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TWA Trouble
Ask Chris · March 2, 2000

Q: I'm writing about a trip we recently took from Seattle to West Palm Beach on TWA. It was one of the worst experiences we've ever had flying.

First, on the way to Florida, both flights were on time, but the food was awful. On the flight from St. Louis to West Palm Beach they served us a tortilla wrap in first class that was so hard we couldn't bite into it.

Returning home was a real nightmare. We got on the plane and approximately 5 minutes before the scheduled departure time, the pilot announced there was a problem with the navigational equipment. He said that the engineers think it will be repaired shortly, so just be patient and wait. Every fifteen minutes, he came on with an update about what they were trying now. Finally, after waiting on the plane for more than an hour, he let us get off to use the restroom and phones. Almost two hours after the original departure time, we were finally able to depart.

My first question is: Why wasn't the plane thoroughly checked over while it was waiting overnight in the airport? Why wasn't this problem discovered way before our departure time? Anyway, it wasn't and we arrived in St. Louis 10 minutes after our connecting flight left for Seattle. We even asked the flight attendant whether the flight could be held and she said probably not.

Couldn't the plane have waited just a few extra minutes especially for "top dollar" first class customers? We certainly got no first class help getting our transfer tickets either. Anyway, after 2 ½ hours of waiting in St. Louis, we were able to commence our journey to Seattle.

As a result of TWA inefficiencies, we had to reschedule a very important business appointment to the following day and we landed in Seattle rush hour traffic. You may not know that Seattle has the second-worst traffic in the United States. We arrived home at 7 p.m. instead of 4 p.m. It took us twice as long to get home to North Seattle because of traffic.

We are asking for two vouchers for $300 each to be used anywhere in the world to compensate us for our time and trouble. What are our chances?

-- Roy Scantlebury

A: You're timing is a little off, Roy. You should have asked TWA for compensation while your were waiting for your Seattle flight to take off on your return. I also think that you're asking for too much. A request for $600 worth of vouchers for a bad first-class meal and a two-hour mechanical delay is unreasonable - even if you were flying in the front of the cabin.

TWA's Conditions of Contract spells out the carrier's obligations to you. It says that if you're delayed because of an equipment problem, TWA will transport you "at no additional cost on the next TWA flight if space is available in the same class of service. If space is available on another TWA flight in the same or different class of service, transportation will be provided on that flight if acceptable to the passenger."

The only provision is that if the substituted service involves a lower fare class than the one you're traveling on, "an appropriate refund will be made."

TWA is probably the last airline I'd accuse of being careless about its on-time performance. In 1999 it was the top airline for on-time arrivals and departures among the 10 major U.S. airlines, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. I've spoken to many TWA insiders - pilots, flight attendants and ground crew - and I can tell that next to the guys are obsessive about keeping their schedule.

The reason you should have approached the service desk in St. Louis is that generally speaking, a person-to-person contact is more likely to get the results you want. The TWA representative can see the agony over your missed appointment - not to mention your first class tickets - and will react accordingly. Even if you'd approached the ticket counter in Seattle after the flight, you would have done better than writing a letter to the airline.

Another route you appear to have overlooked was to ask your travel agent to intercede for your. Retailers know the channels better than anyone, and many of them know their airline "rep" on a first-name basis. Scoring a couple of vouchers to keep a first-class passenger happy involves far less red tape than the passenger writing the airline's customer service department on his or her own.

But I wouldn't give you the vouchers if I were TWA. Imagine if everyone hit the airline up for $300 vouchers every time a flight was delayed? Or every time they were served unpalatable food? The airline industry would go belly-up in no time at all. TWA should be ashamed for serving its best customers meals that can't be eaten, and it could have done better by giving its plane a more careful pre-flight inspection, but it shouldn't have to shell out two free tickets to atone for the oversights.

TWA fulfilled its contract - it got you back to Seattle - and while it may owe you an apology for the delay, or maybe a free drink coupon, it does not owe you $600 in vouchers.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator and author of A Bridge to Nowhere: A Year in the Florida Keys. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion. Ask Chris appears weekly on this site.