AirTran Airways is a “very poor airline” in my opinion, based upon their inability to manage customer expectations and make decisive decisions.
After over nine hours of delays, excuses and three consecutive de-plane and re-boardings, AirTran finally cancelled a 3:14pm flight bound for Philadelphia at 11:15pm last night. “It took AirTran Operations Center over nine hours from their first delay announcement yesterday at 2:45pm until almost midnight to share with its customers the fact that they would indeed cancel this flight,” states Adam Brown, an upset AirTran passenger and author of this blog. “[AirTran] could have made the cancellation decision at around 4:00pm yesterday afternoon, enabling passengers to consider other travel alternatives, but instead they delayed, de-boarded, re-boarded, made excuses and manipulated passengers for an entire day.”
Following is a rundown of yesterday’s timeline, outlining the poor decisions made by the AirTran Operations Center resulting in dozens of passengers sleeping in the airport – since AirTran did not provide hotel or meal vouchers to their inconvenienced customers. AirTran spokespeople claimed that since the delay was “weather-related” and not AirTran’s fault, they were in no position to compensate the weary travelers. “While the inclement weather was not AirTran’s fault, they do not seem to be taking responsibility for their poor decisions and indecisiveness in waiting nine hours to cancel this flight,” claims Brown. “They created this situation by refusing to take the best interests of their customers to heart.”
12:30pm – Adam Brown, passenger on AirTran flight 339 to Philadelphia, arrives at Atlanta airport early for a scheduled 3:19 departure.
2:45 – AirTran gate agents announce some weather in the Philadelphia area, and that boarding might be delayed a bit.
3:30 – AirTran gate agents announce that the weather is Philadelphia is still challenging, but they are going to go ahead and board. Flight 339 boards and pushes back from the gate.
4:00 – AirTran Captain announces that all flights into Philly have been delayed, but that we were going to stay on the taxiway so that we can be the "first to depart" once a slot opens up.
6:00 – AirTran Captain announces that delay is indeterminable and that we are going to return to the gatehouse to wait this one out. Plane returns to gate.
7:13 – AirTran re-boards the plane, announces we have "immediate clearance" to depart to Philly.
7:47 – Plane pushes back from gate, heads towards runway, then abruptly U-turns and returns to gate two minutes later. No one is allowed to deplane. Passengers are waiting on news from the AirTran Captain.
7:58 – AirTran Captain announces that it will be at least 35 minutes before we are allowed to leave the gate. Everyone must remain on board.
8:42 – Plane pushes back and moves to taxiway, where engines are cut off. AirTran Captain announces that it will be at least 50 minutes before we can depart. Drink carts come out, as people are awfully thirsty (and hungry), Passengers begin to realize that we came out to the taxiway for only one reason – not because we were planning on departing for Philly, but because AirTran needed to use our gate for other flights. So, we’re hostage. We have been deceived.
9:39 – One hour later, the AirTran Captain announces that we cannot depart to Philly because of weather both in Philadelphia and Atlanta, so we’re heading back to the gatehouse to await further direction.
9:55 – We’re still not at the gatehouse. You see, there are no available AirTran gates! This makes everyone realize that our pushback at 8:42 was purely to allow another plane to use our gate and that we were deceived and manipulated by AirTran.
10:34 – We arrive at a non-AirTran gate, D4. This is the second-farthest gate from the Hartsfield terminal and an entire concourse away from any AirTran customer service representatives. We’re told to wait in the D4 gatehouse for further direction.
10:56 – We are told to get back in line to re-board the plane (now for the THIRD time), we have been given clearance to depart to Philly. An unhappy, unprofessional and rude AirTran Supervisor decides to re-board the plane row by row, only calling two rows at a time. Travelers who have been patient to this point are now at their breaking point. The AirTran Supervisor starts at the rear of the aircraft and does NOT allow elderly or business class to board first. Not surprisingly, many passengers begin to revolt. It takes 30 minutes to re-board the aircraft for this THIRD time.
11:28 – The AirTran Captain comes on the PA system and announces that AirTran Operations has now cancelled the flight, a full eight hours after planned departure time. After three re-boardings of this plane, multiple excuses and explanations, passengers are understandably upset. They want answers, they want compensation, they want honesty. Sadly, they get none of these.
Postscript – Since AirTran claims that this was a weather delay, they will not provide hotel or food vouchers for the stranded passengers. Seeing that it is past midnight, most passengers are unable to find a hotel, even on their own dime. Additionally, all concessions at the airport closed hours ago.
Travelers waiting for their baggage had to endure almost two more hours of waiting. Baggage did not arrive back at the terminal until 1:30am, according to George Bott, a Houston passenger traveling on the flight. AirTran baggage representatives had mentioned that baggage would take at least an hour to be taken off of the aircraft, upsetting the already weary passengers. An hour came and went, with no bags. Baggage actually took closer to two hours, making an angry crowd that much more upset. AirTrain baggage representatives were indifferent and unapologetic.
Even though my blog is called “GumpRants.com,” I don’t often use it to rant negatively about something. This is an exception. I’ll be sharing this situation (and this Web site) with AirTran Customer Service and asking them to respond. When they do respond, I will post it here.
In the meantime, I encourage all of you to email a link to this article to all of your friends, family and co-workers. While we can’t hold AirTran responsible for the weather, we must help them understand that customer expectation management and decisive decision-making regarding flight cancellations ARE their responsibility, and something they are currently doing very poorly.
This is not my first serious issue with the AirTran airline regarding poor decision making and customer manipulation, I will share my other experience with you in a later blog posting.
-aB
4 comments:
I have had similar experiences with AirTran. I'm telling all of my friends about this article!
I got news for you Mr Brown, when the weather goes down in the north east (BOS, LGA, JFK, PHL, DCA and IAD) all bets are off. I've flown in this airspace for over 20 years and believe me it's very unpredictable. ATC delays are common and change minute by minute.
It sounds like Airtran made a good effort to complete this flight and delays beyond their control caused an eventual cancelation. You'd recieve similar treatment on any of the legacy carriers, that I can guarantee you, I've flown for two different major airlines.
You made a few very sketchy assumptions. First being that you pushed off the gate merely so another aircraft can use your gate. Extreemly unlikely, although it may have appeared that way to you. For the Airtran to pay it's crewmembers and burn jet fuel unnecessarly is perposterous. And by the way, D4 is indeed an Airtran gate, as is all 4 gates on the south side of the D concourse.
It sounds like you had a bad experience with Airtran but I've seen worse at other airlines, that's for sure.
Anonymous,
The point of my post was to discuss the poor expectation management of the airline. You're right, no airline can control the weather or other situations.
But they CAN control what they tell their customers, and when they tell them. Sometimes I'd rather have less information than an over-abundance of incorrect or "mis-information" information.
All customer-facing businesses have a responsibility to communicate effectively. AirTran did a poor job of that here, in my opinion.
Thanks for reading and I appreciate your comment. You reminded me that I never posted about my other AirTran experience, when my non-stop flight from New York LGA to ATL, thirty minutes out of ATL (we had already passed Chattanooga) was U-Turn diverted to Greensboro, NC to pick up twelve passengers. I need to share that story here at GumpRants.com soon.
-Gump
Sometimes, as the old adage says, you get what you pay for. Airtran is cheap, but I urge travelers to beware. This is a dishonest airline, with at least one tickent agent in Boston who has personal problems he needs attended to.
This weekend my husband, 23-year-old son and I traveled from Baltimore to Boston for my nephew’s wedding, which was held in Central Maine. We met our Daughter (who flew to Boston on another carrier), rented a car and drove up to the wedding.
Our Airtran experience, both coming and going was bad. The experience on the return was beyond belief.
Going–We got on the Boeing 717 (sardine sized) on time and pushed back on time. We landed about fifteen minutes early, but we had to sit on the tarmac for 25 minutes waiting for a gate. It was 9:30 before we arrived at the baggage claim. My rolly suitcase (which I would have carried on except I needed my mascara for the wedding and mascara is now contraband in carry ons) finally rolled out of the conveyor at 10:30. It took 1 hour for the bags to get to us. The flight itself was only 58 minutes.
Off we went to Maine, saw my nephew hitched to a lovely girl, then on Sunday we returned to Boston. We arrived at the gate at around 7:00 pm, tired and hungry after five hours in a car. We go to the kiosk to check in and discover the flight is 45 minutes late. (It’s a beautiful day in Boston, so what gives?)
We ask. We are told that the flight is delayed because of runway contruction.
Runway construction? Like they didn’t schedule this or know about it beforehand? It sounds like some kind of wacky made-up excuse. The ticket agent says the delay might be longer–an hour and half and that there was a chance the flight might be cancelled. The ticket agent says every flight into and out of Logan is delayed by an hour or more.
Needless to say we were skeptical of the explanation and were unpleasant when the bad news came down. However, we never said anything personal to this agent, nor did any four-letter words get used. This was the usual unhappy customer scenario.
So we stand around near the ticket counter while we try to decide if we should bail on Airtran and try to find an earlier flight so my son can get back to Richmond at a decent hour. Meanwhile, I call my daughter on the cell phone. She’s in the USAir terminal at Logan Airport waiting a flight to Rochester, NY, and I wanted to see how long her delay was. She tells me she’s not delayed at all. And that none of the USAir flights are delayed.
At this point we return to the agent and ask for a better explanation of the situation. A new agent gets involved when we challenge the veracity of what we’ve been told. At this point things got a little testy, but none of us threatened or used abusive language. We did press for the usual–will you put us up overnight if the flight is cancelled–and got the usual answer–no, this is out of our control and we’re a cheap airline so deal.
We reconnoiter a bit longer. Decide we don’t want to spend the money on the USAir shuttle. By the same token we don’t want to get stranded in Boston without any luggage. So we open our suitcases and stash all the liquids and gels into one of them and return to the gate to check it, planning to carry on the others. At this point we enter the twilight zone.
When my husband returns to check the bag, the ticket agent informs him that he’s decided not to let us board the airplane at all. (We had boarding passes already, and probably could have forced the issue, but this was bizarre) He said “I have the right to deny you boarding and I’m going to do it because you weren’t nice to me and because you called me a liar.”
We did call his veracity into question, I don’t think any personal epithets were bandied about. But we did say something like, “Oh c’mon you’re making this up” about the runway construction.
We were stunned. At that point I asked if we could get a refund. At first the answer was no, but eventually he relented and told us we could have a refund for my ticket and my husband’s ticket but not for my son’s. We told him that we didn’t wish to be spilt up. He told us that our son, “had to fly and we had to stay.” Like he was commanding it or something.
This guy was not wired right.
I was pretty upset by this point, but not nearly as upset (and frighted) as when the police officer appears at my elbow ready, I’m sure, to take me into custody. I repeat, neither my husband nor I used any four-letter words or threatened anyone in any way, and suddenly this big guy with weapons is there ready to cuff us.
I spoke to the cop, and I tried to apologize to the agent. The cop listened the agent tells me to shut up and stop talking or the offer of the refund will be recinded.
The manager arrives and doesn’t try to defuse the situation. He says. “I back up my employees 100%. If you were rude then you don’t get to fly.”
We stop trying to talk. My husband goes to the end of the counter and stands there while they take care of the refund, all the while this ticket agent is ranting at him about how he’s tired of having to deal with people who are unhappy about delays and who aren't nice to him and he’s decided to “make an example of me and my husband.” This guy felt it was improper for customers to complain. He didn't like our complaints and he felt this was his way of getting back.
We say nothing. He gets finished doing his paperwork, and then–unbelievably–tells us that he’d be happy to sell us a ticket for the following moring.
My husband, whose mouth momentarily drops open in astonishment, says, “Are you nuts? We’re never flying with AirTran again.”
To which our gate agent says. “Fine, we don’t want people like you as customers.” And I guess they don't need us, since the carrier is growing so fast it can't handle its customers very well.
So my husband and I make other arrangements to get back to the DC area. My son, goes ahead and takes this flight. He doesn’t get to our home in DC until almost 2:30 in the morning.
The ultimate coda to this story? My son gets home, opens the bag he checked and discovers that he’s been ripped off. His personal gaming system has been stolen along with several games.
So, today, we spent all afternoon on the Baltimore AirTran “customer service” line trying to make claim for the missing property, knowing that we'll never see any satisfaction from these guys. So my son has "learned a lesson," too. Not a good one, either.
My own take on this, is that the property was not stolen by any baggage handlers. There are no such things as coincidences.
And if it was the baggage handlers, I'm horrifed. If the handlers are such scum that they are stealing things from bags we are not allowed to lock, then what's to stop one of these jokers from putting something into a bag that shouldn't be there?
So, bottome line, do not fly this airline. Their employees are unbalanced and dishonest. And yes, they did a horrible job of managing customer expectations in Logan Airport last night.
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