Chuck Bao
7/10/2009, 07:37 PM
I have traveled around the world and been to many airports. The United check-in counter at DFW gets my vote as the worst in the world.
Second of all, I’m usually pretty cool and I don’t get mad, almost ever.
This time, I continually harassed the check-in girls while the people behind me cheered.
The United system seems to be cutting back on costs and humans, as much as possible.
Now, everyone is supposed to enter their travel code and get their boarding passes from the machine and one woman was supposed to handle putting on the tags on luggage for about seven lanes.
The main problem is that the system doesn’t handle international travel.
My flight was supposed to leave DFW at 6am and I was supposed to be there by 4am. That means leaving Madill, OK at 2am. Since my mom wouldn’t sleep at all with a 2am alarm, we decided to leave at 10:30pm and I’d just hang around the airport until the check-in counters opened.
Some others had the same idea and they were all Vietnamese and apparently heading to Vietnam.
At 3:45am, I was in the queue first, but one group of Vietnamese had a luggage cart there and they reclaimed the first spot. The third and fourth spots were also Vietnamese.
One United check in staff showed up at 4:30 am and instructed everyone to try the automated check in. Why in the hell do they want us there 2 hours early if they aren’t showing up on time?
It didn’t work for any of us with international flights. I was jawing with this blond check-in bitch and she wasn’t about to help me. She wanted me to use the self-help phone and the self-help person didn’t help, except to finally say that I needed to go to a special help queue. Everyone with an international flight got the same message, so why waste our time to begin with?
I did witness some pretty impressive American behavior. One woman jumped the queue and said “see, I have my boarding pass and all I need is for the check-in woman to put the tags on the bag. It won’t take a second and besides I have a small infant.” The funny thing about that is that when the check-in bitch got around to her, her luggage weight was over the limit and it didn’t take just a second.
The other weird thing I noticed is that this very, very heavy set man and his four very, very heavy set children were flying to Hawaii. I noticed that he checked in his three lightest bags first and the fourth, very heavy one was over the limit. He was not about to pay extra for that one. His reason was that he could have put the excess into the other bags which were already gone. United accepted his excuse and let it go. I’m not sure this excuse works every time, but it makes me wonder.
So back to our particular problem, we all needed to be in a special help line and unfortunately that special help line already had dog woman from hell in the queue by that time.
This is where I get mad as hell. Special help line finally opened at 5:00am. That is so wonderful for all of us waiting since before 4:00am. Unfortunately, the woman that claimed the head of the queue was a friggin’ idiot. She was traveling with a puppy. A very big puppy and she was already assured that she could fit that very big puppy in a very tiny carry case. She tried to demonstrate that it could work but she couldn’t even get the puppy’s *** and legs to fit inside. I should have told her that if she sat on the puppy, I would try to zip it up inside.
The special help United woman was like no, this is not going to work and called her supervisor. The supervisor was a large black woman and she gave Dog lady from hell a severe talking to. “Hows you like to be crammed into such a small space for three hours?” I’m laughing at that. Hello, United.
The United boss lady decides that Dog lady from hell would have to get a proper kennel for the puppy at a cost of $64. Dog lady from hell agrees and the United staff and apparently it takes more than one to call someone to find that travel kennel and more than an hour to locate it.
Dog lady from hell has to tell all of us that this is a rescue dog and she is doing this out of the goodness of her heart.
Meanwhile, Dog lady from hell is like on the floor kissing on the puppy and I’m guessing that she has to show that she has that puppy love to the rest of us that witnessed her attempt at animal cruelty.
Dog lady from hell had human diapers there and I have no idea what that was about, except the puppy was trying to shred them and she was getting pretty upset about diapers as a chew toy.
It gets worse. While we are waiting for the travel kennel to arrive, Dog lady from hell gets really concerned about the care for her puppy. She now needs assurance from the United staff that the puppy will not get too hot out on the tarmac and will be given adequate water and food when needed. It’s just too funny that this same woman was trying to cram this poor dog in a plastic bag only 30 minutes earlier.
Vietnamese families one, two, three were queued up behind me and they’re like WTF?
By this time, the special help queue had grown longer than the rest of the check in queues and it was already 5:45am with boarding already begun for the San Francisco flight and all the Vietnamese were supposed to be on it. I asked one of the check-in women to please start helping us and she said she was already too busy. Finally, I went back to tell her that we would all miss the flight and then she had the nerve to say stop, I will only help you if you are on the San Francisco flight, which I was on.
It took about 2 minutes for me to check in and everyone in the queue cheered.
Dog lady from hell was still there and the dog was still chewing on human diapers the last I saw.
As we were boarding the flight to San Francisco, one Vietnamese guy told me that he was terribly worried that the dog may have not caught its flight, but he is still hoping that Dog lady from hell missed it.
Second of all, I’m usually pretty cool and I don’t get mad, almost ever.
This time, I continually harassed the check-in girls while the people behind me cheered.
The United system seems to be cutting back on costs and humans, as much as possible.
Now, everyone is supposed to enter their travel code and get their boarding passes from the machine and one woman was supposed to handle putting on the tags on luggage for about seven lanes.
The main problem is that the system doesn’t handle international travel.
My flight was supposed to leave DFW at 6am and I was supposed to be there by 4am. That means leaving Madill, OK at 2am. Since my mom wouldn’t sleep at all with a 2am alarm, we decided to leave at 10:30pm and I’d just hang around the airport until the check-in counters opened.
Some others had the same idea and they were all Vietnamese and apparently heading to Vietnam.
At 3:45am, I was in the queue first, but one group of Vietnamese had a luggage cart there and they reclaimed the first spot. The third and fourth spots were also Vietnamese.
One United check in staff showed up at 4:30 am and instructed everyone to try the automated check in. Why in the hell do they want us there 2 hours early if they aren’t showing up on time?
It didn’t work for any of us with international flights. I was jawing with this blond check-in bitch and she wasn’t about to help me. She wanted me to use the self-help phone and the self-help person didn’t help, except to finally say that I needed to go to a special help queue. Everyone with an international flight got the same message, so why waste our time to begin with?
I did witness some pretty impressive American behavior. One woman jumped the queue and said “see, I have my boarding pass and all I need is for the check-in woman to put the tags on the bag. It won’t take a second and besides I have a small infant.” The funny thing about that is that when the check-in bitch got around to her, her luggage weight was over the limit and it didn’t take just a second.
The other weird thing I noticed is that this very, very heavy set man and his four very, very heavy set children were flying to Hawaii. I noticed that he checked in his three lightest bags first and the fourth, very heavy one was over the limit. He was not about to pay extra for that one. His reason was that he could have put the excess into the other bags which were already gone. United accepted his excuse and let it go. I’m not sure this excuse works every time, but it makes me wonder.
So back to our particular problem, we all needed to be in a special help line and unfortunately that special help line already had dog woman from hell in the queue by that time.
This is where I get mad as hell. Special help line finally opened at 5:00am. That is so wonderful for all of us waiting since before 4:00am. Unfortunately, the woman that claimed the head of the queue was a friggin’ idiot. She was traveling with a puppy. A very big puppy and she was already assured that she could fit that very big puppy in a very tiny carry case. She tried to demonstrate that it could work but she couldn’t even get the puppy’s *** and legs to fit inside. I should have told her that if she sat on the puppy, I would try to zip it up inside.
The special help United woman was like no, this is not going to work and called her supervisor. The supervisor was a large black woman and she gave Dog lady from hell a severe talking to. “Hows you like to be crammed into such a small space for three hours?” I’m laughing at that. Hello, United.
The United boss lady decides that Dog lady from hell would have to get a proper kennel for the puppy at a cost of $64. Dog lady from hell agrees and the United staff and apparently it takes more than one to call someone to find that travel kennel and more than an hour to locate it.
Dog lady from hell has to tell all of us that this is a rescue dog and she is doing this out of the goodness of her heart.
Meanwhile, Dog lady from hell is like on the floor kissing on the puppy and I’m guessing that she has to show that she has that puppy love to the rest of us that witnessed her attempt at animal cruelty.
Dog lady from hell had human diapers there and I have no idea what that was about, except the puppy was trying to shred them and she was getting pretty upset about diapers as a chew toy.
It gets worse. While we are waiting for the travel kennel to arrive, Dog lady from hell gets really concerned about the care for her puppy. She now needs assurance from the United staff that the puppy will not get too hot out on the tarmac and will be given adequate water and food when needed. It’s just too funny that this same woman was trying to cram this poor dog in a plastic bag only 30 minutes earlier.
Vietnamese families one, two, three were queued up behind me and they’re like WTF?
By this time, the special help queue had grown longer than the rest of the check in queues and it was already 5:45am with boarding already begun for the San Francisco flight and all the Vietnamese were supposed to be on it. I asked one of the check-in women to please start helping us and she said she was already too busy. Finally, I went back to tell her that we would all miss the flight and then she had the nerve to say stop, I will only help you if you are on the San Francisco flight, which I was on.
It took about 2 minutes for me to check in and everyone in the queue cheered.
Dog lady from hell was still there and the dog was still chewing on human diapers the last I saw.
As we were boarding the flight to San Francisco, one Vietnamese guy told me that he was terribly worried that the dog may have not caught its flight, but he is still hoping that Dog lady from hell missed it.