US Airways Review

After any long trip, almost everyone has at least one travel nightmare to tell. Fortunately we had only one, but it involved US Airways, as it always seems to when we travel. Because we frequently fly out of Charlotte, one of US Airways largest hubs, our international flight plans always involve flying on their airline. This is unfortunate, since US Airways is the biggest failure of an airline I have ever had the misfortune of flying, and I've flown some pretty messed-up airlines. This time, we witnessed US Airways' supreme incompetence before we even left our house, and they continued to screw up, with alarming consistency, until we landed back in Charlotte.

Reservation Screwups and US Airways' own Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde
My husband reserved our seats on three flights from US Airways in February of this year. Our reservation confirmation included our seat numbers, which he'd chosen as 9A and 9B, on all three of our flights. The day of our departure I figured we would try "online check-in" through US Airways' website. I typed in our reservation number, and instead of finding our seat assignments as they were listed on our confirmed reservation printout, I saw that US Airways had switched our seats. We were now sitting thirty rows apart on our international flight!

My husband called US Airways and they argued with him that there was no way he could have reserved the seats that were shown on our reservation confirmation. They refused to help, stating that we would have to go to the airport to check-in manually and request seats together.

We arrived at the airport several hours early, so we'd have plenty of time to deal with the problem. We met up with a counter agent who seemed helpful. She sat us together in 8A and 8B. She gave us our tickets and we immediately stepped out of line: Only to find that she had given us two boarding passes with MY name on both!

We got back into line and were waved over by Jonathan Asher, US Airways' very own Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde. Working the priority check-in line, which was empty, he called us over and we showed him our two boarding passes and explained our predicament with my name showing up on both. We started out on great terms. We said, "Can you help us?" He said, "Oh I can make all your dreams come true," in a joking voice. Then he printed out our new boarding passes: Which no longer reflected 8A and 8B as our seats, but instead had us seated dozens of rows apart again!

My husband noted the seat change and said, "No please give us 8A and 8B, the seats we just had. We only need to have our names changed on one boarding pass." This is when Mr. Asher began behaving in a disconcertingly unstable manner. His demeanor instantly switched as he became alarmingly rude, sternly yelling at us impatiently, "I can't help you at all you'll have to go to the gate to change your seats!" My husband stood firm and said, "The woman down there just switched our seats to 8A and 8B, so I know you can switch our seats. Our boarding passes, which you just tore up and threw in the trash, said 8A and 8B. You can look at them to confirm that. We don't need you to do anything but switch one name on those two seats."

Mr. Asher stormed off to the other woman's counter without a word of explanation to us. Jay began to walk down to her counter so she would recognize him and understand that she had just helped us until Mr. Asher aggressively yelled at my husband from three counters away, threatening him by telling him to go back to where he was if he wanted any help at all. I have never witnessed any employee, anywhere, as unstable or nasty as Mr. Asher, who was treating us as if we were in the wrong, when in fact we were victims of ongoing incompetence from multiple US Airways employees - and most especially, the incompetence of Jonathan Asher himself!

After consulting with the woman, who in fact confirmed what we had just told him, Mr. Asher did another crazy switch, becoming more subdued and acting decently, if not somewhat disturbingly detached and vacuous, as he approached us again. Without apology and in a monotone voice, he explained that 8A and 8B were unavailable for some reason after he cancelled our boarding passes, but that they had managed to find us two seats together again. He handed us our boarding passes and dismissed us, as if his lunatic outburst had never happened, leaving us shaken. I really wondered if Mr. Asher had an emotional disorder, given how completely detached and subdued he suddenly became within mere seconds. His extreme mood swings, going from crazily unbelievably high and jovial when we greeted him, to unbelievably low and vicious, and then back to monotone and detached and vacuous, was incredibly disturbing.

Fortunately our major psychodrama with US Airways on our trip ended when we left Jonathan Asher behind, but we were shaken at the very start of our trip because of his rude and unfathomably unstable behavior. We went through security, still wondering what on earth caused Mr. Asher to turn abusive so quickly, but relieved to finally be able to board our flight seated together.

Other Joys of US Airways
Our flight was uneventful, on a US Airways Airbus 330. Unfortunately, the in-flight entertainment system didn't work properly. I have yet to fly a US Airways transatlantic flight where it worked as advertised. They had to "reboot" the system four times, and even then, my in-flight entertainment system didn't work. My husband's didn't work on a different flight. Other low-lights of our US Airways experience included seats that wouldn't recline, somewhat inedible food and excessive delays on our return flights.

Travelling internationally? You'll need to bring a pen! Unlike United and Lufthansa, US Airways doesn't pass out any writing instruments along with their customs and immigration forms. Other airlines usually have the decency to provide those tiny "golf" pencils to flyers to assist with filling out their forms, but US Airways doesn't waste money on such luxuries. No, you'll need your own pen, or you'll need to borrow one from a seatmate. I found that asking one of the flight attendants to borrow a pen only resulted in a grumpy, "No you'll need to find your own" even if they were carrying pens in-hand! Yes, US Airways is just that cheap.

I know the airline industry has had it rough in the past six years, but US Airways is really the worst of the crop these days.

Cat's Bottom Line
US Airways does only one thing consistently: screw up. And when they do screw up, they seem to do it royally. I wouldn't recommend US Airways to anyone looking for a pleasant or on-time flight -- or stable airline employees!