I am known as a bit of a curmudgeon.  But anyone who knows me should know that pissing me off while I am waiting for the MacBook to charge is a really bad thing.  So after repeated insults with Airtrans this morning and previously, I wrote the following love letter to them.  They have responded and have tried to buy me off.  It wasn’t nearly enough for having to spend 7 hours with my children in ATL today, so here it gets posted along with a posted note in Facebook.  Since they are all attached to Twitter, some 13,000 followers will soon see this story.  Fuck you Airtran for making a simple trip to Charleston a nightmare.  Today’s fail is all on you.

A love letter to AirTrans

I’m not sure if this flight experience with your airline could get worse but it has. I have already written to you about your randomly canceling the Sunday evening flight that forced us to stay over an extra night and incur an extra day of hotel and car rental fees.

So we sucked it up and stayed booked on your airline. We got up this morning at 4am for a 6:30am departure from CHS only to have a 45 minute mechanical. Since we lost our space into ATL we easily ate our hour layover and hit the ground in ATL at 9:00am.

We land in ATL and get to the gate at 9:10. We have to wait to get off since we were put into the last row and race to the gate find that the STL flight had pushed 5 minutes early. We were among multiple passengers that where left standing there with a gate agent telling us 10 minutes, 10 minutes.

I am now rebooked here in ATL waiting for a 4pm flight. Now we get to entertain two children in an airport for 7 hours. I approached the customer service counter and was informed that the 4:00 flight was the earliest and that she could not book us on another carrier. No offers to ease the 7 hours, no offer of any assistance to help rebook. One of your agents told me that I should just “enjoy the airport” while I had the time.

To add a final capper to this great trip, I would also like to point out to you that when we went to get our luggage that had been sitting in your St. Louis office since this morning (yes, our luggage miraculously made the flight, but we were not allowed on board) was locked behind a closed door. I had to call a number while several passengers waited and when the agent arrived, she was as nasty as possible. My daughter who misplaced a school book during this adventure asked if there was a lost and found and in a very brusk and dismissive fashion told my 14 year old that it was a “lost cause.” I know that luggage is not the most glamorous job that your airline might have, but it is customer facing and rude dismissive comments to my 14 year old only serve to heap insult to injury. I encourage you to find out who this agent was and fire her immediately. Good lord. We were sooo the wrong people to screw with tonight.

I mean what is wrong with you people? You have completely messed with my travel plans more than any other airline EVER has.

I was originally excited to know of your airline because you happen to go where I have family and wifi, but you have inconvenienced my family and terribly.

So you have some idea of what it has cost us to travel with you so far:

1. Your fare.
2. One extra night of hotel
3. One extra day of car rental.
4. 1 missed day of school for each child (we would have been in St. Louis at 9:57a and the children would have had a full day)
5. 1 extra day of dog sitter
6. 1 extra day of parking.
7. Money for breakfast, lunch and dinner in ATL.
8. 1 day of work for me (approx. $XXX)
9. 1 day of work for my wife (approx $XXX).

So you tell me why I should ever in a million years fly your airline again? It has cost me now twice over the fare to fly with you.

You boast superior customer service. From where I sit on the floor of the Atlanta airport, its utter crap. Nice job.

Meanwhile, hire a consultant, fire someone, do something because there is no way you can keep going with attitude like this. We have choices as consumers and to get stomped on right to the very end was amazing. You know how easy it is? The place where I parked my garage made sure I had cold water to go home with tonight. Left me feeling pretty good about doing business with them.

So, as an active blogger and writer I now feel its my responsibility to write about this nauseating travel experience. Enjoy the reviews.

Oh and to make matters worse, Hurricane Ida will be here probably in the next couple of hours and will further disrupt traffic. No doubt your airline will refuse to house anyone. Your airline sucks and I intend to say so. Unreliable again and again.

Well done. I hope your airline is proud of its record.