“It’s Not My Delay, It’s The Airline’s Delay”

I am on my way to Memphis today, and we were saddled with a maintenance delay out of Raleigh this morning.  This was the first flight out of Raleigh this morning, so the question goes begging as to why, if there was a maintenance issue, it was not fixed overnight.  But that is really secondary to today’s airline fun.

When we got to Charlotte, we were on a dead sprint to make our flight.  It was a long run, but we made it to the gate prior to our next flight’s departure.  Or so we thought.  We were informed by the gate agent that he had to close the gate, and it could not be re-opened.  There are four of us traveling together, and he knew we were on the ground and on our way.  Yet he chose not to hold the flight.

The agent was rude, condescending, and of no help whatsoever in helping us.  He simply said “You will have to visit the service desk.”  At that point, we said “You need to help us, it was your delay that caused us to be late!”  His response was classic.  ”It’s not my delay, it’s the airline’s delay.”

I hate flying US Air.  I fly it only as a last resort.  The reason is that I rarely have a positive experience.  This was just another nail in the coffin. It just goes to show how training and having employees that give a sh*t about their job really does matter.  Holding the plane five minutes would have had no effect on the overall schedule.  Even if he could not do that, some amount of empathy would have made a huge difference.

Why can’t airlines be decent?