The holidays are a time when millions of people travel and not all of them have a smooth flight. But few bad airline experiences could likely match the one Jeanne Grettum had on her way to visit family in Orlando, Florida this year.
The woman is confined to a wheelchair but no one on
U.S. Airways apparently was aware she needed help getting around the airport. She wound up in a nightmare in Las Vegas that's almost impossible to contemplate. Airline officials took her off the jet and parked her on the pavement, promising someone would come. But no one did. And there she sat for 12 long hours, pleading for help that never arrived.
"She sat there in the cold with no jacket on the tarmac," complains her outraged daughter Tammy Nielson. But even when an airline worker finally spotted the distraught woman and wheeled her inside, things didn't improve. She was then left in a hallway, more alone than ever. "And leaves her there," he daughter continues. "And told her this is not my job but I'll park you here."
The California woman missed her connection from Vegas because of a late flight, and now she was truly alone, a long, long way from a friendly face. "She called me at 3 o'clock in the morning crying hysterical because she didn't know what to do and no one would help her," Nielson relates.
It took Tammy another six hours to get it all untangled with the powers-that-be. The airline's response? "We are not happy to hear about this incident," U.S. Air noted in a statement. "We will work with our employees because that's not how we deal with our customers."
That does little to assuage Tammy, who was finally reunited with her mother just before Christmas. "I want to be secure that this is not going to happen again," she demands.
The airline blames the problem on a communications breakdown. But Tammy wants more than written promises - after a Yuletide visit, her mother is due to fly home to California next week. And her return ticket is with U.S. Airways.