Complaint Review: America West Airlines

My wife, and I made a trip to Las Vegas on Sunday June 16, 2002, with return from Las Vegas to Houston on Wednesday June 19, 2002.

Several incidents happened throughout our travel with America West and ruined our trip. I am listing each item below:

On our outbound trip from Houston to Phoenix, we were delayed approximately 2 hours for "weather" [Lie #1]. In fact, had our flight left on time, weather would not have been a factor. If they had said that safety was an issue, it would be another matter, but they originally said weather, and then came back later and said that Air Traffic Control was holding all flights [Lie #2]. The airport was not below minimums for safe travel and other flights did leave the gate after our scheduled departure time.

The delay in leaving Houston caused my wife and I and 46 other passengers to miss our flight to Las Vegas. Upon arrival in Phoenix, we were told at the gate that the first flight they could get us out to Las Vegas on would be at approx. 4:30 pm, which meant we would have to stay in Phoenix all day. We went to Customer Service and were finally confirmed on an approximate 1:30 flight to Las Vegas. During our wait, we noticed other passengers, that arrived from Houston with us, managed to get out on the approx. 10:30am flight to Las Vegas. Because of these delays we had no choice but to eat at the airport in Phoenix, at our cost. We asked for vouchers, but were refused. A simple (4) four hour set of flights turned into a (12) twelve hour ordeal and ruined the start of our trip.

We returned to Las Vegas International Airport on Wednesday, June 19, 2002 at approximately 1:30pm for our 3:30pm flight. This gave us more than the required time and should have allowed time for us to get lunch prior to boarding. During check in, we were told that our "Confirmed Return Trip" had been "blanked out", with the net result, leaving us with no seats on an oversold flight. We were told that we would have to accept standby status in order to get home, as our flight and the next/last flight were oversold. Not to mention the fact that both flights from Phoenix to Houston were oversold and we had no seats on either.

The Ticket Agent and Supervisor at Las Vegas were helpful and assured us that we would not have any problems. Unfortunately, this took about 1 hours to get to this point. We were issued tickets that indicated Standby Status, from Las Vegas to Phoenix, and then on from Phoenix to Houston. I told them the Standby Status was unacceptable. The Supervisor marked through the Standby Status indication and wrote on the ticket hold-confirm, which again meant very little to me. She then told us to go to the gate and we would receive confirmed boarding passes for both flights, with seat assignments at the gate [Lie #3]. Upon arrival at the gate, the agent was calling our names. She gave us our boarding passes, with seat assignments for the flight to Phoenix. She then gave us boarding passes with no seat assignments for the Phoenix to Houston flight and I told her this was unacceptable. She took our ticket jacket and wrote the following on it, A27---------A2 in PHX, 1C and 1B. She explained that upon arrival in Phoenix at gate A27, we were to go directly to gate A2, where we would receive our confirmed boarding passes for seats 1C and 1B [Lie #4].

We went directly to the gate as instructed, upon arrival in Phoenix, only to find that not only were we not going to receive our boarding passes for seats 1C & 1B, but that my wife did not have a seat on an oversold flight. I immediately asked for a Supervisor to review this and correct this situation. The stress caused by all of this was more than we could bear at this point. We stood there waiting for almost (30) thirty minutes before the Supervisor came out to talk to us. She told us that while they had managed to get me a seat, my wife did not have a seat, yet. She told us that she would review the situation and be back. She was gone for about (15) fifteen minutes and then returned to tell us that the best she could do would be to seat me in 23D and my wife in 10F. She then offered us a $10 meal voucher, which we took for documentation purposes only. There was not enough time to get anything and carry it onboard, and we were both insulted that she would even make such an offer. Because of all of the fighting to get on both flights we were unable to get anything to eat until our return to Houston at 10:30pm.

All of this, was more than my wife could bear. She cried the entire trip to Houston and is still very upset by the lies, deception, and unethical handling and treatment that we received by America West Airlines. But, unfortunately, this was not the end. My wife was unpacking this morning, and upon opening her make-up bag, which was inside another small checked bag, found a bottle of Clinique Makeup broken and all over everything in the bag, including prescription bottles, and normal makeup items. This bottle of make-up costs $45.00 ea., at this time I am not sure of the cost of replacing the other contents. This is a very small thick glass, bottle and the bag that it was in, which was in another bag, must have been severely abused to have broken it.

It is quite obvious that America West does not care about Customer Service and attending to the paying customers. We are not accustomed to dealing with such lack of ethics and business practices. At this point, unless I receive an acceptable answer from America West within (7) seven days, I will seek remedy through the legal avenues available, including possible civil court action. A copy of this complaint is being forwarded to the FAA complaint department. A copy of this complaint is also being forwarded to the Better Business Bureau and badbusinessbureau.com.

Please be advised that I am also forwarding an email copy of this to all of my friends and business associates throughout the world. Most of these people spend a significant amount of time and money on air travel both for pleasure and business. It is a significant number of people and multiplied by the number of people that each of them know could make an important impact on America West's business operations.

Charlie
Houston, Texas

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