What should have been a short 20-minute flight from Nantucket, MA, to Boston ended up being a much longer ferry ride for one family after they were removed from a JetBlue flight after an incident involving their 13-year-old daughter with autism. [More]
the unfriendly skies
United Passenger Spends Three Days In Jail Following Dispute Over Seat
By 7.8.13
For each bad consumer booted from an airplane for bad behavior, we hear about some unhappy passenger being pulled off a plane and questioned by police because of a petty dispute with a flight attendant. Those passengers are usually released after only a few hours, but here’s the story of a woman who spent three days in jail after she tried to sit in a United Airlines seat that didn’t belong to her. [More]
Teen Sues United Airlines, Says Flight Attendants Didn’t Heed Complaints About Self-Pleasuring Passenger
By 5.31.13
Last October, a then-17-year-old girl was flying on United from NYC to L.A. when she claims she spotted a nearby male passenger making love to himself under a blanket. She says she twice complained to flight attendants, but to no avail. Now she’s suing the nation’s largest airline over the alleged incident. [More]
Spirit Airlines Comes In Dead Last In Latest Ratings, CEO Still Delusional
By 5.22.13
Earlier today, our lunch buddies at Consumer Reports released their roundup of the major U.S.-based commercial airlines. And, in what will be a shock to almost no one who follows the travel industry, Spirit received the lowest possible rating in each of the survey’s six categories. The CEO’s response: “We have great customer service.” [More]
Spirit Airlines Only U.S. Carrier To Make List Of World’s Worst
By 5.17.13
Spirit Airlines can call itself the “most consumer-friendly airline” all it wants, but that won’t change public opinion of the discount carrier. And a new round-up of the world’s worst-rated airlines would seem to confirm that Spirit is far from living up to its own description. [More]
American Airlines Apologizes To Mom Over Breast Pump Brouhaha
By 4.26.13
American Airlines is doing the apology two-step after learning that the mother of a young child was told by a flight attendant that she could not use her breast pump on board a recent flight to Chicago. [More]
United Says It’s Reviewed Its In-Flight Entertainment After Kicking Family Off Flight For Complaining
By 4.4.13
We told you yesterday about the parents who claim their complaints about the appropriateness of the movie shown on a United flight resulted in their plane being re-routed and them being questioned by authorities. Today, the airline gives a very brief statement of its side of the story. [More]
Passengers Claim United Flight Was Diverted After They Complained About In-Flight Movie
By 4.3.13 — Updated: 4.4.13
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From the red-eye where my two choices of movie were the Jimmy Fallon/Queen Latifah vehicle “Taxi” or Halle Berry’s unique take on Catwoman, to my hungover experience of watching Meet Joe Black dubbed in Turkish, I’ve watched some horrible movies on planes. I’d never once thought to actually complain about it, and now I’m quite glad. [More]
Delta Learns That It’s Not A Good PR Move To Upset Judy Blume
By 10.16.12
Judy Blume is a world-famous author of books for kids and young adults (I still remember the eye-opening experience of thumbing through my older sister’s dogeared copy of Tiger Eyes), but in the parlance of Us Weekly, she’s just like us! Except she has 75,000 Twitter followers to gripe to about her problems with Delta. [More]
Dying Woman Says TSA Humiliated Her By Refusing To Perform Search In Private
By 10.10.12
A woman dying from leukemia is mortified, claiming that TSA screeners at Sea-Tac airport in Washington state made her lift up her shirt and checked under her bandages in front of other travelers. [More]
American Airlines Employees Say All These Flight Delays Are Turning Passengers Violent
By 10.9.12
American Airlines has had better days. Delays and canceled flights have soared in recent months; the airline says it’s disgruntled pilots while the pilots says it’s crappy old jets that need constant repair. Regardless of who is to blame, the AA employees working at airport gates say that stranded passengers are channeling their anger into violence at the nearest person in an American uniform. [More]
Masking Tape, Failing Altimeters & Vanishing Employees: One Man’s Tale Of Flying On American Airlines
By 10.1.12
Maybe we’re piling on poor, beleaguered American Airlines of late, but the carrier sure has been in the news a lot these days, and not for good things. Now a recent opinion piece in the New York Times only bolsters these stories of delayed and/or canceled flights, ticked-off pilots and battered and bruised jets. [More]
American Airlines Flight Makes Emergency Landing Because Seats Are Not Supposed To Come Unbolted Mid-Flight
By 10.1.12
One of the claims made by American Airlines pilots in their ongoing dispute with the carrier is that its fleet of planes are old and in need of constant maintenance. Case in point: A flight en route from Boston to Miami on Saturday had to make an emergency landing at JFK Airport in New York after a row of passenger seats became unbolted shortly after take-off. [More]
Family Booted From Flight, Claim American Airlines Didn't Want Son With Down Syndrome In First Class
By 9.4.12
UPDATE: American Airlines has issued a full statement to Consumerist on this story. It has been added to the end of the post.
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American Airlines says the reason it refused to allow boarding to a 16-year-old with Down syndrome and his parents is that the teen was behaving erratically. The parents say that’s completely untrue and that the airline simply didn’t want their son in first class. [More]
Parents Tell United It Lost Their 10-Year-Old Daughter, Airline Shows Remarkable Lack Of Interest
By 8.14.12
Back in June, the parents of a 10-year-old girl say they put their child in the hands of United Airlines staff for the kid’s first solo trip to summer camp, only to soon find out that the airline had somehow misplaced the young girl — and that the airline didn’t really seem to think this was a big deal. [More]
Why One Traveler Says He’ll Never Fly United Airlines Again
By 7.25.12 — Updated: 3.26.13
After many years as a satisfied Continental customer, Consumerist reader Billy says he’s been less than pleased with his experiences since that airline merged with United. But it wasn’t until his family’s most recent ordeal on United that he reached the “never again” point. [More]
Disabled Vet Says United Employees Kicked His Service Dog, Asked Him If He Was Retarded
By 7.20.12 — Updated: 3.26.13
The founder of a group that places service dogs with disabled vets says he went through a 48-hour ordeal at Dulles airport outside Washington, D.C., this week and that not only did United Airlines employees kick his service dog twice, but one staffer actually insulted him in public. [More]
Too-Tense Flight Attendant Booted From Flight For Telling Passengers To Leave Plane “If They Have The Balls”
By 6.29.12
After all the stories of flight attendants who were perhaps a little too eager to toss passengers off flights for minor infractions, it’s a refreshing change of pace to read about a flight attendant who had to be removed from a delayed plane for taking his frustrations out on passengers. [More]
