Bay Area woman trapped in airport for eight days–all for lack of a $60 baggage fee

Sorry this is the only forum I could get to work. Feel free to move

Sure, hurricanes and unseasonal blizzards can create major delays in air travel. And the ordinary air traveler faces plenty of exasperation via the heightened, and not always rational, security measures of the Transportation Safety Administration.

But Terri Weissinger, a native of Sonoma County, Calif., has suffered a new scale of airport indignity: Seeking to start a new life in Idaho, Weissinger was condemned to eight days in the limbo of the San Francisco International Airport--because she was unable to pay the fee her airline assessed for an additional piece of checked baggage.

As Michael Finney, a correspondent with the local ABC news affiliate KGO, reports, Wessinger, "was broke" when she left for the airport. (You can watch Finney's report in the video clip above.)

"She had nothing but an airline ticket and $30 in her pocket," Finney notes. She also hadn't traveled by air in the last five years--meaning that when she stepped to the ticket counter to check her bags, she was in for a serious case of sticker shock. The U.S. Airways agent checking her in told her that it was cost $60 to check both her bags. Weissinger offered to pay the fee when she arrived in Idaho, but the agent declined. She also offered to leave one bag there at the San Francisco Airport. That, the agent explained, would be in violation of security regulations.


Wessigner's next move was to try to scare up the full fee by calling friends in the area. She came up empty, and by the time she'd finished working the phones, she missed her flight. That's when things started to get truly Kafka-esque. To get a new flight "she'd have to pay her bag fees plus $150 in change fees," Finney notes. Without a place to stay nearby, Weissinger stayed the night at the airport. She awoke to more bad news: U.S. Airlines explained that, since she couldn't pay a change fee, she'd have to book a new flight from scratch. That would run about $1,000..

Read the rest here.
news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/bay-area-woman-trapped-ai rport-eight-days-lack-140019317.html

This is insane......but what can you do? Travel with more money or do not fly.

This is messed up.

this woman had no friends willing to loan her 30 dollars, and was trying to start a new life in IDAHO? what do they have there besides potatoes the kkk and skinheads? lol

ummm.... karma?

This all boils down to a lack of customer service and greed on the part of the airline.

They could have made the exception or taken her $30 and put her on the plane, but no......the other $30 was worth all the bad publicity they will now receive.

Stories like this just piss me off!

Whoever the sales agent was that denied her should've called corporate to charge the fee to the card that paid for the flight! That would've solved everything!

I'm surprised they didn't add insult to injury, and lock her up on the vagrancy charges too. Hell, lets just charge her with terrorism while we're at it. Her activity was awfully suspicious.

reply to post by BohemianBrim


So off topic i aint even funny, and using racist groups to offer the reason wow...

troll troll troll

A friend was going to visit his family in California. He lives in North Carolina. He found out it was cheaper to ship his luggage by UPS than to pay the air line fee. I talked to the UPS driver about this one day and he said that is not uncommon. That in fact more people are doing just that. They send it ahead a few days before the flight. Some hotels have even set up holding area just for this. I did not know anything about it before that but I can see why it is.

Never mind the obligation of the airline. Or lack of an obligation required.

Does mental instability sound like part of this equation? How can you be in an airport 8 days?

Something sounds wrong.

"Almost" got arrested for vagrancy? What day? 3? 5?

There's more to this then the reporters story.

I mean no ridicule if she was unstable mentally either. Just sounds "off".

i have absolutely no respect for any airline employee, except the nice looking stewardesses who brush up against you when handing you your rum and coke.

the rest can f themselves. especially the half wits at the checkout. i once saw a man collapse, people thought he died, from waiting in line so long.

he smacked his head on the concrete tile and lay stone cold. the kicker, instead of ushering him to the head of the line, they put in a wheelchair rolled him to the side, checked him out and when he said he was o.k. they wheeled him back to his place in the line.

this guy was an elderly man by the way.

do airlines do psychological testing with their background checks and only hire potential employees who lack professionalism, patience, intelligence, manners, common sense and respect for human decency.

i think the interviewer asks are you a prick, if they answer yes they're automatically hired, with full benefits.

airline's (airline staff) can be pointlessly cruel sometimes. i feel bad for the lady, i was stuck in an airport for 18 hours once with no money and (more importantly) no cigarettes, i was very close to losing it.

reply to post by liejunkie01


the blisteringly obvious question :

what the hell was she intending to do in idaho with $30 , 2 peices of luggage and a used airline ticket ?

reply to post by ignorant_ape


I wonder if it would have been cheaper to ride the bus? What about Amtrak?

I think this woman might have some serious issues and could possibly use some counseling.....

I would never stay somewhere for that amount of time.....

I would rather walk........................

Well you all have fun making fun of her tonight
I can remember days of young
my strength to make things right.
Faith in a future that I could create
but you make fun of someones dream in the night
with what you posted,
I hope you also have nightmares tonight!

Originally posted by ignorant_ape
reply to post by liejunkie01

 

the blisteringly obvious question :

what the hell was she intending to do in idaho with $30 , 2 peices of luggage and a used airline ticket ?

She must have had something already set up in Idaho. If not then that is a very good question

Originally posted by ignorant_ape
reply to post by liejunkie01

 

the blisteringly obvious question :

what the hell was she intending to do in idaho with $30 , 2 peices of luggage and a used airline ticket ?

Starting over? It doesn't sound like she was doing very well where she was

Listening to the news these days, things are falling apart fast. Some people snap, and others just leave, with next to nothing.....

reply to post by sheepslayer247


If they had given her a waiver, the next time I'm at the airport I'd say I didn't have enough cash either..

Originally posted by sheepslayer247
This all boils down to a lack of customer service and greed on the part of the airline.

They could have made the exception or taken her $30 and put her on the plane, but no......the other $30 was worth all the bad publicity they will now receive.

Stories like this just piss me off!

they dont care about bad publicity, the airlines pretty much have a monopoly on sucking, and everyone still has to fly since the train/bus system is so terrible.

Originally posted by fixer1967
A friend was going to visit his family in California. He lives in North Carolina. He found out it was cheaper to ship his luggage by UPS than to pay the air line fee. I talked to the UPS driver about this one day and he said that is not uncommon. That in fact more people are doing just that. They send it ahead a few days before the flight. Some hotels have even set up holding area just for this. I did not know anything about it before that but I can see why it is.

thats a great idea! im telling everyone about that.

Originally posted by GodefroydeBouillon
reply to post by BohemianBrim

 

So off topic i aint even funny, and using racist groups to offer the reason wow...

troll troll troll

someone posts a story about a woman dealing with an airline, and i talk about the woman.

how is that off topic again?

what did you contribute to this discussion besides your attempt to derail it by talking about me?

"troll troll troll" indeed.

how hard would it be for 3 of those agents to give her 10$ each. at least on the 7th day.

Originally posted by fixer1967
A friend was going to visit his family in California. He lives in North Carolina. He found out it was cheaper to ship his luggage by UPS than to pay the air line fee. I talked to the UPS driver about this one day and he said that is not uncommon. That in fact more people are doing just that. They send it ahead a few days before the flight. Some hotels have even set up holding area just for this. I did not know anything about it before that but I can see why it is.

I was hired and paid to move cross country by a company a few years ago.
When I moved to Cali From Georgia, I flew my family and myself out, and shipped 11 very large boxes with all our essentials and clothes via UPS for under $250.
That's cheaper than checking bags for a weeks clothing for 3 people.

This case is a perfect example why :

1. I refuse to enter US soil, especially by air.
2. I refuse to fly any american owned airlines
3. I refuse to transit through the US to go to Europe (which is cheaper for some stupid reason)

I could do without the low IQ, the horrible customer service, the incredibly super red - red tape, the paranoid security measures, the over zealous patriotism, and extreme high noses...

I know most of you americans aren't like this but I can't take any more of the BS I've seen in my many years of traveling the world...

Rant over.