I recently paid for and began a trip from Hartford to Myrtle Beach. The 6am flight out of Hartford was going fine until we couldn’t land in Washington due to the fog. No big deal, you can’t control the weather. They rerouted the plane to Baltimore and we were then rudely greeted at the baggage claim by an employee who shouted at the group, "You better grab your bags or they will stay here in Baltimore." They arranged for 2 buses to shuttle us to Washington.
I was under the impression that when we arrived in Washington that we would have someone waiting for us to help us rebook. That didn’t happen, we were on our own. No longer the responsibility of the airline that I paid to take me from Hartford to Myrtle Beach. After waiting in line for over an hour, the agent at the counter was able to reroute me through Greenville and Charlotte to Myrtle Beach.
My family and I checked our bags through and went up to the gate. The flight time was scheduled for 1:35 pm with the boarding to take place 1/2 hour before that. No announcements were made, except the ccasional "Delayed" or "Th egReenville plane is en route". We finally took off at 4:30 or so and by the time I got to Greenville we had missed our connections.
The not so pleasant agent at the gate claimed that she had no record of my travels, even though I was ticketed to go onto Charlotte and then Myrtle Beach. She then told me that I needed to go downstairs to ticketing and they would figure it out. I apologized for interupting her cell phone conversation and went down stairs. The agent downstairs was very helpful, got me on the 8:05 to Charlotte and connection to Myrtle Beach. After going through security, we arrived back up the gate. Still on the cellphone and obviously annoyed with having to do her job, the agent upstairs announced in a truly sassy, "I could care less about what you think" voice that "If you are waiting for the Charlotte flight, you may want to go back down stairs and make arrangements because it is delayed."
I went to the counter and waited for a few minutes while she exchanged recipes and holiday plans on the cellphone. I explained to her my ordeal and she told me that there is nothing she can do. When I asked her if it was commonplace to have customers pay for a trip to go somewhere and be told that we were out of luck and could sleep in the lobby if we needed to, she simply shrugged me off, rolled her eyes, and called somebody else on her cellphone.
After this conversation, I asked her to have my bags pulled and rented a car(which US Airways refused to pay for) and drove the 4+ hours to Myrtle Beach.
The absolute lack of respect for the customer and the awful attitude of the Gate 1 attendent in Greenville, NC has tarnished the way I view US Airways and will never fly with them again.