by MV

Created on: May 09, 2008

We all know that the airline industry is struggling with higher fuel prices and extra security measures as a result of 9/11 etc. While it cannot be easy for airlines to do all things well, some certainly do things better than others and the paying public appreciate those that look after their customers well. Those that don't look after their customers soon will find themselves without customers as the public make their choices based on good service and value.

We take an annual vacation from Toronto, Canada to Savannah, Georgia and usually fly with some of the major US carriers, rather than Air Canada. We have flown with Delta, US Airways, American and others but the worst customer service and communication has been from US Airways. Last year we booked our flights online directly through the US Airways website and received confirmation of the booking. The day before our flights were due to leave I started checking the flight status on the US Airways website. Each time I would type in our flight number, it would return an error which appeared to be a website error and no other information was being returned. This continued several times. I guess I should have been more concerned but just suspected they were having web issues and that it would eventually work. Finally, the morning we were leaving, I tried the website for the Pearson Airport in Toronto to check on the status of the flight. There was no record of our flight on that website. I started to feel a bit panicky and immediately phoned US Airways. It was about 7:00 am and we had been due to fly at 10:30 am. I was eventually told that our flight had been cancelled months earlier and we had been rescheduled onto the 6:30 am flight from Toronto. When I pointed out to the woman that it was already after 7:00 am she didn't seem the least bit concerned. Then told me that she couldn't get us on any other flights out that day. You can imagine that I was not pleased with this news. After speaking to a supervisor our flights were rebooked for a departure at 12:30 from Toronto. Unfortunately, we were going to have a 5 hour layover in Philadelphia before we could go on to Savannah.
I pressed for information on why we had not been informed of the flight change as we had provided both and e-mail address and phone numbers at the time of the booking. The agent told me that when I book online I am acting as my own travel agent and it is up to me to check frequently to find out if anything has been changed on our itinerary.

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