Now part of US Airways and merger pains still evident
Written: Aug 09 '06
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Price
Cons: Lack of integration of customer service between U.S. Airways & America West
The Bottom Line: It got me where I was going for a good price, but its merger with U.S. Airways is not being handled adequately from a customer service perspective.
|
|
|
| amarajohns's Full Review: America West |
A late June 2006 flight from Seattle to Washington DC was uneventful as far as online reservations (through Orbitz), check-in and the flight itself.
As is typical when flying coach today, on-board amenities (meals, pillows, knee-room) are virtually non-existent, and the plane was packed to the gills. All of this, however, is as must be expected since "you get what you pay for."
I'm a light packer and usually manage even three-week European vacations with carry-on luggage, but this time I was traveling with my 12-year old nephew. His mother sent so much clothing with him I wondered if she was expecting me to keep him permanently. So we checked our bags, which cost us over an hour's delay at Baltimore airport because the baggage handlers apparently don't work during thunderstorms. But I'm not sure if that's the fault of the airline.
The biggest problem had to do with their telephone customer service. Because my nephew had recently had knee surgery, I wanted to change our seats to bulkhead so no one could lean a seat back and bump his knees, and wanted to arrange for a wheelchair on arrival. This proved to take nearly two hours by phone, as detailed below, entirely because US Airways acquired America West and has not yet, several months later, fully integrated the two phone and computer systems, and their customer service staff has not been trained to help customers through the maze.
Here's how it went:
I started at about 8:45 a.m. For more than half an hour, I tried to get through on what was provided by Orbitz as America West's reservation line and got only a busy signal after working my way through the voice mail directions.
Then, once I stopped getting a busy signal, I held for 12 minutes (predicted wait: 7 minutes) before I reached an extremely inattentive person who said I had reached U.S. Airways and she had to transfer me to America West, and disconnected me, but not right away - for that I had to wait another two minutes.
I called back. Then I held for about 12 minutes (predicted wait: 10 minutes) and was given a direct number to call for America West, 1-800-435-9292 which I repeated twice very carefully and was assured I had heard correctly, and was again transferred, which resulted in another disconnect.
Calling the direct number I had been given offered me the opportunity to join a talk line for 99 cents a minute. (I later learned the correct number was 235-9292, not 435-9292.)
Calling the Internet support desk at 800-327-7810 I was kept on hold for more than 5 minutes with no indication that I was actually still connected (no recorded message, no music, no nothing.) Then I got a message that I had waited too long to dial, and was disconnected.
America West's web site automatically redirected me to U.S. Airways, so I couldn't get America West's direct number on the Internet.
I then called back the U.S. Airways reservations line and chose the Spanish language option. After five or six minutes of total silence on hold, interrupted once by English language directions about how to confirm a flight, I reached a courteous gentleman who did manage, with considerable difficulty, to connect me to an America West customer service person, who was able to make the arrangements I needed. But her comment to my complaint about the difficulty of getting through was "I'm sorry, but I'm not responsible for customer call volume." Needless to say, by that time I found that a singularly inadequate response.
My efforts were finally concluded at 10:36 a.m., nearly two hours after I started.
Recommended:
No
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
amarajohns
|
|
Reviews written: 12
Trusted by: 0 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.