January 9, 2017 (Christ! The year I turn 60–making me extra crabby!!)
I had to take a break in my Trump Series to write about the worst airline experience I have ever had, and, to alert readers to warn their family and friends not to fly this airline…
Here we (Giti & I) thought that we were getting a great deal on a direct flight to Orlando — where we\’d take a rental car down to visit my folks in North Fort Myers: a 1:15am flight that would land in Florida circa 10:00am — allowing us to drive down to my folks and get to them circa 1:00pm for lunch (for us, wishing in the New Year is like wishing in any other day)…
But Frontier cancelled this flight and put us on a 9:20am flight to Orlando…let me back up a bit…
Prior to arriving at LAX at 12:40am on New Year\’s Day (to catch the delayed flight scheduled to depart at 2:30am [originally scheduled to leave at 1:15am]) — Frontier texted us 4 notifications of a flight delay. Did they text us notification of the cancellation? No! They told us that cancellations are e-mailed, not texted?! To which I thought: What the fuck?!
I couldn\’t beat up on the poor Latina left all by herself to fend off angry customers (who had driven down to LAX like we had). One Marine, booked on the same flight we had been, told us that his daughter\’s birthday party was scheduled for lunchtime New Year\’s Day…somewhere in Florida…
The next morning, after 2 hours of sleep we went back down to LAX and stood in line with a Chinese family (who had also been ticketed for the cancelled flight). The Patriarch of the family told us that the \”internet report\” stated that the Frontier crew had failed to show up for the flight — hence the cancellation!? The crew did not show up for the flight??!! I guess that makes sense on New Year\’s Eve…so I had to redo our rental car booking after we landed in Orlando 7-and-a-half hours after we were supposed to.
Why didn\’t we try to book another airline? Because we didn\’t know if we\’d get a refund from Frontier — and all other flights were one-stops — while Frontier was advertised as a direct flight.
What we didn\’t quite realize about Frontier is that the reason they have bargain basement flight prices is that they charge for everything else: luggage, carry-ons — even seats have differential pricing (based on whether they recline or not). It was too funny hearing the stewardess explain to a family why they couldn\’t upgrade their seats on the two-thirds-filled plane — she said the pilot wouldn\’t allow it because it might cause \”wing wobble.\” I guess they weren\’t equipped to ring up a charge for seat upgrades (otherwise they would have).
When it was time to leave Florida, it seemed like our return flight would be leaving on time — we had no text notifications apprising us otherwise. Then, while we were in line to check-in — we received a text that our flight would be delayed by 40 minutes. OK…we\’d still get into L.A. by 12:30pm and we\’d get picked up by our friend.
But boarding the plane added an additional 40 minutes to the take-off as the Frontier ground crew did not board the plane according to zones — they just did a general boarding, and I guess frequent Frontier fliers knew that Frontier had no mechanism for ensuring whether people had paid for their carry-ons or not — as just about everyone seemed to have sprung for forty dollars to bring on carry-ons!
Then, as we sat on the runway — we learned that our direct flight would be making a stop in Houston to refuel: our direct flight had become a one-stop. The reason for this stop, as reported by the crew, was that we would be flying into a 150mph headwind (jet stream) that would burn up gas. I\’ve not heard such reasoning in almost 50 years of flying — most airlines I\’ve experienced fly above a headwind…
When we finally landed in Houston to refuel — we were informed that our toilets were overflowing and we\’d have to stay longer to have this situation ameliorated. I informed a steward that British Airways would have opened a complimentary bar by now…he agreed with me!
We landed in L.A. at 2:44am — with no pick-up and Uber telling us we could be picked up at 4:00am. Taxis were trying to charge us anywhere from $60-$80 — which is a bit steep. Thank god for sending Felipe (an off-duty cabbie) who got us home at 4:00am.
Not only are we awaiting a refund from these Frontier bastards (which we\’ll never get) — but I hope and pray that no one has to pay the ultimate price for this unorganized and incompetent airline…