Connections are EVIL!!!!!

Never, ever, ever again will I, Sundria McCormick, take a connection flight, if there is any way to avoid it. I know there are some places you just can't get a direct/non-stop to, but I will search, high, low, in, out, up, down, sideways, front, back, and in-between, but "As God is my witness, the Yankees will never take Tara" and I will NEVER, EVER, EVER again take a connection flight again!

So, ready to hear my woes and oes of Sundi's Christmas Travels 2006? Yep, I thought so.

Friday, December 22, 2006. Got off work early, had everything pretty much packed already so I was able to take a nap, Paul and Teresa were driving me to the airport, things were looking good. We leave our house headed to the Holland Tunnel, what would be a 10 minute drive, 1 hour drive! Finally get to the airport, I go to check in, she's like, sorry you won't make your connection. I tell her, well, put me on anyway, I'd rather get that close than be stuck here. I go to the gate, a 2 1/2 hour delay. There's a Friday's right there, so me and 3 strangers share a table, yep, it was that crowded and we have a great time talking and anticipating are delays, we all had them. We finally take off, get to Atlanta and we hit the ground at 9:55. My connection was to leave at 9:15. I see the gate agent she tells me it's D11, so I take off running, literally. I get there at about 10:15, the flight left at 10:05. Nope, no more flights to Jacksonville, Savanah, Tallahasse, Gainesville or Tampa. The flight to Orlando, oversold! So, this LOVELY, nope, don't really mean that, agent tells me she can put me on a flight on Saturday at 8PM, yep, get that, it's now 10:30 Friday night and she's going to get me home on Saturday at 10:00pm! I refuse that and say give me a rental, I'll drive. She explains in her BEST, nope, don't mean that either!, customer service attitude that I can be reimbursed, but they won't just pay for it. I say fine, just get my bag for me. Sorry ma'am, I don't do that, you have to go to baggage claim. I left her and she yells down the terminal, "you're welcome"! I turned and said, you can take that back 'cause I didn't thank you for a damn thing! I was so mad.

I go to baggage claim, sorry ma'am, it will be 2 hours to get your bag. This is now 11pm on Friday night. I'm like forget it, send it to Jax, I'll pick it up when I drop the car off, I'm driving to Jax. This girl behind me says, "you're driving to Jax? Want a partner?" I'm like, sure do, let's go. I get the car, thankfully daddy had already reserved that for me, and when we pull out of the rental lot, it's 12:00 on the dot. I drove the first 3 hours and then we stopped to fill up and get something to drink. She drove the last 2 hours and then I dropped her off and headed home. Turns out her boyfriend plays for the Jaguars. I'm so glad she was there, I didn't have to stop to sleep. I got my mama's house at 5am. I was so tired and just exhausted.

Saturday December 23rd, 2006.
I call baggage claim, thinking I can make a claim over the phone for my bags, I have with other airlines. Nope, of course not, you have to show up in person. I ask the lady why, she has no answer. I said, I am going to give you the SAME information on the phone that I will in person, she said, I can't do it, you must show up. I take the car to Dollar to return it and of course, they are wonderful and so nice. I go inside to get my bag, yep, the baggage office is closed. I have to go to the ticket counter and get them to come with me to get my bag. This man was very nice and understanding and for the first time, he apologized for the hassle.

I spend my Christmas weekend with my family met my new little cousin, she'll call me Aunt Sundi, 'cause I want her too. =) Her name is Dallas and she's yummy! I had a wonderful time with my family and enjoyed every minute of it. Then, yep, you guessed it, I had to board a plane on the way home!

Monday December 26th, 2006!
My flight is scheduled to leave Jax at 2:30, so I arrive at 1:30 and this time I have Queenie with me. We get to the gate and we are delayed about 30 minutes, not so bad, I'm sure we will get to Atlanta and just make it for boarding. We land in Atlanta on time, all is good, right? WRONG! I get out at gate C8, they tell my flight leaves out of gate C7. Well, I get there and ask the gate agent, is this the flight for Newark, she's says, Ma'am, I don't have time to talk to you, my priority is to get this flight out. I'm like, excuse me? She walks away! I was floored! So I go in search of a board to tell me what gate I'm supposed to fly out of and it's all the way down the terminal, takes forever to find it. And yep, it's C7, just we are now delayed 3 1/2 hours to start off, then it moves from 4:49, to 7:51, to 8:12 to finally 8:36! Yep, I'll leave Atlanta after I was supposed to be at Newark! I was so mad. I tried to get something to eat, the waitress never game over so I left and got fast food. Walked around a lot. chilled on the floor forever and let Queenie run around and in a section away from other passengers. They then changed gates on me, so I go to that gate and go to hand him my boarding pass and yep, I don't have it. I realized later I had thrown it away by accident. I asked him to reprint it for me, and he says, you will have to wait. I said, well, you had called my boarding group, and before I could finish, he says, ma'am, I said you will have to wait! He then yelled at this child too, just a hateful man. When we finally left Atlanta we had been there almost 4 1/2 hours! It was insane.

Incase you didn't get my statement earlier, I will NEVER EVER AGAIN take a connection flight or Airtran if I can help it.

I still am not finished with all of this, I still have to write the airline and explain all my frustrations with the whole experience and more importantly with the agents I dealt with. They were just rude. And through it all, you know what? They were getting paid! They were on the job, getting paid and all they did was screw me over and over and over again. They didn't feel the need to care one bit, be nice or try and understand the frustrations that we passengers were going through. They were NOT Customer Service agents, they were strictly agents. My philosophy has forever been and will forever be, if you don't like people, don't get a job where you work with people, it's just that simple! At first I was upset I didn't get names of the agents, but later felt that was irrelevant, it wasn't necessary because they all sucked! Airtran is just horrible in the customer service department.