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[IP] more on Surprise! The US Air web site is not *really* US Air!



Begin forwarded message:

From: Miles Fidelman <mfidelman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: August 27, 2006 11:58:53 AM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Surprise! The US Air web site is not *really* US Air! 

Dave,

Same here.
A few weeks back I booked one regular ticket and a reward ticket for my wife. It took a huge number of phone calls - both to US Air and America West to set it up so we could sit together.
Then, our return was the day after the British mess hit. We were expecting a complete zoo at San Diego airport - got there early, and it was empty. Cleared security in no time, and had to kill a bunch of hours in the airport. Flight got off on time, but our connecting flight in Philly was a couple of hours late.
Back to US Air/AW: we got to Boston, all our checked bags except one came off the belt. Baggage services told us it was delayed by security (it was the bag we'd put all our toiletries in - and guess what, they really do screen checked bags - amazingly it was neatly repacked with a polite and apologetic notecard from TSA in it). 

Anyway, actually getting the bag back was a nightmare:
- baggage services found it on the computer system - it hadn't made our flight, but was enroute on a later one - they promised to have it delivered, and gave us a printout with a tracking number
- later in the afternoon, I tried tracking it - the US Air web site has a "click here to track your baggage" link, with promises of automated tracking - but what it takes you to is a fill-in-the-blanks email form
- I tried calling their 800 baggage service number, and got a message saying "track in realtime on our web site" -- working through all the voicemail choices I finally reached a human being who said that it was still en route -- and they didn't have any phone numbers for the Logan baggage desk
- Then I called their customer service number and amazingly reached someone who had the phone number for the Logan baggage desk.
- Tried the phone number on and off for several hours, after a lot of ring-no-answer, I finally reached a very helpful woman - but she was the America West baggage rep. and didn't have access to the US Air system!!! Understandably, it was a zoo there - so she took my phone number and promised to call me back.
- She did!!! She had the bag, and I decided to ask her to hold it - I'm only 20 minutes from Logan and didn't quite trust what would happen if they handed it off to a delivery service.
- When I got there, it took a while to find. I'd been told that I'd have to do some paperwork to accept it. Turns out, someone had already done it for me, and it was set aside waiting for me - but it took a while to find, since it wasn't in the crowd of other bags sitting, barely supervised, outside the office.
Boy what a mess. But at least the human beings were competent and helpful - when the could be reached. And I learned something about how checked bags are handled - we're not just taking potential threats out of hand-carried luggage so that they can be stuck, unscanned, in the baggage holds - somebody is actually doing a level of screening. Now for those who might consider checking something illicit, that's probably not as good news. 

Cheers,

Miles

David Farber wrote:

Begin forwarded message:
From: peter.freeman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: August 27, 2006 4:42:54 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [IP] Surprise! The US Air web site is not *really* US Air! 
Reply-To: peter.freeman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Dave, it is probably (or has been) worse than that. I booked some US Air award travel by phone back in April, then tried to make a change by phone a few weeks later. My res was caught in the same limbo O'Dell describes. It took two months and calls to both airlines AND the frequent flyer desk multiple times to get ticketed. Amazingly the res worked for the outbound last week - you'll hear about it if I can't get home next week. ;-) 
Peter
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 27 Aug 2006 08:08:59
To:ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [IP] Surprise! The US Air web site is not *really* US Air!
Begin forwarded message:
From: "Mike O'Dell" <mo@xxxxxxx>
Date: August 27, 2006 6:28:05 AM EDT
To: David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Surprise! The US Air web site is not *really* US Air!
Dave,
For the second time now I've come to grief booking tickets
on the US Air web site and then needing to change them.
The issue is that as a result of US Air's
merger with America West, the web site found at USAIR.COM
and labelled prominently (and only) as "US Air" is, in fact,
operated by America West. And at least in the world
of airline reservation ownership, US Air and America West
are still completely unrelated entities. This has
a huge implication:
    A ticket booked on the USAIR.COM web site is not
    really a US Air ticket in spite of flight numbers
    and the carrier indicated on boarding passes and
    ticket receipts; the reservation is owned by
            >> *America West* <<
this means that if you need to change a ticket booked thusly,
the people you get calling the US Air contact numbers
    *cannot deal with it*
nor can they find someone who can.  Even more surprising,
the first time this happened I discovered that
the airport ticket counter agents cannot deal with it
either and tell you to go see America West!!
This is *seriously* brain-damaged.  When this first
happened to me several months ago I though, gee,
a transitional corporate integration problem. I've been
through those and decided to cut them some slack.  But
it's been over 3 months and it's *still* broken.
This morning's amusement was the US Air reservation
agent, honestly apologetic, telling me that she could not move
our three full-freight tickets from departing today to departing
tomorrow
until after we "no-showed" for today's flight.  After that
I can call back and she thought they could do something
then. Or I could drive down to the airport and they
could deal with it there. (Uh, not based on my previous
experience!) If I do drive to the airport before flight time,
I won't get hit with a no-show fee.
How wonderfully gracious of them.
My personal conclusion is that this is hopelessly
broken and I will simply never use US Air's on-line reservations
system again, choosing instead to pay my usual travel agent who
prevents this kind of foolishness by booking with the "real"
reservation systems and who can deal with weather-driven
changes of plan as a matter of course.
There's a huge difference between "inexpensive" and "cheap".
Harumph.
    -mo
PS - insert snarky remark about "unsurprising airline bankruptcies"
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