Jaunted

Travel Rants / Lost Luggage / Travel Hell / US Airways / American Airlines / Luggage / Baggage / Airline Hell / Checked Baggage / → All Tags

The Incandescent Incompetence of US Airways' Outsourced Baggage Recovery Call Center

Catch the first half of this lost luggage drama here!

To recap: Last Sunday, US Airways shuffled us through 16 hours, 4 flights, and 2 different airlines to get from LA to DC. The trip was a comedy of incompetence, capped off by the airline losing our holiday-gift-filled luggage. That was extra obnoxious insofar as we specifically asked for the simplest itinerary when we were getting rerouted up and down the East Coast, explicitly because we couldn't afford to lose that bag. But that's not what this post is about.

Instead this story is about how US Airways has seemingly gone out of its way to design the world's worst baggage recovery customer service system. Some of the post is necessarily speculative, since the airline's press office declined to respond to our questions about the location and scope of US Airways' baggage recovery call center. But given how we've personally spent over 100 hours on the phone now with these tools trying to recover our one lost bag, we're pretty confident we've got the basics down.

Here we go...

more ›

Travel Rants / Lost Luggage / DCA / CLT / IAD / LAX / Travel Hell / US Airways / American Airlines / Luggage / Baggage / Airline Hell / Checked Baggage / → All Tags

Travel Rant: US Airways' Incandescent Incompetence with a Single Checked Luggage

Some old school US Airways planes

Who doesn't love a good travel rant? Well we're here to make you day with a sweet little rant from Jaunted writer Omri, who had the pleasure of checking a bag and having it lost in transit. It sucks, sure, but then it became a nightmare. Now let's get to the ranting...

Welcome to Part I of our two-part series on the borderline comedic but mindblowingly frustrating experience we're having with US Airways. Last Sunday they were supposed to get us from Washington DC to Los Angeles on a couple of morning flights, with everything being wrapped up by about 10am. Fast forward to 7:30pm Sunday night and we've gone through four flights at three airports on two airlines, all over 14 hours...and the airline lost our luggage. The emphasis is on lost because—had they merely delayed our luggage—we wouldn't need two different posts to peel back the many layers of airline incompetence on display.

But we do need two posts, because this has been such a learning experience and—if we here at Jaunted are about anything—we're all about learning. So today we'll go over what happened and the things we learned about the airports we "visited." And on Friday we'll dive into our in-depth investigation of their baggage recovery policy, complete with stonewalling by US Airway's press people. Preview: outsourcing baggage recovery services to India is fun for everyone, except anyone who loses baggage.

more ›

Airline Hell / Spirit Airlines / LGA / Holiday Travel / Baggage / Luggage / LCCs / → All Tags

A Cautionary Tale for Anyone Flying Spirit Airlines This Holiday Season

Buckle up—we are officially in the swing of the holiday travel high time. If you're traveling at all this week, it's time to be extra-early, extra-vigilant about your belongings, and extra hydrated (just in case). If you're booked on the lowest of all low-cost carriers, Spirit Airlines, however, all your preparation could be for naught, as they royally screwed over a family and many others this week when they simply couldn't handle the influx of travelers.

An irate would-be Spirit flyer sent Gothamist the story, and we've hardly heard a better argument for why not to fly Spirit:

more ›

Airline Hell / Airlines / Airline News / Seating / Airplane Seats / Airplane Safety / Tatarstan Airlines / Ryanair / → All Tags

If the Russians Can Do It, What's Stopping Ryanair From Making Passengers Stand?

Airline travel is one step closer to the dreaded "buses with wings" status that we all dread, after Russia's Tatarstan Airlines had six passengers stand up for a 5 hour flight a few weeks ago. A 148-person tour group had reserved a plane from Turkey to Russia, but at the last moment, the airline substituted an airplane with a maximum capacity of 142. The six tourists who drew the short straws were told they could either stand during the flight home or wait for another flight later in the day. They chose to stand.

We're actually surprised we haven't heard Ryanair crowing about this, given their enthusiasm for the idea. The customers-last LCC has long been pushing for stand-up seating, but has been stymied by European regulators concerned about trivial things like "passenger safety." The obvious argument in the aftermath of the Tatarstan flight is that none of the worst-case scenarios about stand-up actually happened. That's an awful argument since there were also no safety emergencies on the flight, but that doesn't mean that we don't expect Ryanair to make it. In fact we're almost a little disappointed they haven't put this at the top of a press release yet.

more ›

Airline Strikes / Airline Industry / Airlines / British Airways / Airline News / LHR / Europe Travel / Airline Hell / → All Tags

The British Airways Strike Has Already Cost the Airline $150 Million

We're now in the third day of the second wave of the second round of 2010 British Airways cabin crew airline strikes. The airline and the Unite union are in the midst of talks but—no surprise here—no one expects them to go anywhere.

The union wants the airline to restore travel perks and withdraw employee punishment proceedings as prerequisites to negotiations. The airline says that concessions will come the way they normally do, as part of a broader agreement. So the odds of this current strike getting resolved before it runs its course are quite slim.

The conventional wisdom on the negotiations is that they long ago became a personal spat between BA CEO Willie Walsh and Unite joint General Secretary Tony Woodley. That's true as far as it goes, but it's not the whole story. As much as these two just really hate each other, each side is also dealing with fundamental life-and-death issues. The union needs to show that it can protect its members, which is why this seemingly random travel perks thing has become such a big deal. For its part, BA just posted a second straight year of record losses and is still reeling from volcanic ash problems. In the most basic terms, they simply won't survive unless they cut costs.

more ›

Airline Strikes / Airline Industry / Airlines / British Airways / Airline News / LHR / Europe Travel / Airline Hell / → All Tags

British Airways Strike Begins as the Showdown Gets Even Nastier

British Airways is running at 60% today, with London-Gatwick and London-City airports at normal but London-Heathrow in total disarray. That's because day 1 of 5 of BA summer airline strike 1 of 3 is now underway.

@British_Airways keeps repeating that travelers should continuously monitor their flight and be aware of their options, so consider those links duly passed on.

Just to give you a sense of the level of public discourse surrounding this debacle, UK media outlets are already running photos linking striking cabin crews to enraged Trotskyist mobs. Even more disturbingly, that's actually kind of fair given how a union leader kind of live-tweeted the secret negotiations which kind of incited a Socialist Workers Party melee which kind of invaded the talks and shut them down.

more ›

Airline Strikes / Airline Industry / Airlines / British Airways / Airline News / LHR / Europe Travel / Airline Hell / → All Tags

Breaking: UK Court Allows British Airways to Strike; Walkouts Scheduled for Monday

Remember that second injunction that British Airways recently won, where its unionized employees were banned by a UK judge from striking? Just overturned. A London court instead sided with the Unite union, allowing BA flight cabin crews to walk off their jobs - something they now intend to do as early as Monday. The result should fall somewhere between travel chaos and cancellation apocalypse, with BA set to cancel up to 50% of LHR flights:

The airline said it expected to cancel about one third of its flights during the walkouts, with services to and from its hub at London Heathrow Airport expected to be reduced by as much as 50 percent... “B.A. must now accept that negotiation not litigation is the only way to secure the settlement we all want,” said Tony Woodley, Unite joint general secretary. “However, further strikes will be unavoidable if the company does not immediately work with us to address the outstanding issues.”

more ›

Airline News / American Airlines / AIrline Hell / Luggage / Museums / → All Tags

The American Museum of Natural History Sues American Airlines Over Dead Fish

United Airlines will forever be known as the airline that breaks guitars, and now American Airlines might be the airline where fish go to die. The American Museum of National History is pissed at American because they claim that the airline lost some pretty important fish. The underwater critters were no longer alive, but they were preserved and were headed to New York to be part of the museum’s Congo Project.

The museum is filing a lawsuit against American Airlines for at least $25,000. They’re claiming that the airline caused them to blow a chance at doing research on the preserved fish, and apparently the world is less of a place because we missed out on this dead fish research. The specimens were lost in Brussels last October, but American Airlines claims that they had to toss the containers because they were leaking and full of maggots—gross.

more ›

British Airways Strike / British Airways / Airline Hell / Airlines / Airline News / LHR / → All Tags

Breaking: British Airways Cabin Crew Vote To Strike. Again.

Having been denied their strike by a judge at the end of last year, British Airways cabin crew are ready to make another go of it. The official announcement came down a little over an hour ago from the Unite union, which is Britain's largest and which counts much of the airlines' staff among its members. Out of the 12,000 ballots that were cast, 7,000 employees - an astounding and apparently very pissed off 81% - voting in favor of the strike.

What happens next: no strike date has been announced so BA flights continue as normal. There's another meeting set for Thursday, which is when the union will roll out a list of potential options. They've already ruled out striking around schools' Easter break. They got burned the last time they tried to leverage holiday traffic as part of their strategy, so presumably they're loathe to play with fire again.

more ›

Checked Baggage Fees / Airline Hell / Airline Fees / Baggage Fees / Travel Rants / Continental / → All Tags

Continental is Also Charging $25 for the First Checked Bag

We knew it was on the horizon but we didn't think it would happen this fast. But alas, it has. The grinchy folks at Continental have announced today that they have matched Delta's checked baggage fee increase to $25 for the first checked bag.

The complete details are here. It looks like there is no fee for the first checked bags on your international flights, but second bags will be charged $50. And while it does cost less to check-in online, it's a laughable difference—$23 versus $25. Usually, it's $5 less to check-in online. Sigh.

Get ready for some ranting now.

more ›

Airline Hell / Airlines / Airline Bankruptcy / LCCs / Airline News / Air Comet / → All Tags

Another European Airline Bites The Dust, Stranding Holiday Passengers

Your holiday air travel may have been a little difficult, but at least your airline is likely still in business for your trip back home. That’s not the case for many unlucky passengers that were counting on Spain’s Air Comet to fly them back from holiday trips. The airline shut things down last week, stranding passengers and providing pink slips to more than 600 employees. The whole problem started because the airline kind of didn’t pay the bills for its leased airplanes—oops!

The airline primarily flew to Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, and other countries in the region to and from Madrid. That means there were passengers stuck all over the place. Thankfully, charter flights were provided to help out the stranded passengers, but at first only about half of the travelers got the chance to get out of the airport. Hopefully a few more private planes will be shuttled back and forth to get the remaining passengers where they need to be so they can at least welcome 2010 without too much stress. We really feel for the stranded passengers and wish them luck with this whole ordeal.

more ›

British Airways Strike / British Airways / Airline Hell / Holiday Travel / Airlines / Airline News / LHR / → All Tags

Massive British Airways Strike Averted; All Flights 'Operating As Normal'

BREAKING: The BBC reports that the imminent two-week holiday strike by British Airways' employees has been averted. When the airline employee union United decided to strike during peak holiday travel time, from December 22-January 2, and for so long a time, British Airways took them to court to seek an injuction.

Today, the court ruled in favor of British Airways, meaning that BA employees will have to report to work as normal through the holidays, but they will hold another vote to strike after the new year. And the union was even denied the ability to appeal the decision! Flights are back on, everybody!

more ›