The Worst Airline

[That Jekka Gal]

Always hearing bad rep about American.

Just heard a story that really takes the biscuit.

A lady who had taken her seat in economy plus, was approached by a flight attendant and told that she had to move to cattle because somebody in business had broken their seat and needed to move to eco plus (which was full).

The lady in question, who didn’t speak much English, was with 2 family members & one of them started questioning the attendant. She was promptly told to shut up.

It was then explained to the lady that the plane would not leave until she complied.

Some moments passed and an announcement was made over the intercom that everyone would need to disembark because a passenger was not complying with airline regulations.

And of course, everyone knew who it was and things got heated and she was finally shamed into moving to cattle.

Just watched her YouTube vid in which she claims she was picked because she was a woman, foreign and with little command of the English language.

Which sounds about right.

What would you have done?

 

[Devilman]

I would have rushed home and told as many people as I knew, in the hope that one of them might venture onto a computer forum and make a post about it.

 

[Efour]

I would have accepted the full refund of all of the 3 tickets and enjoyed the flight from economy.

 

[!bluetonic!]

Always hearing bad rep about American.

What other bad rep tales can you share from this Airline?

What would you have done?

If I was American Airlines? Probably the same thing.

 

[Scuzi]

As a casual flyer the US carriers have always been pretty poor airlines. As one of their frequent flyers, this is the sort of thing they’d do for you to reward your loyalty. I used to to be an Executive Platinum member of the AA and 1K GS of the United frequent flyer programmes and one of the benefits which I only used once was that they would guarantee you a seat on any plane regardless of whether or not it was full.

When I moved back to the UK with my heavily pregnant wife in 2012, we had to drop everything 2 days earlier than planned as Hurricane Isaac was going to close New Orleans down for a few days. Having just sold the house and almost all worldly possessions, and not wanting to sit through a hurricane with a very stressed pregnant wife, I decided to book an earlier flight back to the UK. Problem was that all flights were completely full, and they were cancelling all flights out from later that same evening. I decided to just go to the airport and try our chances. I had both United 1K GS and American Exec Platinum memberships at the time so had a fairly good chance.

United had a flight leaving for Houston then onward to London leaving 30 mins after we got to the airport. I called the dedicated line and told them I wanted to get us both on that flight. Within a few mins we both had boarding passes in F/J and boarded the flight and got out of dodge just as all of the other flights were being cancelled. According to the flight attendant, they offered a couple $1000 each to voluntarily give up their seats for our flight to Houston. Bare in mind I had only paid for an economy ticket for the whole journey which came to not much more than that. I was glad that someone volunteered rather than having to be involuntarily offloaded.

So yeah, despite being pretty terrible in many ways, United were my favourite airline that day. American would have been had they had a flight that wasn’t likely to cancel and I’d called them first.

 

[That Jekka Gal]

Unsurprisingly my worst experience was with Ryanair.

Back in the noughties, I was working in Spain & had booked a flight back to the uk some weeks in advance for a wedding.

A couple of days before, I got an email telling me I’d been booted off the flight and had been put on the following day’s flight (which meant I would miss the wedding).

So I rang their helpline and it was explained to me that demand was high and that they had sold my seat for a much higher price but I could still get on the flight if I paid the difference (a practice that is now illegal, I believe).

I held my nose and vowed never to use them again.

Obviously I have now learned that if you ever really need to be somewhere like your life depends on it, never trust el cheapo airlines.

That said, I used EasyJet regularly the whole time I was in Spain and never had an issue.

Worst long haul flight - Avianca. Like being on a Ryanair flight for 11 hours <shudder/>

 

[Megahurtz400]

@Diddums Say the line, say the line!

 

[Diddums]

The line! The line!


You done pretending to be a woman yet?

 

[Tuppy_Glossop]

Check your T&Cs, folks. So you know exactly what you are buying.

 

[Diddums]

Check your T&Cs, folks. So you know exactly what you are buying.

Chick with dick?