In the last week I have spent 3 nights in Las Vegas with my Mom and Stewart on a “Girls Only but Stewart Can Come too Shopping Holiday”. Although it was a real treat to get away I do have a little ranting and raving to do about the holiday.
United Airlines/Ted has to be the second worst carrier I have ever flown (Worst? America West! Hands down biggest goat-fucks ever!). Although the staff in Hickville City and Denver were fine (totally excellent in Denver) and Flight Crews were great;Â the airline staff in Las Vegas had to be the slowest, laziest and worst we have ever encountered (funny how my issue with America West was Las Vegas based…. hmmmm).
The Las Vegas ticket agent was likely the slowest person I have met in my life. It played out like this:
Scene: get to the counter and produce the online printed tickets for 3 people – 2 flights each; so 6 tickets total. Nita puts her suitcase (which is the largest of all 3 suitcases) on the weigh-scale.
Ticket agent takes tickets and decides that the tickets need to be ripped apart from the paper they were printed on so that they will be standard ticket size. One by one he fold the paper 8 times slowly over and over to create a crease to rip on. He then picks the paper UP and rips it – not smart enough to hold the damn ticket against the counter after folding one time and RIP…… seriously it took close to 10 minutes for him to shoddily rip 6 pieces of paper. In the meantime for the full 10 minutes my suitcase is on the scale and he is looking at it.
ticket agent: Your bag is too heavy. 58 pounds the limit is 50 pounds.
Nita: the other two bags are way underweight – can’t we just call it even?
ticket agent: Nope
Nita: how much to add the 8 pounds?
ticket agent: $100
Nita falls over throwing a fit (not really).
ticket agent: Just put 8 pounds of stuff in your Moms bag then it is all even. (like my Mom wants my dirty panties in her bag – yuck).
The fucker agent made me take the bag off the scale to transfer the items (previously the airlines would let you pull out the 8 pounds and transfer it instead of guessing like we did) and put them in my Mom’s bag. So once we guessed mine down to 50 pounds he tossed it on the convayer belt without even letting me lock the damn thing up. There was a 700$ purse in there with no lock on it! Ugh.
Now, I totally understand the weight restrictions (my father busted his back as a baggage guy all his life) but seriously this was a medium suitcase (not large) with nothing heavy in it. Way too many airlines have dropped the 75 pound baggage down to 50 pounds (YAY WestJet – still 60 pounds). What really irked me is he kicked us out of line so he could help other people. Hey asshole? You spent 10 minutes ripping 6 tickets – I don’t think customer service is your forte, so quit faking it. Oh and you could of told me that the bag was overweight since it sat on your scale for 10 minutes while you ripped the 6 tickets.
We finally get to the gate to see out flight is delayed 30 minutes. Not too big of a deal but we have under an hour in Denver to make our connection to HickVille City – and the ground crews in Denver are not exactly known for getting your plane to the gate on time either. It is already starting to look like we will miss our connecting flight.
Stewart (being an Air Traffic Controller) stands in line for the gate agent to find out what is going on and if we can rebook out connecting flight for a later time that night (or the next morning). After standing behind another customer (who is slightly stupid, fakes not knowing English and is rude as well) from HickVille City who needs to get the same flight info; the staff gets fed up with him and closes the wicket right in front of Stewart. During this time Stewart hears them blaming the delays on Air Traffic Control. This royally pisses Stewart off since he knows better. ATC does not delay aircraft; over-scheduled Airlines in over-scheduled Airports cause flight delays. By blaming delays on Air Traffic Control airlines do not have to be responsible for providing you compensation (or hotels overnight) if your flight is screwed up. Convenient hey?
Finally we board the plane. I am sitting in row 12. The cabinet that houses the drop down oxygen mask over my head has opened and the man beside me is trying to close it. We all know that this will cause further delays if a flight attendant notices it. They notice it. Now we have a mechanical delay (25 minutes) which now makes the airline liable for our hotels in Denver that night. Small YAY!
A mechanic shows up with no tools to fix it, and we joke with him to duct tape it closed. He says he can not do that and goes to get “clearance” to do a repair. Guess what the repair was? Tape. Didn’t stick but whatever – I got moved to upgraded seating. After that we sat on the runway for some time for the “paperwork” to show up so the plane can take off.
When we got to Denver we electronically got our tickets for the next flight that was available (the next morning) and headed to United Customer Service to see what if any compensation was being offered for the night.
The staff was awesome and pretty organized considering almost 100 people missed their connections. We were sent to a pretty nice hotel in Denver and given vouchers for breakfast the next morning. Since we would not get our luggage back (it was going to take 4 hours to get it) they provided toiletry kits with everything you need to not smell funky the next day. Needless to say we had to sleep naked that night (which seriously I do not do naked) but overall it was pretty good (except for the pussy ass cab driver to the hotel).
So what did I learn?
- Flying out of Las Vegas on any American airline is a gong show.
- Denver seems to be a nice city – I think Stewart and I will do a mini holiday there soon.
- Flying when pregnant and still fighting morning sickness = not too fun.
- I need to wear more comfortable shoes in Vegas.
Next Post: about the shoes…..
Good Layout and design. I like your blog. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. .
Jason Rakowski
I’m new to your blog, but I have to agree about United. My worst airline customer service experience was with them in San Juan. It was technically an Air Canada flight, but run by United in Puerto Rico. Usually airlines call to have anyone who needs extra time or assitance to board the plane first. I’m standing at the gate with my two year old in her stoller, they’re looking right at me and never make that call. We decided we would board last so we wouldn’t be in the way of other passengers. One of the flight attendants commented that I needed to hurry (the flight was behind schedule) and why didn’t we board first, when I rather curtly told her that United didn’t make that call, she apologized and then helped me get settled. I was not impressed.
Dude. You didn’t mention the wicked turbulence in and out of Denver. I just flew in and out of there with “morning” sickness and puked like crazy both ways, of course while seated between strangers in the middle seat. Not my finest hour.
What an ordeal! (The whole ticket counter in Vegas dude)
Yikes! Glad your new purse made it home safe! 😉
Yikes, I’m surprised you didn’t mess teh place up by blwing an artery.
And as to your comment over at Life of ‘Pie – yeah, a lot of Pumpkinpie’s earlier stuff is totally reusable – I bought her overalls in the boys department anyhow, and red turtlenecks work on any kid. It’s later, as she’s gotten girlier, that I won’t be able to use so much of it again, to my friend’s great fortune, given that she has a nearly new girl! Thanks for stopping by over there and saying hi!
I came here from Haley’s blog.
Nice to hear that my city’s airport does a good job. 😉
I think that your problems in Vegas were the people in Vegas…NOT the airlines. We’ve always had problems in Vegas too.
Sleepynita! You owe me an email! You won! You won! You won a car seat! 🙂 You still interested? I have to give clek your deets!
Somehow i missed the point. Probably lost in translation 🙂 Anyway … nice blog to visit.
cheers, Rigid!!