Down with US Airways!!!

Before I tell about our awesome trip to Utah to see all our family, I must vent a little bit about our trip To and From Salt Lake City. Now I realize that everything bad was not the fault of US Airways, but as the majority of it was, I am actively campaigning against them. Yes it is a long sob story, but after this I will have it out of my system and no more need to complain.

Monday, July 20th -

We left home about 1:30 pm so we could take the subway to the airport for a 4:30 departure. The plane left late and really got out after 5:00. That isn't too serious since we were pretty excited to go and were just glad to be off the ground.

The flight was not pleasant starting with Kaela hungry and tired, and hurt from a split lip that morning. She cried for a long while - long enough that we declared this the worst flight ever even before it was.

The flight attendants were awful, and so rude. They would not take any garbage until after they had done their drink AND snack services. They glared that we wanted a juice for Kaela. They rolled their eyes at the baby across who threw up and wouldn't assist in getting the lone mother anything to clean up. They even charged $5 for every snack!

Well, when we arrived at our layover station, Phoenix, the weather was so bad we couldn't land. After circling the airport for an hour we ran out of fuel and headed for Tucson. There we sat on a freight ramp for three hours since there were no gates where we could refuel. Thankfully Kaela fell asleep shortly after we landed and slept that time on the ground.

When we were refueled they said they would de-board anyone who wanted to stay in Tucson (almost all of us) but if we got off the plane they would help us no further and we would be stranded. Kaela screamed the whole way back to Phoenix.

We arrived back in Phoenix about 1:00 am. There we got the first good piece of news: that our SLC flight which should have left at 8:00 pm was still waiting at the gate, but was in their final boarding. We ran to the next terminal over and made it just in time to wait for our crew - they had been stranded in Tucson and got there 1/2 hour after us. But that flight went well since Kaela had gotten sleep, screamed it out and all was well. They didn't mind giving her juice on that flight.

We arrived in SLC at 3:30 am MST, just 16 hours after we had left home. Incredibly enough, they did get our bag to us.

But it doesn't stop there, it is worse. The flight home left Tuesday the 28th at 7:00 am. We left for the airport 5:30 am to get there in time. Perfect flight got us into Phoenix at 7:30 (one hour time change in there). Soon after that we were informed that our crew was in California and wouldn't be in for 2 more hours. 2 1/2 hours. 3 hours. Alright, please board the plane everyone, every seat is booked and you will feel like a sardine. But we pulled a few feet out of the gate and felt we were on our way home. The pilot came on once we were all ready to say that there was a problem with a leak in the engine and they were working on it. The leak is fixed, now we're working on paperwork. The right engine won't start and their working on it. Hour later they were finishing up paperwork. THe engine went out again and now we have to move back to the gate. But we can't because we can't taxi on our own power and have to wait for something to push us in. And we'll do the paperwork on that. And we're going to turn of the AC in the Phoenix 114 degree weather, so please lower your window shades. Nope, we can't get that fixed and the plane is too blasted hot, so everybody better get off.

I don't know when the plane was cancelled, but they never told us. We got in the long line at customer service to find the next "Air-worthy" plane. With a toddler, we ended up at the very back of the line. There we found that we had just missed a flight to Boston, the next one was overbooked and the next available was at 9:00pm - Red Eye - to 5:00 am. Knowing Lee had to be back to school before noon Wednesday, we took it. For our troubles they gave us $5 each for food. I wonder if they have ever tried to get an airport lunch and dinner for $2.50 each. So we sat for a total of 14 hours in the Phoenix airport. I hope I never see Phoenix again. I hope that the next time it burns up in its own flame, it won't be reborn.

The actual flight, though crowded, had fine flight attendants, got off the ground on time and got us back to Boston at 4:45 am. We waited for the train and got back to our apartment just before 7:00 am - having been in transit for 26 hours.

I had qualms with them before ever leaving the ground, just from calling to have Kaela added as a lap child to our ticket, but I don't have time or energy to say more.

I just hope that none of you EVER fly US Airways with their old broken planes, rotten personnel, poor timing and bad luck.