Back Again: First Impressions

[sleslie23]

another one at the Oldest ?? that is a cool place!

I prefer the one in Belgrano. Went there on Friday. But the other one is good too.

 

[ghost]

It's a joke, Einstein. Ghost is an appropriate login for you. Your brain evidently passed on a while ago. Badda bing!

Badda Bing...? Geeze man that is truly a high form of humor.

 

[ben]

Was on the AA EZE-JFK flight last week. The purser was completely out of line, yelling at everyone and with a lot of disparaging remarks to boot. We were traveling with a baby and as everyone was sitting down, I had stopped an attendant to ask if we'd be able to get a bassinet (which we'd ordered). As she was answering me, this nut runs over and demands to know why we're talking when everyone should be seated. The attendant answers him (to my face) "I don't know, the passenger just came up to me", upon which the guy started yelling at me. Twilight zone.

I regret I didn't take down his name and include it in my complaint tweet. On second thought, no need to expose a dumb fool to the mob that is the Internet. But whoever wins the customer service award, I can guarantee you that it is not American Airlines.

OK sorry for reviving an old thread, but this is in several way the other shoe to what the thread turned into. And boy did it drop.

So we were due to fly Monday night back from NYC on American. We fly with young kids, so things have to be done in as orderly a way as possible so that they don't suffer unduly, as well as become a nuisance for everyone else.

Anyways, we've checked in, gone through security, checking to see what gate to go to. What was that? Where all the flights say "On Time", ours says "Now 8:30 am". WTF? Issues of some sort with the plane, won't be fixed till next morning. Can we get rescheduled on tomorrow's flight? No, we're already checked in, and can't fly separately from our luggage. We got to choose between an airport hotel or transportation to our residence and back to JFK. We opted for the latter, they said they'll have a car in 15 minutes. 15 minutes ended up being an hour, and we rolled into our quarters at about 11:30 pm. By 6:30 am we had to be back in the airport.

The flight ended up departing at 9:30 am. We had not counted on a day flight, so the kids (ages 3 and 1, and a newborn), who would normally have been sleeping for most of the flight, were awake almost the whole time, restless etc. Not cool. Otherwise the flight was uneventful until landing time.

We were to land in the middle of the Monday night temporal/storm. We spent about 45 minutes in the air, then went for landing. Getting down to 23.000 feet was very much a roller coaster, with the plane dropping, bouncing, tilting, the works. After that we landed OK, then were informed that the storm had knocked out power on the baggage system in EZE, so it'll be a long while till we get our luggage.

Now when you fly with infants, you get to check the strollers planeside, then wait at the gate to get the stroller back. This normally takes 10-20 minutes, so we normally let everyone go off, then deplane unhurriedly. Now, though, having landed late, we got rushed off extremely rudely, with comments I've only come to expect on AA. One flight attendant was OK, the rest were a disaster. At the gate, we were transferred from AA's legendary politeness to the world-class service of Ezeiza.

Because of the baggage situation, the strollers were going directly to baggage claim not to the gate - and there we were, with carry-on suitcases, laptop bags, 2 infants in arms, and no strollers. They started to hurry us off the gate. Yes, but we can't really move. We normally can get around just fine on our own, but this is not normal. Can anyone help? -No. We've already explained to you that normally you do get the strollers here, but this time there's been an exception, so get moving. -Get moving how? -Well, the same way you got to the plane. -Um, we got to the plane with two strollers. -Yes, but don't you understand that there's been an 'exception' (they loved that word), and the strollers can't come. -I absolutely do understand that, por eso mismo estoy aclarando that unless and until this gets solved, we're not moving. This is almost midnight by now, the kids got almost no sleep during the previous night and have been stuck on a plane the whole day, and are inconsolable. Finally they sent 2 wheelchairs, into which we put our stuff and carried our kids to migraciones. We got to baggage claim about an hour after everyone else: the suitcases weren't even close to coming off the plane. If I send my family home and stay on my own, I'll be asking for problems with customs, as I'd be pushing a family's worth of luggage on my own. I inquired if I can come tomorrow to pick up my suitcases. Sure thing, we won't be sending them to you, but you're free to pick them up from 7 am onwards. Great, so we went home sans luggage and sans strollers.

I come to the airport the next morning. As I come into the office they tell that they already sent everything to my house. ?!?! It turned out they had our street address on file, and got tired of our luggage sitting around and decided to send it. Great, but I'm already here. The address was correct, but they didn't have my apartment number. OK, will you write it down? The computer system won't accept it as they'd already sent it out, but they jotted it down. They tell me they sent 9 items. But I had 10. -No, we have everything written down here in the system, you have 9. I take out my receipts, 8 suitcases plus 2 strollers equals 10 I think. They take my paper out from a garbage bin(!) and start checking things. Meanwhile I have a look at the luggage in the room: sure enough, the 2nd stroller was there. Missing a wheel, of course. And of course, the strollers are fragile items and they don't accept damage claims for them. OK, whatever. I leave them phone numbers and start going home.

As I'm about to get into my car a lady runs over to me. Are you Mr. (...)? Yes I am, what's the matter? It turns out that they'd already gotten to my address, discovered it's a building, didn't bother asking the portero if he recognizes the last name, and went straight back to the airport. So I ended up waiting a couple more minutes for them to drive over and transfer all the stuff over to my car. Then I get to go home.

This was truly the flight from hell. You cannot make this stuff up.

 

[estebandepraga]

We'll , barring a hijacking(of which I can say I was victim!) and a crash, this sounds like it wins a prize for trip from hell! I am ahppy you are finally back safe sound and complete with all belongings! Felices fiestas!

 

[citygirl]

So sorry - AA really is the worst. What a nightmare. I can't believe they wouldn't help you with the kids.

 

[Noruega]

Ben, what a nightmare!! So sorry to hear about this, it must have been so stressful and just awful. And like citygirl says, cannot believe they wouldn't help you at all!

 

[ben]

What really got my goat were the comments coming off the plane. 'Was it a surprise to you that we'll be landing?'. I later learned that the whole crew's bus was waiting for us to deplane to take their bus to the hotel, I understand that they too were tired and wanted to go home, but given the circumstances I really thought that they could have cut back on the snark.

Just not to be one-sided, I should add that on the way home from the airport, I already had in my inbox an apology email from AA apologizing profusely and advising me that I'd gotten 15,000 bonus miles (per passenger). Is it ungrateful of me to still be unhappy?

 

[Noruega]

No, you are not being ungrateful - 15,000 air miles is very little if you live here and have family in the northern hemisphere, and in no way compensates for the unfortunate delays and the very avoidable horrible service.

I was in the service industry for a long time and snark is never called for! And I am very snarky so it was hard for me but I do not think I ever allowed any snark to escape!

 

[GMXam]

That's a horrible situation, Ben. I'm not sure they could even make that situation better after the fact if it were me. I flew LAN to Miami (usually fly AA) and was surprised how much more customer service oriented they were compared to AA.

On another note, I wanted to comment on my experiences heading to the US after being in BA a year and being a resident of Argentina.

At Migraciones EZE, I provided my US passport and my DNI knowing they would ask why I overstayed a 90 day visa. They asked why I live in Argentina (told them I was there with my boyfriend because we want to live outside the US), if my boyfriend is Argentino (nope), do I like living in Argentina (yes...of course, what if I say no?).

At Immigration/Passport Control in Miami, I was asked similar questions...provided my DNI with my passport and had to provide my precaria as I'm not sure they knew the DNI was a form of proof of residency (the precaria has info about my residency). Then I was asked if I was returning to live in the US (nope, just visiting family for the holidays for now).

Nothing special, but I'm glad I had my precaria printed and with me instead of solely relying on my DNI.

And, boy, I didn't realize how hard it was going to be to stop speaking Spanish.

By the way, sleslie23, did Austin seem foreign to you, too?

 

[steveinbsas]

On another note, I wanted to comment on my experiences heading to the US after being in BA a year and being a resident of Argentina.

At Migraciones EZE, I provided my US passport and my DNI knowing they would ask why I overstayed a 90 day visa. They asked why I live in Argentina (told them I was there with my boyfriend because we want to live outside the US), if my boyfriend is Argentino (nope), do I like living in Argentina (yes...of course, what if I say no?).

I'm curious. Did migraciones at EZE actually ask why you overstayed a 90 day visa? Even if you had an overstay while you were applying for residency how could that be an issue once you received the DNI?

And since you have a DNI I'm surprised they asked you why you lived in Argentina.

Once you have a DNI, what difference could it make?