We’re still in Myrtle Beach on our family vacation so I thought I’d digress a little from promotional talk and give you an update. Today is the first day the temperature has reached into the 70’s. The first few days it hovered around 60 and yesterday it rained for the first time down here in about 65 days. They’re all saying they needed the rain badly, but of course us visitors don’t want it. However, it’s much better than the snow still hitting the North. There’s nothing worse than snowstorms in April, especially when it interferes with the new baseball schedule.
My husband and I have gotten to play 27 holes of golf so far this week and I hope we can get another 18 in before we leave on Saturday. The cost to play golf was to let my daughter Alex and her friend, Kate go shopping, which of course is the best way for two teenager girls to spend the time when they can’t enjoy the beach. They’ve also been hanging out with my sister’s son, Philip and went to Ripley’s Aquarium one day and also saw that new Will Farrell movie, Blades of Glory, which they really liked, but told me I probably wouldn’t.
But what I really wanted to blog about today is my total disgust with United Airlines. It seems the airline industry continues to just get worse. As I mentioned in my earlier post this week, my older daughter Kelsey was visiting Washington DC with her global studies high school class during this Spring break so I made arrangements for her to fly out of Dulles Airport last night into Myrtle Beach instead of heading back on the bus with the class. Well, she made it here, but it wasn’t easy.
I booked one of the only direct flights I could get from Dulles to Myrtle Beach that was scheduled to leave at 9:45 and arrive at 11:15 pm. I thought it would be safer to take this later flight vs. an earlier one that flew through Charlotte. One of the other girls’ Mom was picking up her daughter earlier yesterday so they could visit a couple of colleges in the DC area, so she agreed to pick up Kelsey as well and drop her off at the airport.
I checked online just after we ate dinner and before I called Kelsey and saw that the flight was delayed till 1:09 am. That was over a 3-hour delay with no reason why. I figured it had to be due to the snow coming from Chicago and I tried to find out more info, but couldn’t get a live person from United to speak with. I finally got someone through reservations but I could tell by their accent obviously that they must have been in India since they didn’t know what time zone I was calling from or anything about the local weather.
Next I called the airport and only got a recording of airline phone numbers. I hung on the line anyhow and someone finally picked up and connected me with the department that handles ground transportation. She couldn’t tell me anything, but she felt bad for me since I told her my daughter, who’s only 17, was traveling by herself and I was afraid she was going to get stranded at the airport overnight. So she gave me the phone number for the local United office and said “you didn’t get this number from me, I could lose my job for giving this out”. It wasn’t any help however, since I only got a recording. It gave me the option to leave a message that I did along with my phone number, and of course did not get a call back.
So after two hours on the phone I gave up and told my daughter that she was just going to have to go to the airport and find out what the story was. Thr mom who was taking her decided it would be better for Kelsey to stay with them instead of dropping her off at the airport earlier as planned only to sit there for hours, so Kelsey didn’t get to Dulles till after 11pm. Now here’s where her frustration really started when she realized that the airport was about to shut down.
She’s waiting on line at the United ticket counter to check her luggage and get her boarding pass. Just when she’s up to the counter a man comes up to the only United employee checking people in and says they’re closed, the women’s shift if over. Kelsey says, “Well I have a plane to catch, what am I supposed to do?” So, he gets her boarding pass for her but says she can’t check her bag because there’s no one taking bags anymore.
She takes her bag and boarding pass to the security gate and there’s no one there but one person working who tell her that security is closed. He won’t let her through even though she has a boarding pass. She needs to have someone from United personally escort her through. So, she heads back to the United counter. There are two women there who say they can’t help her because they’re “off the clock”. She needs to head down to the United office for help.
There’s a line of people at the United office, most looking for their lost luggage. She overhears the group of four men in front of her talking about Myrtle Beach and they start conversing. They’re on a golf holiday from Chicago and trying to get on the same flight. One of the men is a Chicago cop and appears to have some pull, so the five of them finally get someone to escort them through security. Kelsey however has to ditch all of her toiletries since you can’t take them on the planes still.
They finally head to the gate but no one is there. Nothing is even on the board anymore. Someone comes back through the gate door and tells them that the plane has left. It’s now 12:30 and they were told the flight wasn’t leaving till 1:09. Supposedly they were able to get another plane so they moved the departure time back up.
Now I’m not totally sure what the circumstances were, but Kelsey and I have a feeling the cop from Chicago may have showed his badge and demanded some answers, because they actually called the plane back from the run way since it hadn’t taken off yet. So, the five of them get on the plane. Kelsey tells me the passengers on board weren’t very happy that they had to come back to the gate and it appears a good majority of them had been drinking. What else to do in an airport for hours when you’re stuck!
So, finally Kelsey was waiting for us in the Arrivals section of the Myrtle Beach Airport when we pulled up about 2:30 in the morning. Her cell phone had died, so she wasn't able to call us back to let us know what her adventure.
We’re all a bit tired today, but the sun’s out and the temperature will be in the mid-70s. Hopefully we can have a good couple of days before we head back north. I plan on using what I wrote in this post to complain directly to United. It probably won’t get me anywhere, but at least it’ll be a little satisfaction knowing the story is now available to the world through cyberspace.
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