I had truly one of the most traumatizing experiences of my life yesterday at the O'Hare airport.
I woke up at 2 am because I couldn't sleep, and read a text from my mom that she drove to Iowa the previous night. My grandfather was in the hospital having issues. We live in Kansas City and she went to Northeast Iowa which is approx a 5.5 hour drive from kc.driving wasn't realistic with my traveling solo with my daughter in the backseat car seat for the at long by herself.
I decided to book a flight leaving from Kansas City at 5:30 am to Waterloo Iowa. My goal was to take my daughter who is 18 months old with the hopes that my grandpa would get a little life back and it would help him get through everything he was going through.
Fast forward to landing at Chicago Ohare. We sat on the tarmac for about 20 minutes after arriving which put us a bit behind. After getting off, we booked it and had about a 15-20 minute walk to Gate G13 and arrived 8 minutes before the scheduled boarding.
shortly after arrival I asked when we were boarding, and the lady at the gate mentioned they the flight was not ready to board due to a maintenance issue on the plane.
after about 20 minutes I received a text that the flight had moved from G13 to G1.
We walked over there and sat down. After 10 minutes I asked the lady (different lady) at the gate when we were boarding and without making eye contact, she said "I dunno they haven't told us nothin." I said fair enough and sat back down. Very short and rude, no eye contact, but I just figured it is what it is.
Keep in mind I had been getting text messages with every update about the flight.
every screen in the concourse also had a countdown until boarding, along with announcements. Our gate had neither.
Additionally. This was a very small flight, I think 14 people were on it. It was a very small
Plane.
Another 40 minutes passed and still no update, nothing on the screen, no communication.
at this point my 18 month old daughter was tired and very sick of standing, and crying. so we walked around, coming back to the gate every 5 minutes to check and make sure everything was ok. I even came back and asked for an update and was given the same answer.
there were a handful of us standing around the gate, pacing back and forth, wondering when we were leaving. Without an update my daughter and I walked about 200' down the hallway and she was playing on the stairs, keeping an eye on the gate the whole time. I could see the gate from where I was at. It had been over an hour since we had changed gates originally.
When we went back to check the gate again, we were gone for 6-7 minutes, walked back and the screen said "flight closed" and the lady at the gate was gone.
there were two women who were also on the flight saying "we were asking her to wait and she shut the door in our face."
I asked the other attendant what was going on and she said "flights closed, this flight can't board anyone else." I told her I walked away for maybe 6 minutes and she said "I don't know it's not my flight." After pleading with her, and explaining that I booked a flight that day, to see my grandfather, (while holding the baby) she finally called down and after 15 seconds said "nope you can't get on."
now I didn't expect much more because most people working airport gates are typically not overly helpful.
At this point, the other women were also frustrated, very confused what had just happened. We were told that we needed to go to customer service. The jet bridge was still connected to the plane and the doors were still open.
the plane sat like that with the jet bridge open for at least 10 minutes afterward.
I sat at customer service for 30 minutes and the lady got big eyes and said wow, she started boarding at 8:42, and closed the flight at 8:46.
no announcement, no text, and no decency to realize that 4 of the people on this 14 person flight weren't there. The other ladies who also missed it said they walked to get a water, came back and it was closed.
I asked to speak with a supervisor and after waiting for 35 minutes no one came.
long story short, my daughter an I were at Ohare until 3:00 pm (9 hours after we landed) and had to fly back to Kansas City and didnt get to see my grandpa.
I asked the lady who boarded the flight why she didn't call for anyone, and why she closed it quickly, she snapped at me and said it was open for 30 minutes and she did make an announcement. She blatantly lied and customer service confirmed that with me.
I have a picture of the lady and it was truly truly evil. The look she gave me that basically said IDGAF will stick with me forever.
I just got twitter and was told to go after American Airlines on twitter
Can I post this ladies picture or could I run into legal issues if I do? Any other advice is greatly appreciated. I want to make sure no one experiences this again.
Thanks in advance.
I woke up at 2 am because I couldn't sleep, and read a text from my mom that she drove to Iowa the previous night. My grandfather was in the hospital having issues. We live in Kansas City and she went to Northeast Iowa which is approx a 5.5 hour drive from kc.driving wasn't realistic with my traveling solo with my daughter in the backseat car seat for the at long by herself.
I decided to book a flight leaving from Kansas City at 5:30 am to Waterloo Iowa. My goal was to take my daughter who is 18 months old with the hopes that my grandpa would get a little life back and it would help him get through everything he was going through.
Fast forward to landing at Chicago Ohare. We sat on the tarmac for about 20 minutes after arriving which put us a bit behind. After getting off, we booked it and had about a 15-20 minute walk to Gate G13 and arrived 8 minutes before the scheduled boarding.
shortly after arrival I asked when we were boarding, and the lady at the gate mentioned they the flight was not ready to board due to a maintenance issue on the plane.
after about 20 minutes I received a text that the flight had moved from G13 to G1.
We walked over there and sat down. After 10 minutes I asked the lady (different lady) at the gate when we were boarding and without making eye contact, she said "I dunno they haven't told us nothin." I said fair enough and sat back down. Very short and rude, no eye contact, but I just figured it is what it is.
Keep in mind I had been getting text messages with every update about the flight.
every screen in the concourse also had a countdown until boarding, along with announcements. Our gate had neither.
Additionally. This was a very small flight, I think 14 people were on it. It was a very small
Plane.
Another 40 minutes passed and still no update, nothing on the screen, no communication.
at this point my 18 month old daughter was tired and very sick of standing, and crying. so we walked around, coming back to the gate every 5 minutes to check and make sure everything was ok. I even came back and asked for an update and was given the same answer.
there were a handful of us standing around the gate, pacing back and forth, wondering when we were leaving. Without an update my daughter and I walked about 200' down the hallway and she was playing on the stairs, keeping an eye on the gate the whole time. I could see the gate from where I was at. It had been over an hour since we had changed gates originally.
When we went back to check the gate again, we were gone for 6-7 minutes, walked back and the screen said "flight closed" and the lady at the gate was gone.
there were two women who were also on the flight saying "we were asking her to wait and she shut the door in our face."
I asked the other attendant what was going on and she said "flights closed, this flight can't board anyone else." I told her I walked away for maybe 6 minutes and she said "I don't know it's not my flight." After pleading with her, and explaining that I booked a flight that day, to see my grandfather, (while holding the baby) she finally called down and after 15 seconds said "nope you can't get on."
now I didn't expect much more because most people working airport gates are typically not overly helpful.
At this point, the other women were also frustrated, very confused what had just happened. We were told that we needed to go to customer service. The jet bridge was still connected to the plane and the doors were still open.
the plane sat like that with the jet bridge open for at least 10 minutes afterward.
I sat at customer service for 30 minutes and the lady got big eyes and said wow, she started boarding at 8:42, and closed the flight at 8:46.
no announcement, no text, and no decency to realize that 4 of the people on this 14 person flight weren't there. The other ladies who also missed it said they walked to get a water, came back and it was closed.
I asked to speak with a supervisor and after waiting for 35 minutes no one came.
long story short, my daughter an I were at Ohare until 3:00 pm (9 hours after we landed) and had to fly back to Kansas City and didnt get to see my grandpa.
I asked the lady who boarded the flight why she didn't call for anyone, and why she closed it quickly, she snapped at me and said it was open for 30 minutes and she did make an announcement. She blatantly lied and customer service confirmed that with me.
I have a picture of the lady and it was truly truly evil. The look she gave me that basically said IDGAF will stick with me forever.
I just got twitter and was told to go after American Airlines on twitter
Can I post this ladies picture or could I run into legal issues if I do? Any other advice is greatly appreciated. I want to make sure no one experiences this again.
Thanks in advance.
