US Air employees undermine passengers

We were flying into Phila from St Lucia and arrived at 9:20 - as scheduled. We were scheduled to fly out at 11 to Syracuse, NY.

Returning from a foreign country we needed to pick up our bags to go through US Customs before continuing on with our connections. After waiting for 1 1/2 hours at the baggage carousel, they announced that they were having difficulty in opening the baggage compartment door. At about 11 our bags appeared. After cleaing Customs we were supposed to give our bags back to US Air for the connecting flight. As it was already past the scheduled departure time, and as I had no idea what the alternatives were, I checked in with a rep at the nearest desk to inquire regarding the Syracuse flight. After being told they had no information on it, and after I explained my situation, the person checked the monitor again and advised that the flight hasn't started boarding and was scheduled at a gate in the terminal furthest from where we were (Came in terminal A, was to depart terminal F for those familiar with Phila). Asking for directions to F terminal I was given improper directions. At that point I did give them my luggage and went to that gate. After a hectic transit to the proper gate I found out that the Syracuse flight did depart on schedule - 11 pm - at least 5 minutes before I was told it hadn't even boarded.

As my alternatives were to spend the night in the airport and stand by heavily overbooked (US Air description) flight in the morning, I rented a car and drove home. Needless to say they would not return my luggage in Phila, and also needless to say they lost it.

What bothered me about all of this is that the US Air employee actively added to my misery. An honest answer would have had me driving home, with luggage, at about 11:30 at night instead of the two hour misdirection and lack of luggage that did occur.

Further bothering me is that, like a good citizen I let US Air know about this on their web page - and here we are several days later and they haven't even acknowledged that they recieved the message. Just for the record, as I explained to them in my complaint, the travelling party that I led was 8 people.

My advise to others - if you're travelling, do all you can to avoide US Air. Failing that, do all you can to avoid the obviously disgruntled US Air employees at Phila. Finally, if you too are an invester, get rid of any US Air - they can't possibly survive as a business with such active disdain for customers.