Winging It

Having flown usairways for a number of years, It seems to be that this storm caught them iff-guard. After delay and cancellaion of friday morning, and re-booking for saturday morning and then calcellating the saturday flight and using the plane to go to another city, I find unacceptable that NOONE from the airline could or would explain why.. This is the way the OLD usairways run into bankruptsy...

We are Joe & Sandy Golesh, from Mechanicsburg, PA. We were due to leave from Phila. to Puerto Rico for a week's vacation for our 40th Wedding Anniversary, on Friday at 9:35AM.

Don't know here your information came from, but we were one of the first flights not to take off on Friday. IF US Air had been listening to the weather(??) they would have left the gate at the scheduled time and not inconvenience 95% of their passengers, to accomodate 5% from connecting flights. ESPECIALLY with a storm approaching which all the News Stations were covering.

US Air kept making petty excuses for the 5 hour delay (on the tarmac) which we experienced. As we were sitting on the tarmac, the last flight to leave the airport took off!!!!!! After 5 hours the Piolit announced we were going back to the terminal to deplane so the Crew could get off and IF another Crew could be found we "may" be able to continue.

After 15 to 20 minutes the announcement was made that the flight was cancelled. The announcement was call the 800# to reschedule you flights. There will be NO vouchers for hotels as this was due to weather. Bullshit, this flight was held up by US Airways, not the weather!!! There were no US Air staff to help out the thousands of travellers who were stranded.

Then the luggage was announced as going to Terminal B 'G' gondola, we were leaving from terminal "A". WHY??? Why not claim luggage in Terminal A??? As it was all flights originating in Phila. that were cancelled, went to Terminal "B". Imagine the insanity??? They announced a change to shere our luggage would be 3 times. The gondola's were so full they became jammed and the bagage handlers had to unload luggage and stack it in the isles.

Airline passengers were walking around with blank looks on their faces and the Lost Luggage Lines were unbelievable. There were No Hotel Rooms available, No Taxi's, No Limos and the Airlines would not allow us back to the Terminals to get food. We only had the small portion of our boarding passes. So there was No Food, other than snacks, which I assume ran out at some point.

We stood in line at Aunt Annie's Pretzels for 45min. to 1 hour (maybe more) waiting for more pretzels to arrive. The traveller's behind me, travelling with 2 boys (10 & 8) had been on the tarmac for 7 hours. Unbelievable.

Our daughter, drove us to the Airport from Coatesville, on her way to work at Dupont, in Wilmington. Friday night she tried to drive home and could'nt make it, so stayed with friends from work (who live in Newark, DE). When we called our daughter, her friends drove to the Phila. Airport to pick us up. There are Very Good people out there who risk their comfort for others whom they have never met. Thank You Tom & Val. We spent a comfortable night in their spare bedroom. Certainly hope there are other Stories of Goodness to come out of this mess.

Finally got through to the 800# about midnight. No flights avaiable for Saturday, so we booked for Sunday. When we arrived at the Airport around 9:15AM the Airport looked as bad as when we left. Thousands of people in lines inside and outside of the International Terminal.

It is hard to believe that the Airlines can be so inept, when weather is a constant and on going problem.