SunTrips -- a great deal in theory, but in reality, not worth the grief!Jun 30 '02 Write an essay on this topic.The Bottom Line Your Tour Operator should make your vacation a memorable one, one you'll cherish, not one which leaves a sour note in your mouth for years to come. My husband booked the trip to Hawaii out of Oakland (we live in the San Francisco Bay Area) because of its price and a few reviews he's read. Everything pointed to how great it was. Our trip there was okay, no-frills as the reviewers stated, however, on the way back we had the worse experience ever. Now, I'm a seasoned traveler who's traveled to all continents except for Antartica and Africa. I travel overseas at least twice a year and at least twice domestically. I was thrilled that my husband had found something this affordable for us to go to Hawaii. When we got to the airport on the day of our departure, we arrived 3 hours ahead of schedule like they told us. My husband then proceeded to return the rental car while our toddler and I waited for him to come back. We lined up and waited to check in at the counter. After checking in we were told to go to another counter to get our boarding pass. When it was our turn to get our boarding pass, the representative told us we would be boarding at 6pm. I was shocked as our departure time was 2.30pm. When I asked her she said, "your flight has been delayed". She told us that we would get $8 in meal voucher per person for food. After we got over being perplexed, we caught up with 2 other families traveling on the same flight feeling the same awe about having to stay at the airport for 6 hours without much choice. Firstly, had SunTrips informed us of the delay, we may not have returned the car and would probably have not checked in so early. We made the mistake of not calling ahead, but one of the other families called and were told that the delay would be 2 hours. Two hours I can live with, even when traveling with a toddler. So with the other 2 families, we proceeded to get something to eat, a great feat seeing it costs $7 plus for a sandwich or hamburger at Honolulu International Airport leaving us without money for a drink. So we were all patiently waiting, one family with 2 children, us with one toddler and another family, a woman traveling with her mother. We managed to kill time by chatting and keeping each other company. Boy were we thrilled that finally, 6pm rolled around and we were able to go to our gate. Our departure time we were told was 7.30pm, but then when 7.15pm rolled around, we were all still in the gate area without any information. We were not told or updated of what was going on during the entire 6 plus hours of waiting at the airport. Needless to say, we did not leave at the time stated. We were finally able to board and settled into our seats by around 8pm, but the airplane was hot and stuffy without air conditioning. The children and babies were so hot that they were all fussy and crying -- boy did I feel for the parents being one myself. The captain kept apologizing and reassuring us about getting some air into the cabin. After 15 to 20 minutes, he came across the intercom to inform us that the "number 2 generator has failed so we are going to get the other one working to get some air to you all". Of course, after many attempts and finally a little air was released into the cabin, we were all anxious to leave. We had now been at the airport for 9-10 hours, some of us had been up for over 16 hours. We were all gearing up to going home. So how disappointed we were to find out when the captain announces "in order to fly across the Pacific Ocean we need all 3 generators working so we will have to have the technicians look at it and get it fixed". The doors then were opened and some passengers were so infuriated that they walked off the airplane. I finally decided to do the same but my husband prevailed another 5 mins until they told us to all de-plane and bring all our belongings with us. At that point, I knew that it wasn't going to be our lucky night, that we were not leaving. 30 mins was the time they said that it took to fix the problem, but when they finally announced that we were to go to a hotel for the night and that although the generator had been fixed, the crew had to rest because of the amount of time they had spent in the air (or some absurd reason like that). That did not even make any sense to us. Wouldn't they be in the air working had we taken off? That was not the excuse to make even though we all agreed that the crew needed the rest as they had flown in from Oakland and were doing the flight back without much of a rest. So all 300 plus passengers were herded off to a hotel with the promise of dinner and breakfast. When we arrived at the hotel at around midnight, we were told that Sun Trips did not arrange dinner, but breakfast was to be at 6.15am at a restaurant 4 blocks away and that the busses would be picking us up at 6.45am to take us back to the airport. Now, any logical person could deduce that 30 mins is not enough time to walk 4 blocks (which later, we found out turned out to be 6 blocks away) stand in line at a buffet, eat, and then walk the 4/6 blocks back to the hotel. Most of us chose to skip breakfast and ended up purchasing something from the airport or a nearby restaurant. Nobody wanted to miss the busses! Finally, we get back to the airport and went through the same procedure and got on a plane getting us home at 5.30pm California time. Now, if any of you are thinking that you are saving money by flying SunTrips, you are sorely wrong. What we saved in money (about $100-$150) was spent at airport restaurants, calling our families (if we did not have a cell phone, or a cell phone plan which did not include free minutes from Hawaii), many hours of wasted time in which we probably bought snacks, drinks and other items to help us pass the time). Not only am I exhausted from the lack of sleep but I'm more stressed out from this than when I started the trip, the trip which was supposed to relax me, my R&R. The lack of a proper meal aside, the lack of respect SunTrips showed its customers by not providing the information we deserved to know is inexcusable. No apologies were made until much later, when we were forced to spend the night when we could've been only a few hours away from our own beds at home. My husband and I will never travel SunTrips again. The few dollars we saved was not worth the grief we experienced. We've had 4 friends and family members change their minds on going with SunTrips after relaying our experience to them. Those who were unfortunate enough to have booked and paid for their tickets were not able to get a refund, so they will have to endure the bad service we had to go through. Some flight attendants tried to make it pleasant for us while others were just plain nasty. Regardless of how much we have paid for a service, there is just no excuse in being treated badly. We are still consumers after all. We have choices. With such poor management and insulting manner in which SunTrips have shown us, I seriously doubt any of us on this flight would ever choose to fly SunTrips again. I certainly wouldn't even if the flights to Hawaii were $100 roundtrip. Just not worth the hassle!  |
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