Airline rep tells of the left side of the bell curve

mikea

mikea

Touchdown! Greaser!
Gone West
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iWin
I work in a central reservation office of an airline. After more than 130,000 conversations --

I've made it through all the calls from adults who didn't know the difference between a.m. and p.m., from mothers of military recruits who didn't trust their little soldiers to get it right, ..., from the man who wanted to ride inside the kennel with his dog so he wouldn't have to pay for a seat, from the woman who wanted to know why she had to change clothes on our flight between Chicago and Washington (she was told she'd have to make a change between the two cities) ...

...a man not knowing how to spell the name of the town he was from, to another not recognizing the name as "Iowa" as being a state, to another who thought he had to apply for a foreign passport to fly to West Virginia. They are the enemy and they are everywhere.

In the history of the world there has never been as much communication and new things to learn as today. Yet, after I asked a woman from New York what city she wanted to go to in Arizona, she asked, "Oh... is it a big place?"

I talked to a woman in Denver who had never heard of Cincinnati, a man in Minneapolis who didn't know there was more than one city in the South ("wherever the South is"), ...a man in Dallas who tried to pay for his ticket by sticking quarters in the pay phone he was calling from.

..a man asked if we flew to exit 35 on the New Jersey Turnpike. Then a woman asked if we flew to area code 304.

...I was asked, "When an airplane comes in, does that mean it's arriving or departing?"

... I suffered a direct hit from a woman who wanted to fly to Hippopotamus, NY. After I assured her that there was no such city, she became irate and said it was a big city with a big airport. I asked if Hippopotamus was near Albany or Syracuse. It wasn't. Then I asked if it was near Buffalo. "Buffalo!" she said. "I knew it was a big animal!"
...
http://monster-island.org/tinashumor/humor/aagent.html
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:hairraise:

Needless to say, these people vote after watching the latest news on American Idol.
 
Sadly, I believe those stories. They would be funny, if they weren't so sad.
 
Before every flight, I stand up in the back of the airplane and say something along the lines of "Folks, welcome aboard US Airways Express flight 4975 with service to Augusta, followed by Rockland, Maine. It should be a 35 to 40 minute flight to Augusta [from Boston, remember] and another 10 to 15 minutes over to Rockland. The weather...blah blah blah..."

It may seem strange that I say the state name, but in the time I've been flying up here, once a month we get someone on the plane that wants to go to Augusta, Ga, not Augusta, Me. What's worse, the twin turbo-prop with no bathroom or flight attendant isn't usually enough of a clue that they might be in the wrong place. In fact, only twice have I had someone realize before we depart Boston that they might be in the wrong place. Generally, though, the snow has given them a pretty good clue that they just went the wrong way.

So far this month, we've had seven people (on three separate days) come to Maine, when they wanted Georgia. Three of them were in a group together, complete with golf clubs and all.



A couple months ago we had a lady stop me right as I closed the door and ask "where are we going again?"

"Umm...Augusta, Maine, ma'am."

"How far is that from Atlanta?"

The captain spun around in his seat at this one, with a huge grin on his face. All of the passengers, most of whom are regulars and know me and the captain by name, look up, too. "Uhhh" is pretty much all I can stammer.

"Cause the place I want to go is about 2 hours from Atlanta, I think."

"Well, ma'am, I assume you mean Atlanta, Georgia? We're going to Maine, not Georgia..."

"Augusta Maine isn't close to Atlanta Georgia?"

The captain slumps back into his seat. I know he's not going to help me with this one. "Umm, no ma'am, not really."

"So we're not going to be two hours from Atlanta?"

"Atlanta, Georgia? No, no ma'am. We're going to be a lot closer to Canada than we are to Georgia. I don't think this is the plane you want."

It took almost 20 minutes of working with three gate agents to get this all sorted out.
 
Matt, from where does Colgan hire its reservation agents? Gosh, I'm sure not inspired to become a customer any time soon. :eek:
 
KennyFlys said:
Matt, from where does Colgan hire its reservation agents? Gosh, I'm sure not inspired to become a customer any time soon. :eek:
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Oh you can thank US Airways ticketing and reservations for that. Though, more often than not, it's actually the fault of the passenger or their travel agent...they go to Orbitz/Priceline/etc and just type in Augusta. Well, the ID for Augusta, Me is AUG for Georgia it's AGS. I think they just start typing the word, it pops up something that looks right, and they go with it. And then can't figure out why it's 50 degrees out, the flight was so short, and the ocean was on the right side of the plane the whole time.
 
Teller1900 said:
Oh you can thank US Airways ticketing and reservations for that. Though, more often than not, it's actually the fault of the passenger or their travel agent...they go to Orbitz/Priceline/etc and just type in Augusta. Well, the ID for Augusta, Me is AUG for Georgia it's AGS. I think they just start typing the word, it pops up something that looks right, and they go with it. And then can't figure out why it's 50 degrees out, the flight was so short, and the ocean was on the right side of the plane the whole time.
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Yeah, I can't blame agents - people are so frickin' stupid. This woman didn't even know how far Maine was from Georgia?? Come on!
 
This is what I have been saying for so long. We, as a Nation, are idiots.
 
Teller1900 said:
It may seem strange that I say the state name, but in the time I've been flying up here, once a month we get someone on the plane that wants to go to Augusta, Ga, not Augusta, Me.
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It is amazing, but sadly pilots are not excluded from geographic cluelessness. Years ago while living in the New York area I had to make regular business trips to Rochester. Flying back one CAVU day, the pilot of the AA 727 felt the urge to be chatty, and he came on the PA stating that we were over Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. :confused:

At least there is a Monticello NY and we were in fact over it.

Later on the same flight he pointed out New Haven, CT when we were really over Stamford.

The only thing I can think of is that he and the other pilot had a bet to see if anyone would call them on the errors. I made one of them lose the bet! :yes:

-Skip
 
Greebo said:
I thought it was the National Education Administration...

Oh well, 6 of one, a dozen on the other...
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Notice the bouncing smiley? Come on Chuck... you know I'm not that far removed from political reality. :D
 
KennyFlys said:
Notice the bouncing smiley? Come on Chuck... you know I'm not that far removed from political reality. :D
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I left out my reply smiley intentionally. The math in my reply was *supposed* to be a subtle clue for you to catch... ;)
 
Skip Miller said:
It is amazing, but sadly pilots are not excluded from geographic cluelessness.
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I'll have to agree with you there. A surprising number of pilots I know have only the vaguest of ideas how the states are laid out in the east, particularly the northeast.
 
Everskyward said:
I'll have to agree with you there. A surprising number of pilots I know have only the vaguest of ideas how the states are laid out in the east, particularly the northeast.
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I resemble that remark! Growing up in western South Dakota, our motto was "if it's east of the Missouri, it's WRONG!" :)

I actually do pretty well with geography, and "used to" be able to place all the states and name their capitols, back when I was smarter than a 5th grader.

Game show host: Name the capitol of Texas.
Blonde contestant: "T"
 
gkainz said:
I resemble that remark! Growing up in western South Dakota, our motto was "if it's east of the Missouri, it's WRONG!" :)
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Growing up in New Jersey I was sometimes confused by all the rectangular states "out west". I never imagined that I would end up spending the majority of my life in one.

Then there is poor Idaho where I lived for a while. When I would tell people I lived there I would get a confused look, as they could not even picture which part of the country it was in. They frequently got it mixed up with either Iowa or Ohio. :dunno:
 
I spent half of my Junior year in high school at a school in MA that claimed to be one of the top 10 high schools in the country at the time. My math teacher had been "out west to Ohio" once. :D :D :D Sorry, to those of us on the left coast, that's "back east" to us. :D
 
I had a friend that flew out of one of the hubs explain Dallas was quite often mixed up with Dulles; caused quite a stir a few times. Seems they had just as many 'mericans mix it up as feriners <g>

Best,

Dave
 
Dave Siciliano said:
I had a friend that flew out of one of the hubs explain Dallas was quite often mixed up with Dulles; caused quite a stir a few times. Seems they had just as many 'mericans mix it up as feriners <g>
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When I was told to use our receptionist to book flights. I called and told her I'd be goign back to Nashville. She heard "National." We did clear that up before the call ended.
 
True story- you cannot make this up.

Several years ago, we're flying on Continental to Belize City, in the sovereign nation of Belize. The gate from which our Belize flight was leaving was at a corner in the terminal, so the initial passageway to the jetway served two aircraft, made a "Y" about 20 feet down.

As fate (and a busy hub) would have it, there were two flights boarding at the same time, so the airline quite wisely stationed a gate agent at the junction, continuously saying "Belize City, this way (gesturing to the left), San Francisco this way (gesturing to the right)." No thinking person could have misinterpreted her very clearly-stated directions.

Still, accidents happen, which would explain why, during and after boarding and before push-back, cabin announcements were made in the plane, with an extremely specific statement that "Our destination today, on Continental Flight xxx, is Belize City, in the country of Belize. If Belize City is not your destination, please disembark now, or press the overhead call button for assistance." They must have repeated the announcement four of five times- enough that my wife and I were remarking on how irritating it was that they were harping on it...

...all of which makes it utterly amazing that, when we were about two-thirds of the way there, a woman in the window seat opposite us on the same row flags down a flight attendant, and asks her: "Do we go over this much water flying from Houston to San Francisco?" The look on her face when she finally realized what she had done... it was priceless.

If I had not seen it, lived it, I would not have believed it, but with God as my witness, it happened. If you don't believe it, ask CJane.
 
Skip Miller said:
It is amazing, but sadly pilots are not excluded from geographic cluelessness. Years ago while living in the New York area I had to make regular business trips to Rochester. Flying back one CAVU day, the pilot of the AA 727 felt the urge to be chatty, and he came on the PA stating that we were over Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. :confused:
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:vomit:
Stupidity makes me sick.
 
SCCutler said:
If I had not seen it, lived it, I would not have believed it, but with God as my witness, it happened. If you don't believe it, ask CJane.
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Heck, I'd think you've seen such things just as a lawyer that boarding the wrong plane is a short stretch. :rofl:
 
OK, my boarding the wrong the plane story. This is close to 30 years ago two of us standing by to DC to fix a dead computer. Get seated so I go to pay phones to tell boss we are on the way, no cell phones. Board the plane and our seats are taken. They take us off and rebook us in different seats. Plane starts to descend into Boston. Oops we were on the DC flight at gate xxA not xxB.

Boss was not happy when I called from Boston but they put us on a flight to DC since the gate agents shoul dhave caught the error.
 
Dave Siciliano said:
I had a friend that flew out of one of the hubs explain Dallas was quite often mixed up with Dulles; caused quite a stir a few times. Seems they had just as many 'mericans mix it up as feriners <g>
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I've been on more than one of those. I remember one time on a flight out of RDU (AA hub) back to IAD - about half way through the flight the woman next to me pointed at her boarding pass as asked why we were decending so soon - her boarding pass was labeled DFW.....
 
Dave Siciliano said:
I had a friend that flew out of one of the hubs explain Dallas was quite often mixed up with Dulles; caused quite a stir a few times.
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One day we had a pop-up flight to Dulles and my flying buddy diligently dug out the Texas binder of the Jepps for us to use. Then there are the problems with cities that have the same name. When I hear "Portland" I think of Oregon, not Maine. There's also are a number of Springfields and Arlingtons, which have caused confusion in the past. My latest story was a couple days ago when Ops called me and said, "We have a pop-up flight for you to Chicago." When I got in and looked at the trip sheet the identifier was MMSD. I guess that kinda sounds like "Chicago" when you are half-awake. :dunno:
 
Everskyward said:
My latest story was a couple days ago when Ops called me and said, "We have a pop-up flight for you to Chicago." When I got in and looked at the trip sheet the identifier was MMSD. I guess that kinda sounds like "Chicago" when you are half-awake. :dunno:
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So, what was that dream you were having before a rude interuption? :)
 
KennyFlys said:
So, what was that dream you were having before a rude interuption? :)
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I had just gotten up, was on my first cup of coffee and getting ready to see what kinds of goofy things were posted on POA since I last looked. ;)
 
Heck, even airport names can confuse people. One early morning working at MWC, 6 passengers showed up - That's Timmerman airport in MILwaukee - And we finally discovered after many phone calls that their jet was at PALwaukee airport in Wheeling, IL. Oops.

I bet the pilots got in trouble for that one too - By the time they figured out what was wrong, the pax were already going to be too late. The jet showed up in MILwaukee, and the pax said "Sorry, we're going to miss our meeting anyway now." Trip canceled. Not sure where the jet originated, but that's two legs with no revenue.
 
This can happen to anyone, as I've seen it happen to some of the most travel-hardened road warriors more than once. It's especially difficult with shared-ramp boarding at places like CVG and BOS, where you all walk out to two or three flights boarding at once.

Me? I memorize the IATA AND ICAO codes for wherever I am going. When I book, I start with the IATA, and then verify with the ICAO. "RIC to NRT, returning..." and then "OK. Trip is from KRIC to RJAA, on dates XX, YY". It helps save your bacon when doing the "Dallas" / "Dulles" thing, and any other little error that can really f-up your day.

The other thing... I verify the equipment on the airline website, same when I get to the gate. If it's shared gating (like Bangalore), with multiple planes from the same airline, the helps shave the odds that I get on the wrong plane.

It bears mentioning that I'm an obsessive nerd.

Cheers,

-Andrew
 
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