Letters to the Editor
MWise
Published Letters: 253 Editor's Choice: 19
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Communication, flexibility, service
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Those are the missing elements for passengers. Its not the problems in the air and on the tarmac are most trying to passengers, for the most part we understand the difficulties with coordinating numerous flights and ever changing weather conditions. What we don't understand is why we are kept in the dark most of the time, why there is never any decent contingency planning and why we are treated like sh*t when problems happen. I had a flight from Heathrow to Dulles delayed for 3 days and 8 hours. Those 8 hours waiting on the plane was uncomfortable, but understandable...they wanted to get our flight off the ground. Too bad it didn't and after that they didn't seem to care too much.
It was complete chaos from start to finish. We were at a completely different terminal from where we were told to go to get reassigned to a new flight and no one gave us directions. No one told us what would happen to our baggage (I got mine 2 days later). There really wasn't any point for us to stand in line to try to get on a new flight since there weren't any. But no, we had to wait in line for two hours to be told that. Then we had to go to another location for hotel/food/transportation vouchers. So we went and stood in line AGAIN, only some of our flight got accomodations since they ran out of vouchers half way through the list of passengers. So if you didn't get a voucher, you had to either find your own place to stay or camp out at the airport. If you found your own hotel, you would have to mail in your expenses and wait for recompensation. Oh and since a lot of flights were affected there really wasn't much left in the way of decent rooms near the airport. And we were told that we would have to show up back at the airport at 7am to try to re-book. I was lucky and got a room, but didn't receive any transportation voucher so I was on my own to get to/from the hotel. The next morning at the airport it was chaos, they had not increased staff and people with the canceled flights from the previous day were fighting with the people that were on regularly scheduled flights for that day. We had to stand in line again only to be told to come back tomorrow at 7am to see if we could get on a flight. (and you had to have your original paper ticket otherwise there was a fee assessed for each passenger without one) I argued with the ticketing agent and was able to get reticketed on a flight 2 days out just so I didn't have to show up at the airport everyday until I could get on a flight. But in doing so, I was told that I forfeited my right to a ticket refund/voucher...at that point I didn't care and just wanted to get out of the airport. I had family in London that I could stay with for free so that wasn't too bad...my boss wasn't too happy about my extra days of vacation. When I finally caught my flight there were still some people from my original flight trying to get on a flight, turns out that even showing up at 7am for two days didn't get them anywhere and they were only given accomodations for the first night. The best part was during one of these long waits this grey haired New York Jewish grandma started yelling about protesting these horrible conditions. Security came and wisked her away, we all wondered if they were deporting her for trying to incite a riot and maybe this was a good way to get a flight home.
As much as everyone seems to praise this airline, I will never ever fly with them again. They made a bad situation absolutely worse by poor customer service, bad planning and a complete lack of flexibility. The moment that we got off that plane we should have been escorted to one of their many lounges, and been told what our options were. We all should have gotten accomodations that night. And instead of making us show up at the airport the next day and wait in line to be told what they already knew (there was no extra plane available or space on existing flights for us), they should have a had a representative come to the hotel and tell us or call us. There should have been extra ticketing agents available or a separate area for people trying to rebook. And to require that you have the original ticket to be rebooked without a fee is just plain ridiculous. My god, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that 1) people don't like not knowing what's going on 2) people don't like to wait in line 3) we especially don't like it when we all are being told the same thing and 4) we don't being treated poorly.
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Assumptions
[Read the article: Antiabortion activists fight "black genocide"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"White women need to tend to their homes, families, fucked-up family and community politics"
Yeah, but my home, my family and my community IS IN YOUR COMMUNITY. See you you like to assume that I live in some suburban McMansion and employ a bunch of "colored" women to clean my house and take care of my kids while I do lunch with the ladies. That would be dead wrong.
And those right wing prolifers would be more than happy to stick the likes of me and mine in the "re-education" camp. Maybe you and I can bunk together then.