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| - My wife and I flew from upstate NY to San Juan PR for our cruise.
Our flight from Albany NY left at 5:15am. We are constantly bombarded with: "Get to the airport 90 minutes before departure!". We got there at exactly at 3:45am and....just a big line of people waiting. Evidently US air doesn't open until 4am. There were 3 US Air flights that morning, all before 5:30! How about organization of US airways? How about opening ON TIME!??!
Then we got to Philadelphia. Checked the gate number on the big board. Gate A21. Had to take a bus to a terminal A. Checked the gate number on the big board again. Gate A21. As we are walking to our gate (15 minute walk), I hear something about a San Juan, US air gate change. Check the gate number on the big board again. Find out it's B33. Which is a 20 minute walk in the other direction!
Get to B33 and it's a zoo. Evidently other people magically got the memo that it's B33, not A21. I'm in shape but I nearly ran for 30 minutes with heavy carryons and just made the initial boarding call. Had I walked, i would've missed the flight. How about US Airways giving connecting passengers some notice?!??! I nearly missed this flight!
Then I hear some announcement about an aircraft change and the flight being overbooked and offering a $300 credit for your next flight with US airways. And then moans and groans. Then I can't hear the rest of the announcement. Followed by passengers getting confused and angry (by their reactions).
Then it's a game of "Broken Telephone" as the message spreads: The new aircraft is smaller. It was supposed to be 8 seats per row, now the new aircraft is only 6. So whoever has "G" and "H" seats are BUMPED. Frantically get our boarding passes out and it's "A" and "B". If I had a G or H seat, I don't make my flight, I don't make my cruise. The people next to us are furious. They have G and H seats. Felt really bad for them.
Absolute chaos at gate B33 in PHL ensues!!! (I should've taken video!). People yelling and SCREAMING at US airways staff. About 60 people just had their vacations ruined.
Positives were that they didn't call out zones: just as long as you didn't have a G or H seat, you were golden. And they didn't offer the credit card with 40,000 on the flight either. I guess the pilots knew that everyone was a bit miffed because we were 30 minutes late coming out of the gate and magically got there in time.
Negatives about US airways (other than above): No on-flight entertainment. They had TV's because that's how they did the safety instructions. But no TV, no movies. I knew they had them because it started for a couple of seconds (30 Rock) but THEY SHUT THEM OFF! No Satellite radio either!!! THEY SHUT THEM OFF AFTER PULLING OUT OF THE GATE and NEVER TURNED THEM ON DURING FLIGHT! We know that you want to charge us, but come on!
BTW, we got to San Juan and there were about 60 pissed off passengers there because the same thing was going on the return flight back to Philly.
EPIC FAIL
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