Airline Fiasco

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Remember when it was fun and exciting to get to travel on a plane? Well, those days are long gone. Flying now seems to be such a hassle. First you must arrive several hours before your flight and bid your people farewell since they cannot accompany you to the gate. Then you must wait in lines to pass through several security check points before you get to the gate. Of course my gate is always the last one in the terminal.

Now I have a tale that will make you shake your head.

Last week my brother-in-law, Tom, came to visit. He flew into St. Louis so he could spend a few days at his father’s, then they came to my home. He planned to leave from the Branson airport. These plans were made in July.

Monday he looked at his paperwork for his ticket and discovered he did not have a flight home. Oops! He had made an error back in July and just now discovered it. Immediately he called the airline but after waiting on hold for thirty minutes they could not help him. As they transferred him, the call was disconnected.

Next step was to book a flight on the ipad. He discovered it would be $60 cheaper to leave on Monday, rather than Tuesday. He entered all the information needed, but it continued to say there was an error. We could not find the error.

We got out my laptop, but discovered that the airline said there were no seats available. We knew this was not true. We checked Orbitz, but the price jumped to $580. Then I checked Travelocity. Yes, they had the flight for $240 and seats were available. Breathe a big sigh of relief, he has a ticket and boarding passes.

He was at the airport in plenty of time, it seemed the crisis had been averted. But wait, what was that announcement? “If your boarding pass does not say carry-on, you must report to the desk.” What’s this all about he wondered, as they were beginning to board the plane.

“Sir, you must pay $100 to carry-on your bag since you did not book through the airline. Or you can go back out to the service desk and check your bag for $25.” Tom headed back out to the desk where one person had three phones ringing and ten people  waiting in line to check bags. He stood there for seven minutes and not one person had been helped. He went back through security and returned to the desk. The attendant was rather rude to him when he said he would just pay the fee. “You will have to wait until all the other passengers have boarded before I can process you,” the attendant said. So he was the last person to board the plane.

To make matters worse, there were several crying babies on the flight too. Fortunately, that flight was only an hour.

I could not believe that he had to pay $100 extra to carry his own bag on the plane. That’s ridiculous! I won’t be flying Frontier if I can help it.