Randman's World

For our upcoming trip to Walt Disney World, I booked flights on AirTran, as they were the cheapest and best flights at the time. Here are the flights I found.

Leave KC Saturday - 9:49 a.m. , Arrive Orlando -3:08 p.m.

then the next Saturday

Leave Orlando - 3:30 p.m., Arive KC - 6:34 p.m.

Not bad flights. So, I booked 7 tickets (as we are traveling with my college friend Matt, his wife Dee and their two sons).

Yesterday, for some reason, I checked the flight information online. They had changed their routes, and now our flights looked like this

Leave KC Saturday - 7:25 a.m.
Are they nuts? Matt and Dee live in Grain Valley. How are they going to get to KCI in time for a 7:25 a.m. flight with two children?

Then, the next Saturday

Leave Orlando 3:48 p.m. Arrive KC At 9:18 p.m.
A 3 hour layover in Atlanta? With kids? Hardly a desirable situation. And home almost 3 hours later?

Then, looking at our original reservation, it says, " Should our flight schedule change, we will notify you by email as early as possible." Oops! Looks like they forgot!

So, I give AirTran a call. After 15 minutes of smooth jazz, and assurances my call is important, I get a very disinterested person on the other end. She starts to read my itinerary to me. I tell her I know what it says. I want to know why it changed. She says, "I don't know. Guess we changed our route". I tell her those flights are not acceptable. I'm put on hold. More smooth jazz.

Finally, she comes back and says, "You can either take those flights, or we'll refund and you can fly someone else." No "Sorry for the change". No "Sorry we didn't let you know like we said we would". No "Let's see if we can find something better" . Just "fly someone else". Guess what. I will fly someone else.