I had a wonderful 3-day trip to Orlando. Spent a day at the Magic Kingdom, another day lounging at the pool and renting boats on the lake. My mother-in-law had a conference there, so we bummed the hotel room and did our own thing while there.
BUT, on the way back.....

[*]We woke up later than planned, so our luggage wasn't packed and ready to go as early as expected.[*]My mother-in-law wanted to go to the last session (motivational speaker) and got back to the room late for check-out[*]My wife wanted a picture taken of us in front of the Mickey statue at the hotel. She had been asking the entire trip, so I had to agree. Took us 10 minutes.[*]The taxi was supposed to take 30 minutes. It took 45[*]The taxi driver drove passed the American Airlines counter and dropped us off at the opposite end, at Southwest. Took us about 15 minutes to walk down to American and get in line to get up to the ticketing counter.[/list]We arrived at the airport at 10:45. We got to the ticket counter at 11:00. Our flight departed at 11:30.

The ticket agent told me that the airport policy requires bags to be checked no later than 40 minutes before the flight. We were there 30-35 minutes before the scheduled departure. They wouldn't let me check the bags, and gave me a boarding pass as Stand-By for a later flight (1:55). Total bullshit, but I was fine with it.

We get to the gate, and inquiry led me to discover that my wife and I were #2 and #3 on the stand-by list. Great - if 3 people don't make it to their flight, we'll get home. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. We didn't make that flight, or the next one, or the next one... nor the next one. At 5:00 we decided we were screwed. I talked with gate agents and they said the following days flights looked even worse than that day. For the next flight (5:20pm) we had been bumped down to #12 and #13 for standby (elite status passengers get priority).

Soooooooo.......... we rented a car. We got out of the airport at 5:50pm EST and started driving. From Orlando to Nashville (650 miles). This is NOT a trip I care to make ever again, especially in a VERY uncomfortable Ford Focus. It took us 9 hours worth of driving time, with a 25 minute stop for gas, food, and stretching... and a 15 minute stop to let my eyes relax. We rolled into the driveway at 2:35am this morning. Definitely not the way I wanted to end our great vacation, but the only other option was to risk getting back sometime Monday or Tuesday.

After 6+ hours in the MCO airport and 9+ hours in a Ford Focus, I'm freakin' exhausted. Had ANY of the bullet points above NOT happened, we would have made the flight and saved hours and hours.

Just a warning to everyone else: Even if you get to your departure gate 25 minutes prior to departure, it doesn't matter. Your luggage must be checked 40 minutes early.

 

wow that really sucks....sorry to hear about such a lousy experience. I haven't ever run into problems when I've flown, but it's a good thing i never did cuz it was always flights to Korea and if this happened I would be screwed.

Hopefully its better for ya next time.

 

Man, that really really sucks... The taxi driver was really... hell, how can I say it politely ? Stupid ? dropping you at the total opposite of the AA counter... What are you paying him for ? 02.gif

Hope you could get some rest before going to work wink1.gif

 

The taxi driver wasn't an American born citizen, and didn't speak much English. I've flown a lot over the years, been on 100+ different flights, travel for work, and I've never missed a flight. I'm the type of person who gets to the airport 2 hours early, even for a 6am flight.... unfortunately on this trip I didn't have as much control as I would have liked.

Did I mention my mother-in-law's flight was departing 15 minutes later than ours, and she made it just fine?! Ugh...... I guess it's a good thing I wasn't stuck in the airport for those 6 hours with her, and then the drive back.

 

Sounds like this is 75% the fault of your schedule leading up to your flight and the taxi driver's error. The airline did their job, although in my opinion they could've put a rush on your bags and maybe provided you with an ascort cart to the gate your flight was departing. But the airline industry is what it is, the nature of it is to overbook flights as someone will always be late/miss flight and there are plenty of paying passengers willing to take their slots. If you're late, you're late!

 

That is one hell of a day. If it ever happens again you can give me shout. You could have crashed at my place. I am half way between orlando and your home. Look at it this way, the next one couldnt be any worse.

 

I agree, scheduling was horrible. When my M-I-L told me to book a flight later than 10:30, I didn't realize that meant her conference ended at 10:30! I wish I had more control over the schedule... ugh. Oh, and an escort wasn't necessary. It took less than 5 minutes to get through security and less than 5 minutes to get to the gate. I would have boarded 20 minutes before scheduled departure.

BUT, I don't understand why I couldn't put my bags on the stand-by flight and let me try to get on my scheduled flight. The 40 minute policy is there to allow plenty of time to get them to the plane. I'm just a little confused by the policy, and I think it's a horrible policy. Oh, btw... an article I saw today shows American Airlines ranked 9 out of 18 and American Eagle ranked 18 of 18 as "Best U.S. Airline"

"American Eagle had the highest rate of involuntary denied boardings at 3.76 per 100,000 passengers. Low-cost carrier JetBlue had so few denied boardings that its rate showed up as zero." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36418888/ns/tr...news/?GT1=43001

I'm loyal to AA because that's my best option to most of the places I fly (California / Oregon). Southwest is also big here, but I hate not having the assigned seating.

 

I hate AA, they SUCK!!!! LOL... The last 2 times I went to PR was with them and so far it has been the worst travel experience I've ever had.

3 years ago I was on my way to my sister's wedding I missed boarding my fight by less than 5 minutes just because they had a looooong line where you get your e-ticket(poor planning and there was some king of renovations going on). after arguing with the counter lady, she booked me for a fight with a stop in Miami..... landed in Miami and the flight to PR had already left a few minutes before.. mad.gif on my way back I got stranded AGAIN in Miami and they didn't even offer me a hotel room or food vouchers. YES, I had to sleep on the airport floor both times.... and I wasn't the only one, there where at least a couple hundred AA passengers.

and I have another one when I went with my GF to PR.... needless to say I will never fly with AA ever again.

 

wow that sucks!!! i flew to florida twice. first time was right after september 11th, it was horrible. and the second time we almost missed the plane because of wayy long lines.

 

YOu know who had a shit flight?

Everyone dies

I drove to FLA 5 years ago w/Spikie, took no more than 20 hrs... in a 1985 1.4L Hyundai.

YOu're alive. Appreciate it.

And yes, AA sucks. We got stuck at O'hare for DAYS because of them.