What's your worst experience with an airline?

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Mike R

A couple years ago I was flying United Airlines from Burbank, CA to Boston, with a connection in San Francisco. I called to confirm that my flight was on time, and it was. They told me to check in an hour before my flight. I printed my boarding pass in advance, but had to check luggage. I arrived in Burbank an hour and 45 minutes before my flight. I was told that I had to wait in a really long line to check my bag. They only had two people working there, and several empty ticket counters. It took an hour and 25 minutes of waiting in line to check my bag. I had told them that I was going to miss my flight but they said there's nothing they could do. By the time it was my turn to check my bag, I was told it was too late and I missed my flight, and that it was my fault. However, it was United Airlines' fault for two reasons: It was United Airlines who told me it was ok to arrive an hour before my flight, and also it should NOT take almost an hour and a half to check in for a flight, especially when there are only 2 ticket agents working and a huge number of empty ticket counters. I was rudely told that I had to wait in another line to get re-booked. I also know that at least 2 other people behind me in line also missed the same flight (and who knows how many other people did). So after waiting in the next line for over 2 hours, I was rudely told that they could get me on a flight from LAX to San Francisco twelve hours later, and then on an overnight flight from there to Boston. And that I would have to pay $100 for a shuttle to get to LAX. Finally, after screaming at them, and getting the manager's name (I told her that I would file a complaint against her personally, which I did), they at least reimbursed me for a shuttle to LAX. It would appear they were overworked because another flight had been cancelled due to mechanical failure. Again, United Airlines' fault (they were way understaffed). When I finally got on a plane, it was delayed several hours due to mechanical failure and they didn't have a pilot. Finally, when I got home to Boston, my luggage was lost. The baggage claim office told me that my luggage was definitely on the next flight and would be delivered within 24 hours. Three days later, I didn't have my luggage yet, didn't know where it was, and every time I called the lost baggage hotline, I got a recorded message stating that "all agents are busy, please call again later" and it disconnected me (didn't even put me on hold). Finally it arrived, damaged.

I fly close to 100 times a year, mostly on American Airlines and USAirways. I've flown United three times in the past couple years, and have had several hours delay each time and all three times, it was the airline's fault. My luggage was lost each time too. I've never had that happen on any other airline before - hardly ever a delay of more than a few minutes and no lost luggage or rude customer service.

The only time I've had a significant delay on USAirways was a huge 2-3 foot snowstorm in Boston (not the airline's fault). They had to divert our flight, and get us home the next morning. But they were extremely apologetic and friendly, gave us meal vouchers and a hotel room, and went way above what they had to do. Their customer service is so much better than United's.

The moral of the story is, United Airlines is terrible, and American Airlines and USAirways are reliable and good.

[Jonas]â™¥

o god....lets start...

well first of all....we were on a flight from New York City to London. We sat behind one of those very religious Jew family.. (the ones that wear the hats and everything) well o affense to the Jewish religion or people...because I have friends that are Jewish and I have no problem with them....it is just that this family smelled HORRIBLE!!!!! My family was really grossed out!!!!! We went to tell a flight attendent....and luckily the flight was not completly booked....so we all changed seats. That was the WORST out of all my flight experiences!

second of all.....southwest airlines are HORRIBLE and RUDE!!!!!! We were on a flight to go to San Francisco. There was a dely and nobody was allowed on board until 1 1/2 hours later! Then....the flight attendent was very rude!!! And to top it all of!!!! They lost my luggage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also, it was the way TO San Francisco....not the way BACK from San Francisco...so I had to buy clothing and other needs. It was not a good trip at all!!!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Delta broke my brand new (still in the box) camcorder and told me that they wouldn't reimburse me because the supervisor didn't see it happen. The flight attendent who dropped it was with me and admitted she dropped and was responsible.

uoptiger_79

Delta Airlines -
trhanksgving atlanta was foged in. told no planes had left. when we landed passangers were told flight to Las Vegas had left 15 minutes ago. 125 passangers they would pay for breakfast but not hotel. I had to be at work the next morning. they finally found me away top get to Las Vegas. Atlanta-St.Louis-Dallas/Ft Worth-Las Vegas arrived at 7:30am after 14 hours in Airports and flight time.

Luftansa- flight from Atlanta to Munich
mechanical trouble they had to replace the aircraft. they replaced aircraft with one with 1/2 the capcity, no leg room, no movie, went from a Boeing 747-400 to a Airbus 300-600 over 100 people where put on another flight.

habeebladen

turbulence in a thunderstorm in atlanta

Don't even get me STARTED on southwest airlines!
they are;

1. Cheap
2. NO AIR CONDITIONING!
3. Leather seats that get ex. hot!
4. Horrible food, tastes like hiney sause.
5. rude fight attendants

I will never fly with them again!

The airline that I lovedâ™¥ was

song....

but delta took it away.

(cries in corner)

NOLA guy

Flying from Miami to London on National Airlines (defunct). The long-haul aircraft we were supposed to fly had mechanical problems and they replaced it with a short-haul aircraft. The plane (a DC-10) was normally used on the Miami-Orlando route, had the absolute maximum seating configuration, 3 toilets for more than 300 passengers, did not have much galley capacity, no in-flight entertainment, and so on. It was 9 really unpleasant hours.

Have been on other flights that weren't pleasant, but the problems were outside the control of the airline.

Spreads Love Like Violenceâ„¢

I work in a hotel where all we have are pilots from American Airlines, American Eagle and Oceanic (from brazil). There are busses that take them to the flight academy all day, so American Airlines and Eagle pays for us to keep them here. 3 million dollar contract

Let me tell you, some of these pilots are idiots. No one knows how to read the info sheets we give out about the bus times and all the info, one of them set off the fire alarm while smoking a cig in the hallway RIGHT underneath the fire alarm, they come down because their Tv's dont work, or the Coffee maker... and it's because they didn't plug it in.

I've been saying I was gonna write these people's names down because some of them dont even look old enough to fly a plane, or to even trust my life with. Lol.

Laoshu Laoshi

My worst experience was a flight I regularly take every summer from JFK to Beijing. I've taken this flight four times now, but the last one was the worst. The stewards are fine, probably because they are supplied by Air China, who the flight is cross-listed with. However, the food keeps getting worse every year. This flight is 13 1/2 hours long. This year every meal on that flight had mayonnaise as part of the meal. The smell of mayonnaise is enough to make me nauseous and now I'm on a 13 1/2 hour flight (just after the scare in London when all the new restrictions came out so I didn't pack snacks in my bag) and there is nothing I can eat, but dinner rolls. Unfortunately, this is the cheapest and only direct flight available to Beijing on the day I leave every summer so I don't really have a choice. I will definitely be calling the airlines this year to make sure no mayonnaise, and they better not give me the vegetarian meal, is served to me. For now, I will pray another airline starts flying that route at a similar time with no stop overs and not much more money.

AZRAEL

A person who drinks too much and wants to start trouble. That happened to me once too often and i ''popped" the clown in the mouth. end of scenario !!

Legsology07

Connecting flights suck. I prefer direct flights.

wonderingmind

Rude, don't care, ignore the passenger flight attendants

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