"Thompson Family Vacation" is a term that has been used for years to scare both children and adults from my family. Last week it was taken to an all new level. My wife, thirteen month old, and I planned to fly from Charlotte, NC to Boston, Massachusetts. From there we planned to drive two hours to reach our destination in New Hampshire.

When we arrived at the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, our check-in and security screening went well. We made it to the gate about an hour early and proceeded to wait for our flight to board. We started to worry about our flight when it was about 30 minutes until takeoff and there was still no plane at our gate.

A gate agent from AirTran got on the overheard speaker and announced that all flights into Baltimore had been slowed down due to weather over Baltimore. She announced that all flights arriving and departing were delayed meaning that none of us would miss our connections. We were told that ATC was forcing the delay and that there was nothing AirTran could do. This was flight 322.

We finally did board and takeoff a little more than an hour late. During the landing, we were by the stewardesses that an AirTran agent would be waiting at the top of the ramp to assist us with any connections that we needed to make. Upon reaching the top of the ramp, there was no AirTran agent. I quickly asked an AirTran employee wearing a red vest that was working at another gate where to find information about our connection. She told me that she wasn't working customer service that I would have to go to the ticket counter. Little did I know that later I would find out that this same woman would also be the manager on duty. Not only did she not provide "customer service" at that time, but never during my entire stay in Baltimore/Washington International Airport.

My family, along with about thirty other people left the terminal and headed for the check-in counter. After waiting in line as if we were checking in for a flight, an AirTran agent asked for a show of hands for the number of people that wouldn't mind flying into Manchester, New Hampshire or New York City. Since we were going to a city about 30 minutes from Manchester anyways, we raised our hands and volunteered to be rerouted to Manchester. A number of people agreed to go to NYC and some to Baltimore. Others wanted to know why they couldn't catch a later flight to Logan International Airport, in Boston. The agent didn't have other flight information and told the group that we would be back shortly with more information.

An hour passed and he finally returned. He had a number of hotel vouchers for people that were attempting to continue on to Boston and told us that no more flights that night had available seats. He handed out about three vouchers and started to leave. Those of us that asked to be rerouted to NYC or Manchester via another airline quickly asked what our situation was. He said that they would not be providing us transportation and that if we had questions to talk with the supervisor that would arrive shortly.

Another hour goes by and a supervisor finally arrives. Much to my delight, it was the rude, red-vested AirTran agent that had told me earlier that she didn't work customer service. She informed us that there were no options other than to spend the night at a hotel and "try" and catch a flight in the morning. However, all the flights for June 29, 2007 were booked and we would all be waiting on standby. A number of us asked about having AirTran rent cars for us and the manager, who's only name was Reese (pronounced like Reese's, like the peanut butter cups, but without the final "s"). She said they would not do that and we were lucky there were doing anything since our delay had been caused by weather.

She proceeded to take our boarding passes and told us that we would get a free flight, plus room and board, plus be on standby for the next day. I asked for a refund on my flight instead of the free flight coupon, and the room and board and the standby option. Reese came back an hour later with room and board coupons for everyone but my family and she told us that she had refunded us $88 dollars and she hoped that we would fly AirTran again in the future.

I tried to explain to her that we wanted a refund instead of the free flight coupon and all the same things as the others. She told me that there was nothing she could do that a refund and been made and it was non-reversible. I told her I wanted to speak with her supervisor and I proceeded to get very loud about the situation. She told me that there was no one else that I could speak with and told me to wait at the counter and someone would be out shortly to help me.

An hour later I decided that we had waited enough. I called the AirTran consumer complaint line and proceeded to explain the situation to the AirTran phone agent. She told me that I would need to get the manager on duty in the airport to issue any vouchers, but she could put us on the first flight in the morning. I told her that I doubted that I would be able to get any local AirTran employee to help me and asked if she could talk with the directly. She told me that she could and asked to put an agent on the phone.

Once I found an agent that would acknowledge my existence, I told her that I had AirTran customer service on the phone and they wanted to speak with a local agent. The local agent refused to get on the phone so the agent on the phone told me to just go to a hotel, pay for it, and try and get a resolution in the morning.

We finally made it to a hotel five hours after landing in Baltimore. The hotel cost about $111.27. We got up the next morning at 3:30am and took the shuttle back to the airport about 4:30am. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:30am and we wanted to make sure we had plenty of time. As soon as we arrived I noticed that our early morning flight had been cancelled. Once I reached a desk agent, they told me there was nothing they could do that all the flights that day were booked and that we would have to wait until the next day.

We decided to rent a car and drive the seven hours to our destination. The car rental cost us $399.21 plus about $50 in road tolls. We finally reached our first destination in our family vacation and had a ton of fun.

I wish I could end our store there, but it gets much better. Our next flight would take us from Boston to Atlanta to make our connection to Denver. The first leg went off without a hitch, but the connection was about an hour late. This, of course, is minor, but still shows that even though we made it to Denver, we were late.

The final leg of our vacation would take us from Denver to Atlanta and then finally back home to Charlotte. This part of our trip would be the real killer.

Our plane was late arriving to the gate. I realized that we would most-likely not make our connection and asked to reschedule or connection or just cancel our tickets and fly the next morning, since we could stay for free in Denver. The gate agent assured me that we would make it on time. Once it arrived it took nearly 45 minutes before the boarding process started. We took off an hour late.

When we arrived in Atlanta, we were scheduled for gate C5. It took over 20 minutes for the plane to even arrive at a gate and then it was a gate at the end of terminal D. The gate agent assured us that they were holding the plane to Charlotte for 25 minutes and if we hurried, we would make it. So, with a bad knee, and my wife pushing the stroller with our sleeping 13 month old, we ran the entire length of D terminal and another entire length of C terminal.

Of course, when we got to the gate, the plane and all the employees were gone. There was another AirTran flight (308) that arrived in Atlanta the same time as our flight (306) that had been delayed 3 hours. AirTran began giving 308 passengers room and board vouchers and tried to give 306 passengers nothing. Another 306 passenger was arguing with the AirTran people when my wife final broke down and cried.

Because of this, AirTran treated us differently and provided us with room and board and left the other guy with nothing. This was the real kicker to the entire trip. It really showed that AirTran is extremely selective, maybe even discriminatory, in the methods of selecting who it will provide real customer service to.

If anyone has any way of finding out the actual causes of air traffic delays please contact me. AirTran insisted that all delays were weather related, but I believe the flight from Baltimore to Boston were because of something else.

AirTran, your company has shown its true colors over the past week. You cost my family over $800 for car rentals, gas, room and board, etc. I understand that the AirTran's Contract of Carriage states:

This of course creates an out for AirTran when weather delays/cancels flights. However, it doesn't create an out for them on customer service. Of course they can leave me and my family stranded in two different airports in the course of a week. Can they? Yes. Should they? That's up to them. Would I do that to someone? No.

Do not fly with AirTran unless you plan on spending the night in your connection city.

If you need a great airport hotel in Baltimore, checkout Best Western BWI Airport.

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Filed under: Daily Complaint