Was due to return from a nice few days in Chicago on Friday. We were hanging around in the hotel lobby (Hard Rock Hotel - rather nice actually) waiting for the airport shuttle we had booked, and one of the free internet computers was available, so I thought I may as well take the opportunity to check in and sort out our seats. The site denied my request, saying there was a problem and we should check in at the airport as normal. I started to get suspicious, so looked at flightaware and noticed the 39 was not en route, so sort of had a feeling the flight would be cancelled.
Got the shuttle, and headed towards O'Hare, the traffic was terrible and while stuck in traffic, I had a phone call from Virgin, saying the flight had been cancelled, and asked if I had a pen handy to write down the details of the new flight they had rebooked us onto. This was the AA66 which leaves at the same time, so no drama there, and shouldn't be too much of an issue. We just had to collect new tickets from the VS desk and then get over to terminal 3 for check in. Ha, famous last words [:I]
The traffic was so bad, it took us 1hr 40 mins to get to O'Hare, so we thought we might be in a bit of a rush. Went to the VS desks, and there were 2 smallish queues, so joined one and waited. After about 20 minutes, we were beginning to realise that no-one was moving from the desks, and all 6 staff were rushing around tring to sort out the problems. I cut the line to just make an enquiry about the transfer to AA as we were getting short of time. The guy said this was not correct and we had not been reticketed, and asked to get back in the queue. Don't really know why we bothered as everyone seemed to be just ignoring the lines, pushing in and soon you couldn't move around the desks. No-one else in the queue actually knew the flight had been cancelled, and from the passengers I had spoken to, I was the only one that had recieved a call. I overheard several people having issues getting rebooked as they had onward connecting flights, and I do belive they were doing their best to help everyone out, even though some people were getting very annoyed with them. I don't think just announcing to everyone that the flight was cancelled would have calmed everyone down, but it may have helped out a bit, would have been nice to be kept informed. If they had expalained that nobody was going anywhere soon, and not to panic, they could have probably got their job done quicker.
We finially got up to the desk at about 5pm, a nice guy explained what was going on, and told us that a transfer to tomorrow's flight would be the first option, with a hotel being provided. For various reasons we had to get back so this wasn't really an option. We could have waited until early moring and got a morning daylight flight back but that didn't seem to be an option. A supervisor came over, waving a piece of paper, and told our memeber of staff at the desk that there had been some seats become available on the Air India flight at 8pm, we said go for it, so he started to process the paperwork. At that point, the to women that had been in the queue in front of us, saying that Air India had rejected their tickets and sent them back to the VS desk. The supervisor was then on the phone, so our transfer was put on hold, until they knew what was going on. Then the girl on the next desk said that 4 seats had just become available on th AA98 at 9:50pm, she claimed 1 for her passenger, and we managed to get two more of them. Also now, the supervisor was having to go downstairs to Air India to try and sort out the other peoples tickets that they had refused. I'm not sure what happened to this, but we didn't see them again.
I asked if there were any food vouchers available, but was told no, worth a shot I guess. By this point we had a flight interuption manifest in our hands, and had to change to Terminal 3 to get to the check in for AA.
At this point it turned out OK, and we got the rebooked flight without hassle. I had pre order duty free due to be delivered to me, so I guess I will have to chase that up tomorrow. I'm just a bit miffed that I had been told that I was rebooked on a specific flight, and actually wasn't, and they'd actually taken the time to ring me! If they had phoned earlier, I would have left earlier for the airport and hopefully got sorted earlier, but thats the way it goes I guess.
I've sent an email to customer services about this, stating pretty much all of the above, will hopefully get a reply.
Even managed to score bulkhead seats ont he AA flight [y]
Got the shuttle, and headed towards O'Hare, the traffic was terrible and while stuck in traffic, I had a phone call from Virgin, saying the flight had been cancelled, and asked if I had a pen handy to write down the details of the new flight they had rebooked us onto. This was the AA66 which leaves at the same time, so no drama there, and shouldn't be too much of an issue. We just had to collect new tickets from the VS desk and then get over to terminal 3 for check in. Ha, famous last words [:I]
The traffic was so bad, it took us 1hr 40 mins to get to O'Hare, so we thought we might be in a bit of a rush. Went to the VS desks, and there were 2 smallish queues, so joined one and waited. After about 20 minutes, we were beginning to realise that no-one was moving from the desks, and all 6 staff were rushing around tring to sort out the problems. I cut the line to just make an enquiry about the transfer to AA as we were getting short of time. The guy said this was not correct and we had not been reticketed, and asked to get back in the queue. Don't really know why we bothered as everyone seemed to be just ignoring the lines, pushing in and soon you couldn't move around the desks. No-one else in the queue actually knew the flight had been cancelled, and from the passengers I had spoken to, I was the only one that had recieved a call. I overheard several people having issues getting rebooked as they had onward connecting flights, and I do belive they were doing their best to help everyone out, even though some people were getting very annoyed with them. I don't think just announcing to everyone that the flight was cancelled would have calmed everyone down, but it may have helped out a bit, would have been nice to be kept informed. If they had expalained that nobody was going anywhere soon, and not to panic, they could have probably got their job done quicker.
We finially got up to the desk at about 5pm, a nice guy explained what was going on, and told us that a transfer to tomorrow's flight would be the first option, with a hotel being provided. For various reasons we had to get back so this wasn't really an option. We could have waited until early moring and got a morning daylight flight back but that didn't seem to be an option. A supervisor came over, waving a piece of paper, and told our memeber of staff at the desk that there had been some seats become available on the Air India flight at 8pm, we said go for it, so he started to process the paperwork. At that point, the to women that had been in the queue in front of us, saying that Air India had rejected their tickets and sent them back to the VS desk. The supervisor was then on the phone, so our transfer was put on hold, until they knew what was going on. Then the girl on the next desk said that 4 seats had just become available on th AA98 at 9:50pm, she claimed 1 for her passenger, and we managed to get two more of them. Also now, the supervisor was having to go downstairs to Air India to try and sort out the other peoples tickets that they had refused. I'm not sure what happened to this, but we didn't see them again.
I asked if there were any food vouchers available, but was told no, worth a shot I guess. By this point we had a flight interuption manifest in our hands, and had to change to Terminal 3 to get to the check in for AA.
At this point it turned out OK, and we got the rebooked flight without hassle. I had pre order duty free due to be delivered to me, so I guess I will have to chase that up tomorrow. I'm just a bit miffed that I had been told that I was rebooked on a specific flight, and actually wasn't, and they'd actually taken the time to ring me! If they had phoned earlier, I would have left earlier for the airport and hopefully got sorted earlier, but thats the way it goes I guess.
I've sent an email to customer services about this, stating pretty much all of the above, will hopefully get a reply.
Even managed to score bulkhead seats ont he AA flight [y]
