Jaunted

Travel Rants / US Airways / Airplane Hell / Flight Reviews / Passenger Complaints / → All Tags

Travel Rant: 'US Airways, Do They Still Even Exist?'

Who doesn't love a good travel rant? Well we're here to make you day with a sweet little rant from Julia, who had the pleasure of hopping a quick flight only to be disgusted by the airplane's condition. Now let's get to the ranting...

We’re not the fussiest of flyers. We’re used to rude customer service (Ryanair), paying through the nose for things that should be free, like bags (everyone) and old, filthy planes (hey there, Alitalia).

So far the only airlines on my no-fly list were Alitalia because of a 14-hour Buenos Aires-Milan flight with no inflight entertainment and abysmal security checks, and Cubana for obvious reasons. But right now I’d like to add another one: US Airways.

This weekend, I made a trip from Vegas to San Francisco. I was lucky enough to fly out with Virgin America, my first flight on the airline. But after that, everything went south.

A leaky Emergency Exit door and more, after the jump

more ›

Passenger Complaints / Travel News / Department of Transportation / Travel Websites / → All Tags

The Government Actually Wants To Hear Your Airline Complaints

For those of you that love complaining about your flights, there’s a new government website that will make you very happy. Hopefully you won’t need to use it, but if you feel like you got screwed during a flight, Uncle Sam wants to know about it. Ideally the government will actually do something about your complaints, but even if they don’t, it’s better than just keeping quiet about it.

The US Department of Transportation launched a website to give consumers a direct link to the air travel complaint form. Officials are hoping that with better access to the DOT, travelers will realize that they can complain to the federal government, and that it might actually bring results. With in-flight WiFi available on so many flights now, you’ll be able to share your travel hell before you even land. Maybe a Twitter account for the site will come next so we can send live updates to someone who might care about a dreaded tarmac delay and to enforce those new rules.

more ›

Airplane Hell / Airlines / Continental / Airline News / Travel Hell / Passenger Complaints / → All Tags

Airlines Forced To Pay Up Over Delayed Continental Flight Stuck On Tarmac

Over the summer, travel hell rained down upon about 50 passengers stuck aboard a Continental commuter jet with nowhere to go. They eventually reached their final destination, but not without a substantial delay and probably some on-board claustrophobia attacks. Thankfully the responsible parties are now going to pay up to make everything right—or at least less bad.

The US Department of Transportation has issued a fine for a cool $175,000 for the whole incident. Along with the fine, the three carriers involved also got called out for violating a law regarding deceptive practices. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood hopes that this will send a signal to the industry that this kind of stuff is not going to fly while he’s in charge. Maybe he’ll even finally light the fire under legislators to get that whole Passenger Bill of Rights thing off the ground.

more ›

National Rental Car / Car Rental / Cars / Driving / One-Way Road Trip / Passenger complaints / → All Tags

Brits On An American Road Trip: A Dud Car Nightmare

Planning a road trip? HotelChatter contributor London Town is on one from LA to New York at the moment. Some top tips from a week on the road…

If there’s one thing we Europeans know about Americans, it’s that you love your cars. We also know that your customer service is second to none (tell us to have a nice day when we’re over here, and our cold little British hearts will melt all over you).

So we were pretty confident about hiring a car for our road trip in the land of the free. We’ve done it before—we drove from Chicago to Nashville earlier in the year with Avis, and that worked out just fine. This time we were going further, though—LA to New York, to be precise. National came through with the least extortionate one-way fees, so we went with them.

Big mistake. We arrived at LAX late on a Wednesday night, jetlagged and extra cranky as United had managed to mislay our bag for a whole two hours, and at first we were pleasantly surprised at the ease of the pick up service. We literally signed the contract, and were told to choose a car and drive off. We chose a nice red Chevy and headed off. It wasn’t until we reached the interstate that we noticed it kept pulling to the right, trying to drive us off the road.

more ›

Airlines / United Airlines / Delta Airlines / Code Shares / Passenger Complaints / → All Tags

United and Delta Get Off Easy in Codeshare and Denied-Boarding Violations

Chris Elliott has the scoop on the latest fines that the Department of Transportation issued to United Airlines (who was already having a bad week, thanks to the broken guitar video) and Delta Airlines for failing to notify passengers of codesharing flights and for denied-boarding violations. Elliott reports:

United Airlines faces $80,000 in penalties for neglecting to inform travelers that certain flights were operated by another airline. And Delta Air Lines is being fined $375,000 for bumping passengers from its flights without compensation.

The investigation of United declared that phone reservations agents were not disclosing the codeshare partners while Delta's investigation was based on passenger complaint records. But these fines are extremely minor as Elliott points out that each airline will probably only pay half so long as they promise to not to do it again. (In our best Church Lady voice) Wellll, isn't that special?

Related Stories:
· All Together Now: 'United Breaks Guitars' [Jaunted]
· Delta and United face steep fines for codesharing, denied-boarding violations [Elliott.org]

[Photo: Paul Brady]