Teamwork In Charlotte Saves Wedding

[USA320Pilot]

Teamwork in Charlotte saves wedding

ARLINGTON (theHub.com) - In Charlotte last week, a half dozen employees fixed a problem that seemed unfixable. A plane carrying a wedding party of 26 people, including the bride's father, arrived from Philadelphia over two hours late, and they missed their connection to Punta Cana. Charlotte's solution? Get them to Miami connecting on an American Airlines flight to Santo Domingo, with ground transportation to Punta Cana. This required quick thinking and equally fast action.

Tower Shift Manager David Whitmire found a larger aircraft for the Miami flight, substituting a 737-400 for a 737-300. He then called Miami to alert them to the situation and followed up with a call to American. Ramp Shift Manager Ronnie Ray had a bag room team meet the group's inbound flight and together they re-tagged the bags. Meanwhile, Customer Service Supervisor Jimmy Lett and Regional Manager of Customer Service Caribbean and Latin America Erin Fey, who just happened to be visiting Charlotte, together reissued the tickets, including the American segment. Erin also called Santo Domingo, where Station Manager Esmeralda Rosario arranged ground transportation for the group to Punta Cana.

Once the group arrived in Miami, Station Manager Bruce Dudgeon and our Miami team were already prepared. Having been in constant contact with American, the team got the bags on the connecting flight and helped with the customers' transfer, as well. Esmeralda and her team were on alert for the arrival of the American flight with guidance for the ground transportation that would take the group to Punta Cana. Thanks to everyone involved, we got them to the church on time.

Regards,

USA320Pilot

 

[hharotz]

Teamwork in Charlotte saves wedding

ARLINGTON (theHub.com) - In Charlotte last week, a half dozen employees fixed a problem that seemed unfixable. A plane carrying a wedding party of 26 people, including the bride's father, arrived from Philadelphia over two hours late, and they missed their connection to Punta Cana.

[post="273953"][/post]​

Having worked in two hubs at one point or another, in my experience PHL is the absolute worst station for sending people downline who will clearly misconnect. Then it's absolutely hilarious how they expect other stations not to send them international misconnects (who will usually end up making an intl connection anyways due to Delays During Baggage and Cargo Loading anyways) when they continue to do these types of things to PIT/DCA and CLT everyday! :down:

Just try getting ahold of a PHL CSS or Shift Manager to tell them not to send on misconnects when options exist out of PHL! And if you do tell anyone, you better cover the phone's reciever because they will tell you that you have no business telling them how to do their job....The more things change.... :blink:

 

[Heinrich]

I have personally experienced this kind of effort in ORF and RSW as a passenger. This is what sold me on US and why I have been a chairman for 3 years straight.

My first experience with my new job in a travelling career was being left stranded in ATL by delta on a regular basis.

Once, in ORF, it was only "possible" that I would miss my connection in CLT to MCO and the gate agent carried me by the wrist and a flurry of paperwork over to Delta to hop on one of their flights to MCO.

 

[coolflyingfool]

I don't want to sound to cynical, but they were running 2 hours late. There should have been ample time and alerts from PHL about the situation. To me it sounds like CLT is tooting their own horn, when it should have been fixed in PHL. There should have been no last second save by CLT. This problem should not have happened. Why wasn't the flight from CLT to Punta Cana held in CLT to accomodate those 26 passengers? Just wondering..........

 

[MarkMyWords]

Cool -

Chances are, with a 2 hour delay out of PHL they misconnected by over an hour. While 26 customers sounds like a large number - holding a flight with 100 other customers for over an hour would be unacceptable - regardless of the circumstances. That flight into PUJ turns around and goes back to CLT and with an hour + delay time would misconnect more customers on the return. So to hold 1 hour + for 26 customers could effect over 200 other customers and cause additional misconnects on the return.

My assumption about why it "required quick thinking and equally fast action" is that I am sure CLT would have been on the phone to PHL telling them to reroute the connections and PHL didn't do it. PHL is notorious for hub dumping, but will be the first station to call another station screaming about sending misconnects. Now that the problem was enroute to CLT instead of in PHL, they had to take additional action.

As for tooting their own horn.....Everyone involved deserves a Kudos. The folks in CLT took a bad situation and met the challenge with great resolve. Being able to find a viable routing, additional seats, ground transportation and an itinerary that "got them to the church on time" was a major undertaking. Those involved deserve a little applause.

Kudos to Dave, Ronnie, Jimmy, Erin, Esmerelda, Bruce and the team in CLT, MIA and SDQ for a job well done.

That is why people like Heinrich, Bob, Art and many many others have such great passion for US and OUR airline. We have so many people that go above and beyond for the customers that we serve.

 

[PITbull]

I think this is exceptionally great! Good job CLT.

 

[hharotz]

Cool -

Chances are, with a 2 hour delay out of PHL they misconnected by over an hour. While 26 customers sounds like a large number - holding a flight with 100 other customers for over an hour would be unacceptable - regardless of the circumstances. That flight into PUJ turns around and goes back to CLT and with an hour + delay time would misconnect more customers on the return. So to hold 1 hour + for 26 customers could effect over 200 other customers and cause additional misconnects on the return.

My assumption about why it "required quick thinking and equally fast action" is that I am sure CLT would have been on the phone to PHL telling them to reroute the connections and PHL didn't do it. PHL is notorious for hub dumping, but will be the first station to call another station screaming about sending misconnects. Now that the problem was enroute to CLT instead of in PHL, they had to take additional action.

As for tooting their own horn.....Everyone involved deserves a Kudos. The folks in CLT took a bad situation and met the challenge with great resolve. Being able to find a viable routing, additional seats, ground transportation and an itinerary that "got them to the church on time" was a major undertaking. Those involved deserve a little applause.

Kudos to Dave, Ronnie, Jimmy, Erin, Esmerelda, Bruce and the team in CLT, MIA and SDQ for a job well done.

That is why people like Heinrich, Bob, Art and many many others have such great passion for US and OUR airline. We have so many people that go above and beyond for the customers that we serve.

[post="273982"][/post]​

Honestly, if the flight was running late why didn't PHL just send them to right to MIA on US (or AA) then onwards on AA instead of putting this group through all this anxiety?

Whenever the 330 PHL-SJU is late (and it happens at least 2-3 a week) SJU is stuck with usually 40-50 people who have missed onward connections on the Caribbean Star codeshares to the islands because PHL doesn't bother to protect or reroute them. The pax end up waiting until 9-10pm at night in SJU just to get to where they are going. Many of the destinations (like SXM, for example) often have nonstop flights from PHL which have 30-50 open seats yet no one takes the initiative to put these obvious misconnects on the nonstops! ...I really don't understand them sometimes, and I'm tired of the 'we're understaffed' excuse. :down:

Many of us in the outstations have only 2 (if we're lucky 3 people) at the gate for a full 757 to PHL and when PHL goes into ground delays or they send up a flight 2 hours late because they didn't have anyone to load bags ( :blink: ) we still manage to protect the entire flight either on us or offline. We have NO special services counters to help with reissues. We even manage to get their bags on the right flight or do an OA gate to gate transfer. Imagine that! Whenever PHL goes into ground holds and their Transatlantic Shift Managers sends TELEX messages to the out stations NOT to send on any misconnects, I can't help but roll my eyes.

Anyways, CLT did a good job here, there's no question about that. The problem is, yet again, that te company fails to look at why this problem happend in the first place (PHL). I'm willing to bet that the wedding group will hold a grudge against US for making them almost miss the wedding rather than having fond memories of their CLT layover.

 

[nycbusdriver]

I congratulate CLT on the great, successful effort. As a reward, Bruce Lakefield will send his "Bravo Zulu" (whatever the h3ll that is,) and Jerry Glass will reduce your compensation package.

Aside from the outstanding effort, I must interject a point that irks me to no end. What in the world was that group of 26 doing on that flight? Any customer with an ounce of common sense would have been in Punta Cana a day ahead of time for such an event. I once had an irate businessman confront me on my mechanically delayed flight BWI-CAE. He was livid in that he HAD to be in Columbia on schedule for a meeting with high government officials where he had a multi-million dollar transaction to settle. I simply turned to him and told him with such an important meeting schedule, he should be having breakfast at a hotel in Columbia right now. He actually shut up when he realized that I was right.

Anyone who schedules a last-chance-before-the-one-time-event flight on ANY airline is a dad-blamed fool.

 

[hharotz]

That being said, as a customer I don't give a fat rats arse what happens behind the curtain. All I know is if I was one of those 26 people I'd be a US Airways customer FOREVER!

[post="274005"][/post]​

I don't see it like that...

At the end of the day, these 26 people had to take THREE FLIGHTS on TWO DIFFERENT CARRIERS and A BUS to get to their destination. All because of US Airways flight delay and because someone in PHL didn't proactively reprotect them. Thinking this is a success story is rediculous...we had to pay AA to fly 26 people MIA-SDQ, burn more fuel flying a 734 CLT-MIA and had to charter a ground transportation to get these people to their destination all because someone in PHL didn't take any initiative.

These people will fly whoever is cheapest, and their only memories of US will be how USAir almost ruined their daughters wedding. :down:

 

[hharotz]

Who wants to make a bet that if this was a 757 arriving in PHL with 120 Trans-Atlantic misconnects that PHL would do anything other than say, 'sorry, you go tommorow....'?

PHL cant even manage to organize a bus to ABE when the last flight of the night cancels (let alone more complex ground transportation in the Caribbean for 26)...they'd rather leave people on their own (without hotels) and instructions to call res to rebook, rather than taking any initiative to do any type of rebooking.

 

[RowUnderDCA]

I'm very certain that Parker will institute some changes to U's system that will not be popular with U employees... perhaps first at PHL.

 

[MarkMyWords]

HHAROTZ -

I see it a little differently. I agree that PHL should have rerouted the customers from their station but the end result would have been the same. Had they rerouted out of PHL, who is to say that there would have been seats to PUJ, SJU, MIA or SDQ? PUJ is a difficult city to get to, and even harder if you are looking for 26 seats. Obviously flights to MIA were sold out, so that necessitated the upgrade in equipment to MIA out of CLT. Perhaps that option wasn't available out of PHL.

There are a whole host of possibilites. Suffice to say, that PHL did drop the ball sending them to CLT without having protected them on something else. I will never agree with hub dumping as a solution to a problem. CLT's handling of the situation is commendable. They picked up where someone else dropped the ball.

I believe, in the end, the Customers would have taken a Cuban Refugee boat to PUJ out of MIA if they had to. Our ability to creatively reroute them to their destination in the fastest means possible was greatly appreciated. It may not have been the most convenient trip, at least the made it in time, and that is what is important. I am sure the fine folks in CLT did offer other alternatives and this was the one that achieved the desired result - being there for the wedding.

Other options would have been to overnight them in a hotel and put them on the flight in the morning. Send them back to PHL and fly them out the next day. Both of these options would not get them there for the wedding.

 

[hharotz]

On a related note, I'd love to see how much US spends yearly on R120.20s and INVOLs because our operation (esp. Express) is so unreliable. I kid you not, at my station for every 10 invols we do, I would say we get only 1 from other carriers. In the end, it is clearly not a wash and I'm sure accounting ends up sending hefty sums of money to AA/DL/NW/UA every month for these INVOLs. :down:

IMO, I wouldn't be surprised if managements starts clamping down on offline reroutes as a means to keep revenue in house. Other carriers (like AA and UA in my experience) will rarely (if ever) give away revenue even when there is a mechanical delay...whereas we give away the farm with oversales, disasterous PHL and Express operations, etc...

 

[LGA / 037]

Just try getting ahold of a PHL CSS or Shift Manager to tell them not to send on misconnects when options exist out of PHL! And if you do tell anyone, you better cover the phone's reciever because they will tell you that you have no business telling them how to do their job....The more things change.... :blink:

[post="273957"][/post]​

[/quote]



I usually use the Tower coordinators

Dialnet (deleted) for A/B concourse
Dialnet (deleted) for C/D concourse

I always get someone but then its up to PHL internally to relay the info.

MOD NOTE- Please do not post internal company numbers. Thanks.

 

[ClueByFour]

With me little mini-versions of this incident happen all the time and as this month winds up and I find myself entering my 6th year on the road for work I can say that US Airways has left me stuck along the way EXACTLY TWICE! Now have I ended up on some pretty bizarre routings and arrived at my hotel at 3AM?? Yes I have! But come meeting time at 9AM I was there! Maybe not fresh as a daisy but where I needed to be when I needed to be there.

[post="274005"][/post]​

That's because you are a CP.

When I was still a CP, I found myself having to intervene with US on other's behalf more and more often--because people without uber-status are given no help at all. US did it's part to strand my sister in ORD because a UA operated flight tanked (US ticket stock). They basically told her she was out of luck--a quick call to the Chairman's desk and whatever magic they did had her heading west on another airline--but the US folk (at least the one she was dealing with at one of the US gates in ORD) were going to write her off "until tomorrow."

This type of thing happens all the time if one is not extremely knowledgeable about the contract of carriage, US' rule 240 (yes, there is still one on file with the DOT), and/or have some kind of status (usually CP).