United Breaks Guitars

[Ninong]

Canadian Musician Uses YouTube to Get Even With United Airlines

Check it out.

[Samper]

I think this is hilarious!

[Ninong]

So did I. It's so emblematic of the airline industry and their attitude toward customer service.

I just returned last night from an 11-day trip to California and just about everything that could go wrong -- with the exception of lost luggage -- did go wrong.

For starters, I can no longer find a non-stop flight from New Orleans to any airport anywhere near the Bay Area or Sacramento, or even a direct flight. With every airline I must endure at least one connection. And you know what that means: possibility of missing your connecting flight and being held over until the following day because all of the following flights that day are already overbooked. That didn't happen this time but it could have.

This time I chose Southwest for the very first time only because they were the only airline with reasonable return flight hours from Sacramento to New Orleans. Most of the other airlines would have had me leaving Sacramento at either 12:35 a.m. or 6:35 a.m.

Southwest has only one flight with just one connection and another four or five with two connections. Naturally I chose the one flight with the one connection in Phoenix. Both flights going out and both flights coming back were fully booked with people hanging around on standby. Every seat was taken.

On the segment from New Orleans to Phoenix, the flight attendant announced that "the captain has turned off the seatbelt lights now and you are free to move about the cabin but only the front lavatory is in working order." Even though that is a 1,300-mile segment lasting just over three hours, I managed to wait until after we had landed to use the restroom but a lot of other passengers were frustrated because they weren't allowed to leave their seats to go to the front lavatory until after someone exited the lavatory and the red light was out.

As soon as someone opened the lavatory door, there was a rush to see who could make it to the front to be next. People to the rear of the plane had virtually no shot at winning this game. Federal security regulations prohibit waiting in line at the lavatory door. You must remain in your seat until the lavatory door has opened and the red light is out.

One passenger from the rear of the plane figured out a way to be next. When one of the people seated in one of the front rows managed to make it to the door before him, he simply sat in her seat near the front and waited for the door to open. That one lavatory was occupied during the entire flight when the seatbelt lights were turned off.

At least Southwest doesn't charge you for checked bags or charge extra for choosing an aisle or window seat. They don't have assigned seating. I always get preboarded using my disability parking placard and by making sure to take my cane with me. I always choose a window seat because it allows me to lean against the window. I hate getting stuck in the middle seat, especially when both of the other people are sumo wrestler wannabes.

On the flight from New Orleans to Sacramento, there was an hour and a half between connections in Phoenix, so I wasn't too worried about missing that connection but I was concerned about the 50 minutes between flights on the return trip. I refuse to fly Continental anymore because there is only a 55 minute gap between connections in Houston on the return trip and I have missed that connection three times in a row. The last time they had the nerve to tell me that both of the following flights that evening were overbooked and I would have to come back at 8:30 the following morning. I put my name on standby and finally made it out on the last flight at 10:30 p.m.

After my 35mm SLR camera was destroyed by packing it in my checked luggage, I no longer place anything valuable in the checked luggage. It's soft-sided. Too often I have watched from the window seat of the plane as they threw every single piece of luggage from the plane onto the carts, making sure to place the heaviest pieces on top of the soft-sided pieces.

This time the only thing I lost on the one piece that I checked was the BMW emblem on the side of the bag. That's gone but I can still recognize it by the spot left where it used to be. And, of course, I have a name tag on that bag. I used to manage by taking too pieces of carry-on luggage but you can only take one carry-on piece now, so I have to check the larger carry-on bag.

Southwest doesn't serve food, just tiny snacks, so a lot of people bring Whoppers and smelly Taco-Bell creations with them on the plane. It helps to pretend you don't notice their messes. Try to avoid making eye contact at all costs. They might offer you a French fry.

On the return trip, we were delayed 25 minutes in Sacramento because we had to take on extra fuel in case we had to circle the airport in Phoenix. We were told by one of the flight attendants that Air Force One was scheduled to land in Phoenix and all flights were being held in a holding pattern a good distance away from the airport until after it had landed.

Right away I could sense that I was about to get stuck in Phoenix overnight. We landed in Phoenix 30 minutes late, leaving me only 20 minutes to make it to my connecting flight in a different wing of the terminal. Really it only left me about five or ten minutes at the most because they aren't going to board you if you arrive less than 10 minutes before scheduled takeoff, especially on overbooked flights.

I rushed like crazy and arrived at the gate six minutes before takeoff only to learn that my 3:50 p.m. flight was delayed and was now scheduled to take off at 5:00 p.m. The plane was delayed by "weather" in Chicago. Then it had to fly to Denver. Then it had to carry passengers from Denver to Phoenix. All delays are caused by "weather." That way they don't have to compensate you.

The plane didn't even arrive at the gate in Phoenix until 5:05 p.m. It was 5:30 p.m. before we finally left the gate. We arrived in New Orleans at 10:30 p.m. local time. The luggage didn't start coming on the belt until 10:55 p.m. I arrived home -- 45 miles away -- after midnight.

Following Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans lost its only non-stops to San Francisco and Oakland. United used to have a nice non-stop to San Francisco and Southwest used to have a non-stop to Oakland. I don't believe anyone offered a non-stop between New Orleans and Sacramento. Not only did we lose our non-stops, but the flight times now are horrible. I can usually find decent departure times -- meaning after 8 a.m. -- but I can't find any decent times coming back. My choices on most airlines are limited to either 12:35 a.m. or 6:35 a.m. We lost at least a third of our flights after Katrina and a lot of them simply never came back. Even though the city of New Orleans has only about 350,000 people now, the metropolitan area still has more than a million.