Delta sucks too

In support of my ongoing airline diatribe, I must say that this guy has the right idea (via Gothamist)

$1 Million Lawsuit Over Delta's "Absolute Incompetence"
May 28, 2008, via Gothamist

A Manhattan lawyer blames Delta Airlines for ruining his mother's 80th birthday celebration and is suing the airline for $1 million. Richard Roth says a Delta employee made them miss a flight to South America and losing their luggage for days, telling the Post, "It was the most outrageous experience I've ever had in my life. It was an absolute disaster. One catastrophe after another."

Roth's lawsuit lists a series of grievances, from a "nasty" stewardess who wouldn't let them know if their connection was on time (the family was flying from Westchester to Buenos Aires, with a connection in Atlanta) to a Delta agent who claimed their flight had taken off when it hadn't ("The pilot is not in charge here. I am. All the pilot does is fly the plane.").

Oh, and the family was also told, when they missed their flight to Argentina, that Delta couldn't fly them there for another 2 1/2 weeks. So, after two nights in Atlanta, the family drove from Atlanta to Miami, where they caught a flight to South America.

Roth, who used frequent flier miles for his tickets and misplaced luggage, says he just wanted $21,000 in compensation, but Delta was unresponsive. Now he wants that $21,000, plus $275,000 in compensatory damages for emotional distress and plus much more for punitive damages.

I have to agree with the absolute incompetence jab. We had a trip up to Buffalo from JFK last year that wasn't nearly as nightmarish, but certainly as incompetent on Delta's part. With no weather problems, we were bumped off an overbooked flight, even though we had booked out tickets over 6 months in advance. We initially not offered compensation because we had "missed the announcement" even though we sat in front of the totally bitchy Delta representative starting an hour before the flight. Needless to say, none of the Delta reps never made eye contact with us, and were the cause of flared tempers and tears.

In the end, Delta was able to get us to Buffalo 4 hours late by routing us through Pittsburgh! We missed Act 1 of Damn Yankees, which Ellen's mom was acting that evening. And in the end, we were refunded our tickets and compensated additionally the cost of the tickets.

For Easter, US Airways straight up canceled a flight on us, luckily several hours before we even left for the airport. They did not offer compensation, claiming that their offer to fly us 24 hours later was a sufficient substitute!!! We ended up renting a car and driving to Buffalo through the night. I had to throw a fit just to get a refund from them. Forget about free tickets, much less an offer to pay for car rental, and certainly not a million dollars for risking my life to drive through 7 hours of blizzard (plus the last hour that Ellen drove through perfect weather).

Our travel plans are usually structured around 3-4 day events, and our arrival is linked inextricably to a schedule. Very rarely, I would say, do we arrive on time to anything that involves domestic flights. We'll stick to driving and training as much as possible, and where not, we'll have to plan our flights to have up to 24 hours of delay built in.

-dr-

US Airways sucks (duh)

I have a history of hating on US Airways. Apparently, their own employees feel similarly. According to an NYT story today:

Fliers Fed Up? Airline Employees Feel the Same

And you thought the passengers were mad.

Airline employees are fed up, too — with pay cuts, increased workloads and management’s miserly ways, which leave workers to explain to often-enraged passengers why flying has become such a miserable experience.

A rich record of the employee discontent emerges from regular question-and-answer sessions held at US Airways, which is both the worst-performing big airline in the country and a company that encourages its 36,000 workers to direct tough questions at its chief executive, W. Douglas Parker.

My favorite quote from the piece is:

"In recent months, US Airways had the worst record for on-time flights and misplaced bags among the major airlines and it piled up the most customer complaints at the Transportation Department."

I wish them the worst in their recovery. Although I have to say that CEO has some cojones to face employees after being such a miser.

-dr-

Holiday Digest

12.22 - arrived an hour late into buffalo on the day the transit strike ended in NYC. got a cab to the airport no prob at a regular price, but then suffered at the hands of the terrible US Airways. US Airways sucks, and that is final. I had sworn to never fly US Airways again last year, but forgot to check the airline this time around. NEVER AGAIN!

12.23 - celebrated Ellen's friend Lisa Lobczowski's engagement to Kevin Perchan. The shindig lasted well into the night, culminating with Tom opening his car door with a hanger, and drink at the local townie bar.

12.24 - Visited Ellen's Granpa Kemsley and watched videos of her father conducting. Drove to Rochester to visit Steve's sister whose husband had just installed DBS 5.0 speakers. Followed by one of the best Xmas Eves ever, especially since it didn't include silke or midnight mass. I know all you Lithuanians think I'm crazy, but I can't stand raw eel or herring.

12.25 - opened gifts (luckily not at 7am). a bunch of people came over for dinner from ellen's family, and we ate some delicious food. we then quickly popped over to Lisa Lobczowski's so Ellen could see her "try on some clothes."

12.26 - spent the day vegging out and playing with toys. Had dinner with the Hohls and Ellen's parents. Drove to Lewiston, where we saw the setting for Lisa Lobczowski's wedding, and then to Niagra Falls, which were beautifully lit up (the American side of the falls is lit up by lights in Canada).

12.27 - went to my favorite wings place with Ellen, her mom, and brother Ben before flying back to NYC. Mmmm....

12.28 - 5/6 of our guests for New Years arrive, including my cousin Lina from California. Have a few beers at Vaiva's, including Svyturys, which is now sold in Astoria.

12.29 - Celebrated Xmas with the fam, opening gifts in Astoria. Got a 60GB iAudio X5 media device!!!

12.30 - Met up with the Los Alamosian crowd + Vaiva, Autumn and Pam (eventually) at Dinosaur BBQ up in Harlem. Had a delicious meal with partially comped tequila shots for all (1/20 of the shots were comped). Ellen and Mike fooled some of us (me and Lina) by saying they were late cuz they saw a beached whale on the Hudson. Oy.

12.31 - My birthday! Brunch with Ellen around Columbus Circle, and party preparation until dinner (made what was to be a killer ipod playlist). Dinner with Dalia, Yo, Mom, Dad, Vaiva, Ellen, Andrius, Audrone, Linas, Sofie, Lina, Mike, Ellesse, Colin, Rob, Brittany, Pam, Jim, and Autumn at one of the incredibly small Indian restaurants down on Sixth street. Heckled by aggressive recruiters on the way, we had delicious food, great company, and an amazing birthday song with disco ball and custom song involved.

Rushed back to Astoria, where we were joined by Shaun, who took an overnight bus from Cleveland to join us, and Philitha, who drove down from Neringa in Vermont among others. Partied well into the wee morning hours.

1.1 - Went to Mayor Bloomberg's innauguration, at which we appeared at on the front page of the New York Times the next day: Darius Razgaitis and Ellen Johnson in the NY Times

Kevin dropped in to NY on his way back to Boston from Florida, so we went out with him, Shaun, Aaron, Abby, Jess, and Giulia with a couple of her friends. An excellent time was had at the Black Bear Lodge, where there were many underage kids having a very trendy trashy time. Grabbed pizza at a place where two female Redskins fans slept face-first in their pizza.

1.2 - Was on the front page of the New York Times. Went to an historic Knicks game where victory game at the end of a triple overtime. Wandered around Union Square area through the freezing rain looking for a bar to no avail with the Los Alamosians.

Grabbed some KFC, which I chose to enjoy on the train back to the Bronx.

ooooooooooooooooooooooooy.

now it's just time to get all those photos up. [[insert emoticon with bags under its eyes here]]

-dr-

barker

just got back from another really fun weekend in Barker, NY (near Buffalo) with Ellen's family. Had their annual Holiday Party on Saturday, and as usual, there were about a billion little kids running around and everything was really hectic. we ate so much, including Ellen's mom's signature chicken fingers, roast beef, and butter cookies...mmm...

Sunday, we went to Ellen's brother Nathan (10y.o.) hockey game. His team lost 7-2, but Nathan played extremely well, showing vast improvement in his game over when I saw him play last year. Sunday night we dropped by Ellen's friends' house, and I got an opportunity to drive Ellen's dad's pickup truck. It was my first time driving in about 7months, and my first time ever driving a truck. The worst part was that it was snowing pretty bad, so I had to go about 20mph all the way there, but parking was fun.

Ellen went back to NYC early Monday morning, but I'm just flying back now, so I got to spend the day with all of her 5 little brothers when they got home from school. Great weekend asides from USAirways' gross mismanagement of its flights (yeah, there were problems on the way back too). I will never fly with USAirways again. USAirways is the worst airline I have ever flown with (Finnair is in a very close second).

-dr-

USAirways sucks

On Saturday morning, I had been scheduled to fly USAirways from LaGuardia to Buffalo at 830am. I received an automated call from USAirways at 630am stating that my flight had been delayed "121 minutes." Later, the flight was cancelled due to "maintenance problems." I got rerouted through Philly because the next flight to Buffalo from LGA was full.

Needless to say, compensation was never mentioned, and when I brought it up, I was met with scoffing from the supervisor. She told me all she could give me was the number for customer service. It took her ten minutes to get the number, and then I only later found out she had given me the number for baggage problems. GD it!!!

So, I will now flood USAirways with complaint letters, and urge all of you to avoid using their services whenever possible. There are plenty of other carriers out there that offer the exact same services for the same prices.

-dr-