Two other passengers and I were stranded due to Frontier Airline’s miscommunication and lack of communication.
Frontier flight 226 from Denver to Columbus on 3/25/17 was indefinitely delayed due to maintenance issues. After standing around at the gate ready to board for quite a long time, one of the agents announced that they "had just as much information as the customer when boarding would actually begin" since there was a maintenance issue.
I looked at the Departure board to see what it said, but there was no information on the departure board—flight 226 had disappeared from it, never to return. I asked for further information, and the gate agent said that it would take 20 minutes for them to go to the garage and 20 to get back, so we (my colleague Abe Reshad--copied on this message--and I) should just make ourselves comfortable. The gate agent did not advise my colleague and me to stay at the gate; in fact, it was to the contrary. We decided to go to a nearby restaurant in the same concourse.
Sitting at the closest point to the open entrance so we could hear announcements, and with our phones out the whole time to keep our eye on alerts, here's what we saw:
We raced back to the gate only to be met by 2 agents who flippantly told us there was nothing they could do to help us--they had just closed the doors. And the airplane was still at the gate. We asked if they could radio someone aboard, and they just didn't seem to care, then said they did not know what to do. I told another nearby agent, and she looked like she went to check on something to see what she could do, but she disappeared. Another agent told us to run over to customer service. We did. The airplane was still in sight, stopped on the tarmac, right there out the window... As the plane taxi-ed away without us, we sat waiting for a manager ("a suit") at the customer service desk, where we stood for about a half hour.
When the manager did arrive, my colleague politely explained the situation to her, looking for some resolution in the form of finding another flight within 24 hours to either CMH, CVG, or Cleveland. The manager (who seemed irritated with us) said that the best Frontier could do was waive our rebooking fee and get us on a flight on Wednesday (Sunday evening was stand-by only). After my colleague became visibly frustrated (because he has a baby at home and a wife who also needs to get back to work, and because we should not have to pay hundreds of dollars for Frontier's error), she said Frontier *might* be able to refund us for the flight we missed. There was nothing more she could do.
We then set to work to find another flight. Once we purchased our tickets through Delta, my colleague then spent nearly an hour talking with Frontier customer service agents and a supervisor in an attempt to resolve this issue--to get a refund so that we could afford the flight that each of us unexpectedly had to purchase out-of-pocket since waiting until Wednesday was not an option.
My colleague and I want to be recompensed for the money we had to spend on flight, hotel, and food--unplanned, unaffordable expenses for people on a teacher's salary with two small children (good thing we had credit cards, though). I request $559.56, and my colleague is requesting $566.35.
Upon further research, it seems that these demands fall under Frontier's own guidelines. On a guide to passenger rights in Frontier airlines from http://www.airfarewatchdog.com/pages/18938674/, passengers are provided the following for schedule irregularities. What we experienced was definitely a scheduling irregularity. Our flight was delayed indefinitely due to maintenance and we went to a restaurant expecting to check back in 40 minutes. In less than 30 minutes, the plane was somehow fixed and left the gate without a single announcement on the airport monitors or the Frontier app.
If you have any ideas on how we might be recompensed, I would appreciate it. Thanks in advance.
Frontier flight 226 from Denver to Columbus on 3/25/17 was indefinitely delayed due to maintenance issues. After standing around at the gate ready to board for quite a long time, one of the agents announced that they "had just as much information as the customer when boarding would actually begin" since there was a maintenance issue.
I looked at the Departure board to see what it said, but there was no information on the departure board—flight 226 had disappeared from it, never to return. I asked for further information, and the gate agent said that it would take 20 minutes for them to go to the garage and 20 to get back, so we (my colleague Abe Reshad--copied on this message--and I) should just make ourselves comfortable. The gate agent did not advise my colleague and me to stay at the gate; in fact, it was to the contrary. We decided to go to a nearby restaurant in the same concourse.
Sitting at the closest point to the open entrance so we could hear announcements, and with our phones out the whole time to keep our eye on alerts, here's what we saw:
- Nothing from the Frontier app
- No update notifications
- No audible announcements about the flight in general
- An email sent at 4:32 saying "The delay on your Frontier Flight 226 from Denver to Columbus has been revised. The new estimated departure time is 04:30PM."
We raced back to the gate only to be met by 2 agents who flippantly told us there was nothing they could do to help us--they had just closed the doors. And the airplane was still at the gate. We asked if they could radio someone aboard, and they just didn't seem to care, then said they did not know what to do. I told another nearby agent, and she looked like she went to check on something to see what she could do, but she disappeared. Another agent told us to run over to customer service. We did. The airplane was still in sight, stopped on the tarmac, right there out the window... As the plane taxi-ed away without us, we sat waiting for a manager ("a suit") at the customer service desk, where we stood for about a half hour.
When the manager did arrive, my colleague politely explained the situation to her, looking for some resolution in the form of finding another flight within 24 hours to either CMH, CVG, or Cleveland. The manager (who seemed irritated with us) said that the best Frontier could do was waive our rebooking fee and get us on a flight on Wednesday (Sunday evening was stand-by only). After my colleague became visibly frustrated (because he has a baby at home and a wife who also needs to get back to work, and because we should not have to pay hundreds of dollars for Frontier's error), she said Frontier *might* be able to refund us for the flight we missed. There was nothing more she could do.
We then set to work to find another flight. Once we purchased our tickets through Delta, my colleague then spent nearly an hour talking with Frontier customer service agents and a supervisor in an attempt to resolve this issue--to get a refund so that we could afford the flight that each of us unexpectedly had to purchase out-of-pocket since waiting until Wednesday was not an option.
My colleague and I want to be recompensed for the money we had to spend on flight, hotel, and food--unplanned, unaffordable expenses for people on a teacher's salary with two small children (good thing we had credit cards, though). I request $559.56, and my colleague is requesting $566.35.
Upon further research, it seems that these demands fall under Frontier's own guidelines. On a guide to passenger rights in Frontier airlines from http://www.airfarewatchdog.com/pages/18938674/, passengers are provided the following for schedule irregularities. What we experienced was definitely a scheduling irregularity. Our flight was delayed indefinitely due to maintenance and we went to a restaurant expecting to check back in 40 minutes. In less than 30 minutes, the plane was somehow fixed and left the gate without a single announcement on the airport monitors or the Frontier app.
If you have any ideas on how we might be recompensed, I would appreciate it. Thanks in advance.