A few years ago we had several bad experiences with Delta; now we are considering booking a flight to Spain on US Air.
Any comments?
thanks

I hope US Airways has improved. It has messed up several trips for me. If you don't have to make any connections, I think the flight will eventually get there.

The classic episode of our misadventures with US Airways was our attempt to get from Athens, Georgia, to Dublin from which we were to take a guided tour of Ireland.

The original plan was to fly the puddle jumper from Athens to Charlotte. Then we were scheduled to fly from Charlotte to Gatwick, and from Gatwick to Dublin.

The cascade of problems started when we were late getting to Charlotte and missed the flight to Gatwick. As a result we spent the night in Charlotte. The next morning we flew to Philadelphia to take a flight directly to Dublin.

The Dublin flight was about 5 hours late leaving because US Airways could not find an airplane suitable for the trip.

To continue the farce, US Airways would announce a time and a gate. We would to there and wait. Then another announcement would come that there had been a gate change. Finally on the 3rd gate change about 11 pm, there was an airplane present, but no crew.

I concluded that somebody with clout commandeered an airplane that had just come in from somewhere like Fort Lauderdale, then he or she shanghied a crew from some other flight.

The aircraft backed away from the gate at 11:59 PM so the crew would still be legal to fly. Then the ground crew finished loading the plane, and eventually it took off for Ireland.

About an hour off the Irish coast, breakfast preparations were halted and the head flight attendant began reviewing the procedures for a landing at sea. There was a fire in the forward cargo hold and the cockpit was full of smoke. The pilot took the plane down to 10,000 feet so he could vent the cockpit.

When we landed at Shannon, half of the fire brigades in south Ireland were there go greet us. We were ostracized to the far end of the runway while the fire marshall and the captain looked for signs of the fire. Fortunately, the foam system in the cargo area had put out the fire.

We were held in purgatory at Shannon for 4 hours on a Sunday in August while somehow the Irish authorities found enough buses to haul us all to Dublin.
The day of the week was a factor because there are rugby and soccer matches all over Ireland on Sundays and every available bus that will run usually has been hired to carry fans from one city to the other.

We finally got to Dublin in time to reach our hotel before our organized tour departed for Kilkenny the following morning although we missed the tour of Dublin. (Thank heavens I had scheduled a free day on our own in Dublin.)

Unfortunately, our troubles on that trip did not end with the flight to Dublin. On the return flight, we got to Philadelphia ok, but our flight to Charlotte was late. When we arrived in Charlotte, our commuter flight back to Athens had been cancelled for some reason. We had to foot the motel bill ourselves because weather was the stated problem, hence US Airways was not at fault. (HA!)

The next morning, we arrived at the airport only to find that the flight to Athens was again cancelled. US Airways then loaded us onto a flight to Atlanta with the promise that we would be taken by taxi from Atlanta to Athens. Being in Atlanta does not help much because Athens is about 90 miles away from Hartsfield Airport. (Charlote is about 190 road miles from Athens.)


The taxi turned out to be a van that would hold 6 passengers comfortably. There were 7 of us and two of them were decidedly overstuffed bottom wise.

The driver would not pay attention to what I tried to tell him about how to get from the airport to Athens. He went up I 85 and got caught in the normal afternoon traffic jam. What is normally a trip of 1 hour and 45 minutes turned into a 3 hour ordeal. (We could have driven from Charlotte to Athens in less time.)

When we got to Athens, I told the guy to take me to my house or else. I then used my own car to take the remaining passengers to their destinations. The driver had no idea where anything was in Athens, and if I had abandoned the others to his mercy, they would have been there all night.

One young man was to be the best man in a wedding and he was already late to the extent that the wedding was about to start without him.

So do I have kind words for US Airways?
Well, no I don't. At least they paid us a little compensation in the form of money toward our next trip.

For the ordeal we went through, we should have gotten free business class rides to Europe for the rest of our lives. How one airline could foul up so much and so often on one trip defies the odds.

Now you know why I shudder to think that US Airways wants to take over Delta!!
Air travel out of Atlanta would degenerate into total chaos.

I've had good and bad experiences with virtually all airlines, Delta, US Air, Northwest, Southwest, American, KLM, etc. We flew US Air to Italy in 2003 and it was honestly one of our best experiences. In fact, it has been the ONLY trip to Italy where one of our bags wasn't lost!
You can't out guess it. Pick a carrier and take your chances. Just like a LOT of businesses in the US, customer service has suffered greatly over the past 15 years!

Hi, I personally hate US Air after the airline canceled both of our flights last trip and these were only domestic 1 hour flights.

Yes, of course, any airlines can have problems, but US Air seems to have problems with their aircraft whenever we are flying them whether it's our flights or those of other passengers. Perhaps it's just bad luck, but I am hestiant to fly with them again.

Thanks so much.
I hope European airlines are more relible.

Strangely enough, I have had no problems with Delta flights out of Atlanta, other than the fact that the seating configurations in its 777s are so tight that I refuse to fly in them.

In April, we are flying to Phoenix from Atlanta with US Airways. I know I am taking a risk, but on that day I am not dependent on a connection.

The best bet out of Atlanta is AirTran.
Unfortunately AirTran does not fly to Phoenix.

I learned to like AirTran 3 years ago when we flew to Kansas City. We arrived at the airport in Atlanta only to discover that my wife had left her purse at home. That meant that she had absolutly no form of ID.

Under federal regulation, she could not be allowed to fly.

We had no choice but to drive back to Athens and get her purse.

Fortunately AirTran had a second flight to Kansas City later that afternoon. The check-in counter supervisor reissued our tickets at no extra cost. Legally, she could have charged us a rebooking fee, but she did not.

I appreciated the consideration.

The only "trouble" I've had with USAirways over the past several years was when they were having baggage handler problems in Philadelphia.

To be honest, if you are going to choose an airline based on someone's "bad" experiences you'll probably never fly any airline again.

I think if you phrase your question about ANY airline you'll find someone who has had at least one bad experience.
Realistically, how many different airlines do you have to choose from where you live?

I've had only good experiences with US and I fly with them a lot. I always allow plenty of time for connections whichever airline I fly with and find that means a lot of problems are avoided.
Carolena

On any given day any airline can have a problem. We have flown USAIR for years and have had good times and not so good.To base a decision on that seems to be shortsighted. I have heard horror stories about Air France not honoring reservations in Paris.
If the fare is right, I take what airline it is.

Thanks for your thoughts!

It is true, if you travel a lot ( like most people on this post), you have had
some bad experiences : over booking on Air France, food poisonning on Air New Zealand, delays on Air Canada - just to mention a few of mine.
British Airways has a very good price to Barcelona but I was trying to avoid changing terminals in London.
Oh, well...

Some info:

- The current USAirways is merged recently from America West and the old USAirways. Initially, there were lots of teething problem, especially with its website and FF program, but that's been mostly solved.

- Most recent bad problem was baggage at PHL around Christmas 2005.

- There were lots of complains about international-to-domestic transit at PHL some time ago, but things seem to have improved.

- PHL-MAD currently is operated by older 767s, but summer schedule show their new A330s with good audio/video system

- USAirways is financially sound, after emerging from Chapter 11 and the merger with America West. It has a hostile bid to take over DL at this time.

My opinion: I won't have problem recommending people to fly USAirways at this time.

I have had no problems flying US Air domestically and internationally this past year.