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Taken 16 August 2007 from El Paso, TX (El Paso International Airport) - ELP to Ithaca, NY (Tompkins County Airport) - ITH

The following is my first experience with flying US Airways. I flew out of El Paso on the 16 of August, and my son followed 6 hours behind me. Our flight out of El Paso, TX. was through American Airlines, (see my comments on AA in another review). My flight was rather uneventful, until I got to Chicago and boarded US Airways Express Republic Airlines. First the flight was packed and mostly full of students going off to college. what was surprising was when the attendant asked if people were willing to carry their luggage because the under storage was full. this bothered me because most kids who had experience with US-Airways, got their bags and carried them on their laps... now isn't this against some policy or regulation???

The flight was fine, attendants were fine and the flight was about 10 minutes late, not bad. I got to Ithaca and found out that my luggage did not make the flight from Chicago. In the meantime my son gets his flight ticket and begins his journey.

He gets to Ithaca a half hour late and his luggage is still in Chicago. Our flights are 6 hours apart. he arrives at 1 a.m. We go to the counter along with nearly 3/4 the passengers to put a claim on our luggage. Three days later our luggage is still missing. We called AA, US-A and to no avail. US Airway has not listing of luggage numbers, all they can tell us is that ours and over 200 other bags are in Chicago or Philly. This can be verified with the Ithaca newspaper. Neither American Airlines nor US Airways were willing to help beyond just giving us the runaround. The worst thing that they did was put us through baggage. these people from American were very unprofessional and discourteous, this included the manager. At one time the American night baggage personnel acknowledged that they had our luggage and were looking at it, but that they could not transfer to US Airways until they requested it. I new for a fact that the request was made the very time that we put in a claim... three days before. I had to go through a friend of mine at Southwest Airlines who was friends with an AA person, to get her to put in a request to place the luggage in the next flight out.

AA followed through, but after Southwest Airlines intervened. No wonder Southwest Airlines has a fine airline, they have their customer first act together. Well it took another day and a half for our luggage to get in. I spent monies for additional hotel days and auto rental and food and purchase of underwear and other toiletries. Did US Airways pay me for the extra days I had to stay in Ithaca? No, and I am still pursuing it. I spent well over $500.00 as all the hotels were full and were charging outrageous fees.

I have to say, warning with US Airways, as their personnel told me this always happens at the start of the new school year for Cornell and the surrounding Ithaca Colleges. They say that the students always bring in more than their allowed two bags. I say if this happens every year, why not avoid the delays for those that follow instructions and hold the overage bags from those that do not follow instructions and just let them know that they have to pay extra for delivery by truck to Ithaca. It is very simple, it is called planning and it is also called "not penalizing those that follow directions." I would not fly this airline again, but unfortunately it is the only airline that flies into Ithaca Airport and Syracuse Airport for my son.

I believe US Airways knows that they have a captive client and thus will not bother to plan or change their procedures. This is not good business. So the reason I would not fly US Airways is because they choose not to fix their problem simply because they have a captive audience. This is no way to run a business and as a business man I cannot support another business that does feel that addressing this yearly problem, (it happens in the fall, winter and summer), our clients should always be first.

Thank you, Southwest Airlines, and to some degree American Airlines. But American should train their night baggage personnel (day personnel were courteous), never to tell a customer that "they have more important things to attend to than your luggage".