reza@ihuxb.UUCP (Reza Taheri) (11/28/84)
This article is not just a complaint about Frontier Horizon Air Lines. It is also a lesson in "you get what you pay for" and a couple of pointers on how to choose an air carrier. My wife and I planned on going to San Francisco for the Thanksgiving vacation. To keep the cost down, we decided to choose a cheap air line. Furthermore, the flight had to be non-stop from Chicago to San Francisco because of our 18 month old monster, I mean daughter. After calling a number of air lines, Jane came up with Frontier Horizon as the cheapest non-stop flight to San Francisco, all other air lines were either a little (or a lot) more expensive or had stop overs. She called a second time to make sure of the air fare and that the flight was a non-stop. Problem No. 1: After waiting for two weeks for our tickets to arrive we called Frontier Horizon. They said that for some reason they hadn't mailed the tickets and we had to go to a travel agency to pay for and pick them up. Fine, that wasn't a big problem. Problem No. 2: The plane was to take off at 6:45 a.m. Now, waking up at 4:00 in the morning is not the best way to start a vacation. As the commercials for the major air lines say you don't have to sacrifice you comfort for *their* low prices. A couple days before the flight it occurred to me that for about $100 more I could fly a major air line at a more reasonable hour (especially for my daughter, you know how kids get when they wake up at unusual hours), but it was too late by then. Problem No. 3: We arrive at the airport and look for the gate. Lo and behold there is our gate with the sign "Flight xxx: Denver, San Francisco". Wait a minute. We asked them twice for a non-stop flight. How could they make a mistake. I honestly believe that Frontier Horizon lied to us; but that's another story. Problem No. 4: I ask the lady at the gate to give us two seats where the middle seat is unoccupied, so we can seat our daughter. She says OK. Of course some guy ends up sitting between me and my wife and we have to go back to a different row where there are three unoccupied seats. You see, ours was the only row in the whole plane where they seated three people! What did she think I said? "Please make sure there are three people in our row"? I mean, isn't there a limit to incompetence? Problem No. 5: The plane is taking off. A few seconds before it leaves the ground, the pilot shuts off the engines and turns around. "Sorry, we had a little problem, nothing to worry about. We will try again". OK. Problem No. 6: The plane lands in Denver. It doesn't land at a terminal. It lands in the middle of the airport. There is a bus to and from the terminal. Basically you can't get out and stretch you feet. And you were wondering how they could have a low fare? Problem No. 7: The plane is taking off again. A couple of seconds before it actually leaves the ground ... the same problem. This time the pilot says: "We have a minor problem that we have to fix before we can take off. It'll take about 15 minutes." Problem No. 8: TWO hours later the plane is fixed! During this time we have to comfort our daughter who is getting restless after five and a half hours in the plane and I can't go to the terminal to smoke a cigarette (no flames PLEASE!), we are parked in the middle of the air port, remember? Problem No. 9: The plane was fixed by three 16-year old mechanics. You know the kind that work in K-Mart and can't tune your car in 6 tries? That's them. Makes you feel real good, don't it? Problem No. 10: We finally land in San Francisco after a 7-hour flight. First thing I do is try to change my return ticket. After finding their booth (not too easy) their guy tells me there are only two non-stop flights to Chicago at the day and time I want to fly. United has a flight but it'll cost me about $815.00 where my tickets were bought for $330; Pan Am has a flight, too, but it is sold out. Right there and then I decided I didn't want to deal with Frontier Horizon Air Lines ever again; not even by letting them exchange my tickets. I later went to a travel agency, where they changed my ticket for the non-stop Pan Am flight (which cost only $60 more). This is the same flight that I was told was sold out. The morale of this tory is: 1: Don't let the cheaper air fares fool you, you get what you pay for. 2: Don't fly Frontier Horizon. 3: Don't try to buy your own tickets. Go to a travel agency and push them to check ALL the available alternatives for you. If you find a major air line (United, American, Eastern, TWA, and maybe Delta and Pan Am) that is a few bucks more expensive than a cut-rate one, take the major air line. H. Reza Taheri ...!ihnp4!ihuxb!reza (312)-979-7473
hania@rabbit.UUCP (Hania Gajewska) (11/28/84)
I agree with most of your morals, except the last one ("Don't buy your own tickets"). It should read: "Make sure you know what you're doing before you buy your own tickets". After many bad experiences (of the sort you describe) with travel agents, I ALWAYS make my own travel arrangements. There are books that publish all the flights available between any destinations, including the information on the number of stops en route. From those books I pick the flights that seem convenient, then I check with the particular airlines for the lowest rates. The travel agent has nothing to gain by finding the lowest rates for you (not even a return customer: chances are you would never find out there was a lower fare available). There are also things that you might think of that the travel agent would never know about ("Wow, there is a flight through Denver -- if I take it, I would get the chance to see Aunt Mildred"). Maybe an ultra competent travel agent would change my mind, but for now, I haven't found one that can do for me anything I can't do myself, and so travel agents head my list of useless professions. Hania