking die!
Now were on the runway and the Captain says we can’t move because he can’t steer the plane.
I later found out from a confindential source the horrible, horrible truth: The landing gear didn’t come down all the way! That’s what the grinding noise was! It was all iced up!That’s why we spent hours flying around the airport! :eek::eek: We almost were fucking killed! Why wasn’t this on CNN? If I’m going to die, I want national coverage of it, God Damn it!
He had to land eventually because we were running out of fuel! Holy fucking Christ!
Now we end up sitting on the runway for another hour while these dick heads try to tow the plane. It’s icey out, and the truck can’t get any traction.
When we finally get into the airport we find we missed our flight to Milwaukee by hours, and all the rest are canceled due to the weather.
No problem says the airline. We’ll get you home. On a fucking Greyhound bus.
I don’t want to insult anyone here, but most of us come to a point in our lives when we don’t take the Greyhound bus anymore. The bus is for 2 types of people: those who can’t afford to fly, and those who are afraid to fly. I am neither (though I may re-consider option #2). But I wanted to get home. So we sit on this bus for 2 1/2 hours. When I say “we”, I mean my wife and I, not my wife, me, and our luggage. They have no fucking idea where our bags are. They still don’t, and it’s going on 3 days!
Where the fuck are my bags? I had 3 weeks worth of clothes in there! I had medication in there! I had film in there. Where is my fucking suit cases? They went on the plane! How can they not find them?
I’m fucking tired of talking to people on the phone who can’t speak fucking English! I don’t want a lousy $200 voucher on my next flight! With all the restrictions and blackout dates it’ll be worthless anyway! it’s like giving a bag lady a $5K gift certificate towards a Mercedes. Useless! I just want my luggage!
Quit putting me on hold! Quit asking me why I’m so upset! Quit breathing! Just get me my bags!
First you almost kill me, then you lose my luggage? God! This certainly isn’t the first time flights were cancelled and you bussed people home. Do you always lose their luggage when this happens? How can one company be so disorganized!
The return flight has almost ruined an otherwise perfect vacation!
[anticlimax]I’ve had worse flights. And on American Airlines, too.[/anticlimax]
Wait until you actually start going through the detailed claim process for your luggage. I’ve personally dealt with AA on this.
If it uses electricity of any kind, including batteries, it is an “electronic device” and not covered.
All medicine is “not covered”. They even tried to claim that “toothpaste” was medicine, to scrimp on that extra $3 they would have to pay.
Anything of “value” is not covered.
If you had any good clothing (like an Armani suit or Gucci loafers) that is “out of the ordinary” you will be asked to mail by certified mail a notaraized affadavit that you had those items, along with the actual receipts for the items. Otherwise, they will refuse to pay. Personally saw it happen, to a client who flew to see me and had 3 bags lost. He was a big-shot Russian guy who had a pretty expensive wardrobe. He got nothing for it.
If you had anything work-related it’s not covered.
And I haven’t even got to the pro-rating (“Oh, your dress was 3 months old? Well, apply a 50% pro-rating to it, and…”)
Sunday i was trapped in a small plane for 4 hours, the de-icing machine broke(!), they had to call in the other airline’s machine, we finally got in the air (in fact, the plane didn’t even board until my connecting flight in Chicago was supposed to board), and then Chicago made us wait an hour in the air, we get down and they give me a new flight at 5pm to SF. That’s fine, except they keep delaying that flight, since they don’t have a plane for us to go on, or pilots. So we finally get them around 8pm (my original plane to SF was at 11am), but there is only one stewardess for annother 30 mins until the rest show up, since their planes were still in the air. finally i get to SF at 1140pm WTZ (140am central, where i came from), while i was supposed to be here at 145 pm, and the delay prevented me from getting to the eye doctor until yesterday, as i am only wearing on contact as the other decided to retire to parts unknown.
Oddly enough, my luggage made it safe and sound…
Don’t be such a literalist GMan. My point that if I am going to die, there should be national coverage, was an interjection of comedy into an otherwise intolerable situation.
Get it? Humor. Stress produced humor.
Please, Please forgive me if I’m edgy, but now it’s tuesday night at 8:10p.m.CST and they still don’t know where our bags are!
Or maybe those of us who don’t want to deal with the shit you dealt with. You apparently expect flying to be better. It’s still public transportation, no matter the cost.
It was really the weather that brought this unexpected mess your direction. Not American Airlines. Even losing your luggage was an unfortunate side effect of the whole unusual situation you were forced into.
Here’s the literalist, pkbites, not GorillaMan. His was (perhaps forced) sarcasm on the Ameri-centrist focus of U.S. news.
GuanoLad, yes the weather is responsible for the miserable trip. Are you saying that AA should not be responsible for losing his luggage? That AA should not be expected to competently handle the results of weather related foulups? The weather related foulups that occur all the time? That they should have a plan and a routine for because they occur all the time?
Having survived one plane crash in my lifetime (and spent a week in the hospital after), I have to say that if I came out of a flight which had belly-landed with nothing worse than lost time and luggage, I’d be really happy.
I’m not sure if I really want to know but…
would you care to share? Was anyone killed/ What happened?
How hurt were you? Did they pay you off? Was justice served?
What did they announce over the P.A.? They told us nothing about the landing gear! I’d hate to be in a crash and not have time to prepare!
(I still have a right to rant though! It’s now 9:50p CST and they still haven’t found my luggage, according to the woman who learned English in Bombay. At least i think that’s what she said!)
Certain kinds of things can occur frequently, but you cannot predict all possible outcomes and have a perfectly smooth running contingency plan every time.
Consider that despite the life-risking situation of frozen landing gear, when they did land they survived without injury. Consider that when forced to shut down all outgoing flights, they had buses at the ready. Consider that losing luggage is really easy in a situation where lots of last-minute flight and transport changes are necessary.
Consider that despite everything that could have really disastrously, fatally gone wrong in such extreme weather, pkbites is alive and safe, and home.
Frankly, as stressful a time as was had by all, I think American Airlines performed admirably. Lost luggage is usually found. Be thankful that’s all you lost.
If the aircraft was landing with a known problem, they would have prepared you. You would have also been surrounded by about a million emergency vehicles when you landed.
They roll the trucks and send out a news crew even if it’s a Cessna that can’t get their nosewheel to lock down, for Pete’s sake.
Does anybody else get the idea that if the flight had been cancelled, pkbites would have posted a rant about how shitty AA was for cancelling the flight?
I rarely fly, mainly because I hate airlines, security, layovers, cramped seats, not having my own car when I get where I’m going, and having to run airports like a chicken with my head cut off to find where my conection is leaving from. However, I have flown before.
My worst experience was when I was flying from Detroit to Austin, with a Chicago and Memphis layover. I was probably 15 or 16, my sister 10 or 11.
Flight delayed for 2 hours in Detroit.
1 hour in Chicago.
Missed our connection in Memphis. Two young kids in a strange city, no idea what’s going on. We finally get put in a hotel overnight, and canf inally call our mom, who’s quite worried and slightly tipsy at this point.
Everything goes smoothly the next day.
I’m not pitting them for this, since the weather was nasty, and it was a nice hotel. But it was really stresful for me, and I’ve decided to bypass all that crap and drive almost anywhere I want to go (although when I do eventually go on vacation to Seattle, I’ll fly. Drive would be horrid).
If you feel up to it, complain, but complain to the highest authority you can. When AA lost my girlfriend’s luggage and the dickheads on the phone promised her money and then magically “lost” all computer records of her complaint, I eventually got the name of the Vice President of Operations, wrote him a detailed, very civilized, yet firm letter what exactly happened, what my complaints are, how I tried repeatedly to resolve the problem, etc, etc, etc. Now, you have to understand, since they completely lost all records of us, they were just going on my word. One week later, I get an email from him (or his secretary), the problem is resolved and we get: $300 in checks, $900 in vouchers (two x $450 vouchers. I got one, too, for no discernable reason.)
Just a thought, if you’re as tenacious as I can be, it’s worth trying writing a letter to someone high up.
