Travel, Airlines - Frontier Airlines : flew children to wrong airport

Complaints.com received the following e-message on June 29, 2001:

From: Email User Sent To: Email User; Email User; Email User; Email User; Email User; Email User; Email User; Email User; Email User; Email User; Email User

Frontier airlines

To Whom It May Concern, Recently I flew my children ages 11 and 7 on Frontier airlines. The airline,

accidently.....flew my children to the wrong airport. I would like you to

publish my following letter on your websites, letters to editors etc. Let all parents be warned, don't trust the airlines. Respectfully, Jennifer Jenkins June 28, 2001

Dear Mr. Samuel D. Addoms, Recently I had a horrific dealing with your airline that I would like to

share with you. I tried to call your office to speak to you directly to

rectify this situation; unfortunately I was not permitted to speak to you and

was transferred to another department. My story begins June 6, 2001, after researching every airline for my

children's first flight I decided to go with Frontier. I called your

reservations number and spoke to a very nice lady about making reservations.

We discussed flying my girls into BWI airport in Maryland. Finding no

availability on dates we needed, she suggested Washington Dulles. I was very

pleased with this decision due to the fact Dulles was 2 hours closer to my

relatives in Virginia. I was very happy with the customer service she gave

me, the help and her attitude. Weeks later I received a copy of my children's

flight itinerary showing Phoenix PHX to Denver DEN leaving Denver DEN and

arriving Washington DCA. Perhaps my first mistake was trusting an airline reservation clerk to know

her airports. My second mistake was not calling to verify DCA was indeed

Dulles and not National. I assumed anyone hired for this position would know

that Frontier does not fly into Dulles, unfortunately airport abbreviations

are not knowledge for which I was blessed with. The day of my children's flight June 27, 2001, upon checking my children's

luggage and receiving their tickets I was questioning the agent unmercifully.

As I mentioned before, this was my children's first airplane flight, and I

was a very nervous mother. She smiled and reassured me many times, everything

would be okay. I reiterated this flight is to Denver, and then on Washington

Dulles, correct? She assured me it was. Perhaps a high percentage of your

agents don't realize there are 3 airports that are considered Washington??

Washington National, Washington Dulles as well as Washington/Baltimore BWI. I

left the agent feeling so much more confident in my children's flight. I then went to the gate to get my children's boarding pass, as they were

filling out paperwork for the unaccompanied minor's I noticed it said PHX DEN

DCA once again I asked was DCA Dulles? I remember for sure asking Dulles

because the gentleman replied Dallas? I replied no Dulles, Washington Dulles

airport. He assured me, yes ma'am Washington Dulles. Between the hours of 1:30 and 3:00 Mountain time, I went through a frenzy of

phone calls. My family who went to Dulles to pick up the kids could find no

Frontier terminal. My children with whom I sent a cell phone for their safety

and my sense of security called saying they were in Washington, but no one

from the family was there. Upon my children's arrival to National, someone from Frontier called the

contact number of my father-in-law to find out his whereabouts. They asked

for Larry Jenkins, Sr. my mother-in-law informed him he was at the airport

(not knowing who was calling because they did not identify themselves). Their

response was great, they were calling from the airport, and they would

continue to wait for him. Perhaps they should have said which airport they

were calling from? Or perhaps which airport he was at. At no time did I ever

receive a phone call saying my children were at the airport with no one to

pick them up. I think this should be a priority phone call. I had to find out

this mistake myself as well as rectify Frontier mistake myself. At this point, I called my children on the cell phone again. I spoke to the

person that was chaperoning them and explained the situation at hand. He

assumed me the children were find and he would get them a sandwich and a soda

since it was now nearing 5:45 eastern time. I called Frontier's Reservation line and spoke to Andrea who was the

supervisor of the reservation clerk I spoke with first. Andrea informed me

Frontier's part was to get the children from point A to point B. They did

that and that was all they were responsible for. I do agree, HOWEVER they

took my children from point A to point C and didn't care about their error of

point B nor were they willing to fix it. I asked for her supervisor because I was not getting anywhere with her and

her attitude was one I was not willing to deal with. She advised me her

supervisor was unavailable, as was hers and hers and hers and hers and hers.

There was not a supervisor over Andrea in the entire company available to

speak to a crying, worried, heart broken mother of misplaced children. Still more frantic cell phone calls to my family at Dulles and my children at

National. Who had now been on the ground in an unfamiliar airport, with

Frontier strangers for over an hour. I went to the Internet to research

Frontier to see if there was not an additional number I could call for help.

I found a customer service number and called. I received a message machine

saying there was either high call volume or I was calling after hours. I am

in Phoenix, and your office is in Denver, so I know we are on the same time

zone. I left a message it was urgent and I needed to speak to someone ASAP. I

did receive a phone call from a gentleman in your office the next day

approx.11:00 AM. Just a bit too late to help my children, but thanks. I called the number again and asked for you. The receptionist forwarded me to

your office and I spoke to your assistant who told me she would transfer me

to someone in customer service after hearing of my dilemma I asked was it

because you, the President/CEO were just to busy to speak to your customers?

She advised me no, you were 'unavailable' and that if I would like I could

always write to you. I was then transferred to Julie Meisner of customer service. She obviously

knows how to handle customers. She calmed me down, stopped my crying and

spoke intelligently to me. She agreed yes there was a huge misunderstanding

but what exactly was it I wanted. I advised her, I wanted arrangements for my

children to fly home on a different airline, because I no longer trusted

Frontier with anyone in my family. I was on hold for approximately 10 minutes

while she was making phone calls and arrangements and so forth. She returned

and advised me she had made arrangements to fly my children on United.

Arrangements were also being made to refund me the unaccompanied minor charge

of $60 because I would be responsible for paying an additional fee with

United to cover their unaccompanied minor charge. She believed this matter was done, for me it is not. Not by any means. I am

not happy with what transpired over those few hours, nor am I satisfied with

the complete rectification of your errors. My children received a return

flight on a different airline arranged by Julie and $30 back to be repaid to

United. Do you think that's enough for forgiveness? I THINK NOT! I let Julie

know that I thought I should have been given at least a percentage back of my

children's airfare. She disagreed saying I got my unaccompanied minor's fee

back and upon my request a change in airlines, and that I was not entitled to

a percentage. My family recently moved to Phoenix, all of our relatives live in Virginia

and we are planning to do a lot of travel back and forth across the country,

this certainly did not help matters for anyone in my family to fly with

Frontier. I assume since you are the father of three and grandfather to six you can

understand the detrimental effects to an 11 year old and a 7 year old of

arriving at the wrong airport, to no family. I do not know if you have ever

been to Washington DC, but I can assure the traffic there is HORRENDOUS at

6:00 PM on a weekday. My family had to drive from the outskirts of DC to the

middle most part of DC in rush hour. Thank God they made it there in a

reasonable amount of time, but what if they didn't?? My children could have

EASILY been stuck in DC until 8 or 9 at night. Still with no dinner as

promised by your Frontier staff. I have lost total and complete respect for your airlines, not only for your

clerks not knowing their airport codes, but also for the percentage of snobby

attitudes in your personnel, you and your supervisor's lack of availability

to customers and lack of ability to satisfy your unhappy consumers. After calling United airlines to check the status of my children's travel

with them (I've learned my lesson with trusting Frontier) I'm advised that my

family in VA will have to make an additional visit to Dulles airport to have

your staff endorsed over to United or they may not be able to make their

flight! What is this about? Due to your mistake, I am once again the one that

has to do the extra work to have it fixed. Frontier can't find a way to

rectify this completely? I have worked in the Retail world for 12 years. Being an Executive Assistant

to a President of a 300 million dollar corporation, I realize how busy a

President can be. However, you should always take the time for your

consumers. If you were unavailable, fine, have someone take my number you can

call me back to make sure I was handled in complete satisfaction. I anxiously

await your return email, or phone call. How much does your customer mean to

you? When I asked for your email address, I was told to email it to

Email User and she would gladly pass it along to you. Are your

customers not even entitled to your email address? FYI ~ The contact information link on your www.frontierairlines.com website

is a broken link. Respectfully,

Jennifer E. Jenkins 602-789-6529

Email User

3509 W Cheryl Drive

Phoenix, AZ 85051 Emailed Copies To:

Samuel D. Addoms (Email User) President/CEO, Frontier

Julie Meisner (Email User) Customer Service, Frontier

Better Business Bureau (Email User) Denver/Boulder BBB Office

Consumer Advocate (Email User) Publisher of

badbusinessbureau.com, ripoffreport.com

(Email User) Publisher of Complaints.com

www.costar.net/ordbbad Publisher Bad Business Reporting

Elizabeth Esty (Email User) Editor/Ombudsman: Bad Business

Reporting

Editor (Email User) The Denver Business Journal

Editor (Email User) The Denver Post.com

Editor (Email User) The Washington Post

Editor (Email User) Air Travel Complaints

Editor (Email User ) ComplaintoUS.org Mailed Copies To:

United States Department of Transportation

Investigations Division

I-24, Room 949A

400 Seventh Street, S.W.

Washington D.C. 20590