A Long Air Travel Rant
Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2015 8:26 am
Like most people, I can easily tell you what is wrong with something but I have no idea how to fix it. In this case, I am talking about air travel. I have begun to write
this in a room at the Hampton Inn near the airport in San Juan. This is not where I intended to be this morning. My intentions had been, as they are every year around this time, to be sipping coffee in the courtyard of our timeshare at Sunset Ridge Villas on St. John USVI, watching the inter-island traffic in Pillsbury Sound while we planned the day’s trip to the beach and snorkeling.
Being timeshare people makes travel planning relatively easy. We know from year to year when our departures are and we begin watching the airfares as soon as they are posted for our particular time of year. In the past, it has been our experience that the fares are often at their lowest when they are first posted. We live near Burlington Vermont and though we have flown out of Boston and Manchester, we do like getting picked up at the airport and having a short drive home when we return. This year was no different. We booked our flight in July for mid-March. The itinerary was Burlington VT to Dulles Int’l to San Juan to St. Thomas, a two stopper. The reality of living in Northern Vermont is, if you want to fly out of there, you must accept the fact that in most cases you will have to fly to somewhere else to get a direct flight to anywhere else. The short hop from San Juan to St. Thomas can be fun riding in a small aircraft and sightseeing that portion of the Caribbean from the air. No worries.
So how did I get to be where I am right now? In January, though our airline claims that they informed me in September, which I can find no record of in my email archive, our airline, United, changed our itinerary. Now instead of flying into Dulles we were flying into Newark and, what was best, was an initial layover of one hour in San Juan became a seven hour layover. I began calling in February to see if the airline could do anything about the 7-hour layover. I was told to keep calling. Maybe there would be a cancellation, somewhere. If there was, someone else got it. It was spring break time after all. Another agent claimed that if I had called earlier, when I was allegedly first informed, that they might have been better able to assist me.
On the day of our flight, with a flight time of 5:45AM, we rose at 3:45, dressed and left our home at 4:00 for a half hour ride into Burlington VT. We had pre-checked ourselves in using the online service and printed out our boarding passes and paid in advance for our single checked bag. At the airport we went to a kiosk to check in again and forward our bag tag to the counter agent who took our bags. So far all has gone smoothly. Our flight to Newark was uneventful, even being able to find overhead room for our carry-ons. Our transition to our main flight went well and we arrived in San Juan without much distress except for a young man behind me who continually kicked my seat back and woke me from a much needed on board nap.
Now the fun begins. We start to look for our short hop airline, Cape Air. San Juan airport is being expanded and arrival and departure boards are in short supply around the airport. We find one and notice that Cape Air flights depart from one gate, C23. In a conversation with one Cape Air telephone agent we had been directed to terminal A and told to allow ourselves an hour to find their gate. As it turned out the gate was in terminal C. We went directly to Cape Air’s gate desk to check in and ask if there were any cancellations in hopes of cutting short our 7-hour layover. To say that the scene at the desk was near bedlam might be overstating the actual atmosphere there, but not by much. When we finally arrived at the desk our agent was very pleasant. As she checked us in, weighed our carry-ons and recorded our personal weights we told her the sooner she could get us to STT the happier we would be. She told us if there was a cancellation we would certainly be called but the hoped for cancellation would never come. We noticed that many other patrons were ill prepared for going through the second check-in procedure required by the smaller aircraft of Cape Air and we thought how well the Cape staff handled what appeared to be several uneasy exchanges. During lunch we noticed our agent going off shift, which is perhaps why she seemed so pleasant as she dealt with us. For her, it would all be over soon.
Then after about five hours of our anticipated seven-hour layover we were called to the desk. The desk agent said that our plane had a weight distribution problem and that we were being bumped. The question was why did it take five hours for them to ascertain this and finally, why us?
We were given vouchers for taxi, room and meals. We picked up our luggage and waited for our cab. Our accommodations were comfortable and the service was pleasant. San Juan airport is currently a jumble and we had difficulty even finding the TSA line that serviced the end of the airport we were destined for the following morning. Going through TSA once on the outward leg of a trip is bothersome enough; to have to go through it again because you are bumped is just adding insult to injury.
We are now on St. John. What has normally been an eight to ten hour trip, turned into a 36-hour marathon. We of course are not happy. Either of the airlines we used can blame the other for our displeasure but we believe both hold equal blame and for obvious reasons. We had purchased our flight from United based on an itinerary that met our needs and our pocketbooks. We were instead given one without warning or option that we neither wanted nor approved of. What it amounted to was a bait and switch. And by the time we became aware of it, fares had gone up to almost double what we initially had paid. If we didn’t like it, we had to pay up.
As far as Cape Air is concerned, they may have expanded to beyond their ability to service the business they have earned. We believe that the choice of us to be bumped was out of the convenience of our early check in. Why else?
And so each year air travel becomes more inconvenient and more miserable. And each year we take it in stride because we are going on vacation. Our travel days are trials to be borne, and suffered from to experience the relief of reaching our destinations. And as if planned, the airlines have provided a fee structure to relieve us of these indignities. Most airlines have fees for early boarding so we can get on the plane with our overstuffed carry-ons to avoid the checked bag fee. There are additional fees for sufficient legroom, along with the check bag fees. As travelers we are being milked to distraction by an inefficient industry that seems destined to find out how far they can push the traveling public. It is almost as if they are making air travel as miserable as possible so they can find more fees to charge to relieve the miseries they have created.
For now, we will avoid United and Cape Air. Though their employees remained as pleasant as could be, we found their actual performance to be deplorable. Though we do not hold out for much hope, in the future we will make our travel plans with other providers and hope for the best. I am writing this mostly as an exercise to relieve myself from anger and allow myself to carry on with my vacation. I cannot help but to believe that this letter will be mounted on a conveyer belt representing the airlines interest in customer satisfaction and ending in a large circular file where it will join many, many others to be ignored.
To all still gathered say, "Amen."
this in a room at the Hampton Inn near the airport in San Juan. This is not where I intended to be this morning. My intentions had been, as they are every year around this time, to be sipping coffee in the courtyard of our timeshare at Sunset Ridge Villas on St. John USVI, watching the inter-island traffic in Pillsbury Sound while we planned the day’s trip to the beach and snorkeling.
Being timeshare people makes travel planning relatively easy. We know from year to year when our departures are and we begin watching the airfares as soon as they are posted for our particular time of year. In the past, it has been our experience that the fares are often at their lowest when they are first posted. We live near Burlington Vermont and though we have flown out of Boston and Manchester, we do like getting picked up at the airport and having a short drive home when we return. This year was no different. We booked our flight in July for mid-March. The itinerary was Burlington VT to Dulles Int’l to San Juan to St. Thomas, a two stopper. The reality of living in Northern Vermont is, if you want to fly out of there, you must accept the fact that in most cases you will have to fly to somewhere else to get a direct flight to anywhere else. The short hop from San Juan to St. Thomas can be fun riding in a small aircraft and sightseeing that portion of the Caribbean from the air. No worries.
So how did I get to be where I am right now? In January, though our airline claims that they informed me in September, which I can find no record of in my email archive, our airline, United, changed our itinerary. Now instead of flying into Dulles we were flying into Newark and, what was best, was an initial layover of one hour in San Juan became a seven hour layover. I began calling in February to see if the airline could do anything about the 7-hour layover. I was told to keep calling. Maybe there would be a cancellation, somewhere. If there was, someone else got it. It was spring break time after all. Another agent claimed that if I had called earlier, when I was allegedly first informed, that they might have been better able to assist me.
On the day of our flight, with a flight time of 5:45AM, we rose at 3:45, dressed and left our home at 4:00 for a half hour ride into Burlington VT. We had pre-checked ourselves in using the online service and printed out our boarding passes and paid in advance for our single checked bag. At the airport we went to a kiosk to check in again and forward our bag tag to the counter agent who took our bags. So far all has gone smoothly. Our flight to Newark was uneventful, even being able to find overhead room for our carry-ons. Our transition to our main flight went well and we arrived in San Juan without much distress except for a young man behind me who continually kicked my seat back and woke me from a much needed on board nap.
Now the fun begins. We start to look for our short hop airline, Cape Air. San Juan airport is being expanded and arrival and departure boards are in short supply around the airport. We find one and notice that Cape Air flights depart from one gate, C23. In a conversation with one Cape Air telephone agent we had been directed to terminal A and told to allow ourselves an hour to find their gate. As it turned out the gate was in terminal C. We went directly to Cape Air’s gate desk to check in and ask if there were any cancellations in hopes of cutting short our 7-hour layover. To say that the scene at the desk was near bedlam might be overstating the actual atmosphere there, but not by much. When we finally arrived at the desk our agent was very pleasant. As she checked us in, weighed our carry-ons and recorded our personal weights we told her the sooner she could get us to STT the happier we would be. She told us if there was a cancellation we would certainly be called but the hoped for cancellation would never come. We noticed that many other patrons were ill prepared for going through the second check-in procedure required by the smaller aircraft of Cape Air and we thought how well the Cape staff handled what appeared to be several uneasy exchanges. During lunch we noticed our agent going off shift, which is perhaps why she seemed so pleasant as she dealt with us. For her, it would all be over soon.
Then after about five hours of our anticipated seven-hour layover we were called to the desk. The desk agent said that our plane had a weight distribution problem and that we were being bumped. The question was why did it take five hours for them to ascertain this and finally, why us?
We were given vouchers for taxi, room and meals. We picked up our luggage and waited for our cab. Our accommodations were comfortable and the service was pleasant. San Juan airport is currently a jumble and we had difficulty even finding the TSA line that serviced the end of the airport we were destined for the following morning. Going through TSA once on the outward leg of a trip is bothersome enough; to have to go through it again because you are bumped is just adding insult to injury.
We are now on St. John. What has normally been an eight to ten hour trip, turned into a 36-hour marathon. We of course are not happy. Either of the airlines we used can blame the other for our displeasure but we believe both hold equal blame and for obvious reasons. We had purchased our flight from United based on an itinerary that met our needs and our pocketbooks. We were instead given one without warning or option that we neither wanted nor approved of. What it amounted to was a bait and switch. And by the time we became aware of it, fares had gone up to almost double what we initially had paid. If we didn’t like it, we had to pay up.
As far as Cape Air is concerned, they may have expanded to beyond their ability to service the business they have earned. We believe that the choice of us to be bumped was out of the convenience of our early check in. Why else?
And so each year air travel becomes more inconvenient and more miserable. And each year we take it in stride because we are going on vacation. Our travel days are trials to be borne, and suffered from to experience the relief of reaching our destinations. And as if planned, the airlines have provided a fee structure to relieve us of these indignities. Most airlines have fees for early boarding so we can get on the plane with our overstuffed carry-ons to avoid the checked bag fee. There are additional fees for sufficient legroom, along with the check bag fees. As travelers we are being milked to distraction by an inefficient industry that seems destined to find out how far they can push the traveling public. It is almost as if they are making air travel as miserable as possible so they can find more fees to charge to relieve the miseries they have created.
For now, we will avoid United and Cape Air. Though their employees remained as pleasant as could be, we found their actual performance to be deplorable. Though we do not hold out for much hope, in the future we will make our travel plans with other providers and hope for the best. I am writing this mostly as an exercise to relieve myself from anger and allow myself to carry on with my vacation. I cannot help but to believe that this letter will be mounted on a conveyer belt representing the airlines interest in customer satisfaction and ending in a large circular file where it will join many, many others to be ignored.
To all still gathered say, "Amen."