A second round of March madness

For the second time this month, thousands of US Airways passengers showed up last weekend at Pittsburgh International and other East Coast airports expecting to catch flights home, to vacation destinations to make overseas connections or to visit friends and relatives.

But instead of boarding planes, they were herded into long lines and made to stand for hours before being told they were out of luck. No flights today. So sorry.

Each of those disappointed passengers had a different story to tell.

Patricia and James Heibel of Irwin were scheduled for an 8:30 a.m. Sunday flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico, to board a Caribbean cruise. "We've taken other cruises," Mrs. Heibel explained. "Normally we'd fly down the day before, but since we weren't supposed to get on the ship until that evening, we thought we had plenty of time, even when we got to the airport about 6:30 and saw that crowd."

Because the Heibels, both in their early 60s, had luggage to check, they joined one of two long lines that snaked toward the US Airways ticket counter. And waited. And waited, without any explanation from airline employees.

"That line didn't move at all," Mrs. Heibel said, although she was surprised at how calm people remained, even as they watched their travel plans fade away.

"The worst part was there was no place to sit, unless you were willing to get down on the floor. I wasn't sure I'd be able to get up again."

About 11:30 a.m. airport staff came by with cups of water on trays, but it wasn't until 1:30 p.m., more than six hours after the Heibels had joined the line, that passengers were told the flight to San Juan had been canceled, and what was worse, they wouldn't be able to get there for two days.

The Heibels took their bags, got their car and drove home. After many phone calls with airlines and Priceline.com, where they had booked their trip, they booked a Delta flight out on Monday evening that let them catch up with their cruise two days late.

"A perfect storm" was how US Airways spokesman Phil Gee explained the chain of events that led to the cancellation of 2,500 flights, affecting more than 100,000 passengers. Citing the Valentine's Day JetBlue incident in which passengers were stuck on jets for up to 10 hours, issues with its own computer system changeover and the ice storm that shut down its primary hub in Philadelphia as well as New York City airports, Mr. Gee noted, "We got hammered."

In fairness, a notice had been posted on USAirways.com on March 17 announcing the travel weather advisory through March 20 affecting 37 airports. It instructed passengers to contact the airline or airport regarding possible delays and cancellations and said usual ticket policies would be relaxed for affected passengers, allowing them to rebook without standard change fees.

"Weather like that is always a problem, because there's only so much that is within our control," Mr. Gee noted. "We try to notify people affected by delays and cancellations in advance but often only have contact information for about 25 percent of the passengers on a flight," he said, explaining that reservations made through third parties often do not give the carrier e-mail or phone numbers to let them contact affected passengers directly.

"We have guidelines in place to help severely impacted passengers, people stuck on runways or stranded with no way to get to their destination, but we follow it on a case-by-case basis. But with so many impacted travelers and our usual options shut down, it took a long time."

In a message sent on Tuesday to US Airways staff, CEO Doug Parker wrote, "We didn't deliver this weekend, and we haven't delivered for the past few weeks. That must change and it will. Recognize this is due to no fault of our frontline employees and, to be clear, our operations team did the best they could with the information they had to work with."

In the final analysis, we can only hope Mr. Parker is both correct in his estimations and sincere in his intentions.

Bad weather does happen. Travelers should always check on the status of their flights before they head for the airport. And if you have invested a lot of money in trip arrangements and deposits, it is prudent to get some travel insurance.

Still, no compensation is adequate for the disappointment of a ruined trip, and we assume all carriers make every effort to get us safely where we're going, on time and with all our luggage.

By the same token, no airline should ever calculate that travelers will automatically overlook its continuing gaffes, slights, disappointments or meltdowns, dazzled by the prospect of nonstop flights, lower fares, frequent-flier benefits or local jobs.

That would be a huge mistake indeed.

Speaking of mistakes, I want to correct and apologize for an error in my column last Sunday. The carbon offset Web site I mentioned is www.drivinggreen.com, not greendriving.com, as wound up in print.