Pure Chaos: 1/6/18 – 1/7/18

Already feeling sleep deprived and uncertain I arrived at the airport Friday with an 8 hour day of frustrating line waiting ahead of me. Little did I know that I would have a 12 hour day of un-moving line waiting at the airport the following day as well. The following pictures show the progression of trying to check-in on day 2. 

Those days at JFK were absolute chaos. I imagine it was a difficult experience for any traveler, but from my astute observations and interactions I have a feeling Aeroflot took the already difficult situation and turned it into a hot mess.

The heart of the problem with Aeroflot was the number of people they had working and their inability to provide decent customer service. They had two people doing ticket transfers, one person supposedly managing and ranging from one to five people working the check in desks, giving vouchers and supervising. The only way to re-book a flight from Aeroflot was to wait in line for one of those two ticket representatives. You could not make any bookings or find out flight times online or by phone. Considering there were hundreds of people with canceled flights waiting to talk to two people, this took forever. After talking with one of these employees you were left feeling:

More Confused Than You Started:

Once you did finally get to talk to one of the representatives they didn’t have any concrete information for you. They told me I could try to get on the 8am flight the next morning, but they could not book it for me. Only passengers from a particular cancelled flight were allowed to book on the next available. The strange part is it was a different plane so they said there would be more available seats than the number of passengers re-booked, yet they did not know how many. They wanted you to wait in line by 4am the next morning and there would be a “chance” you could get on the flight.

On the 2nd day another traveller I was talking with went to ask about the status of the plane that was coming from DC to pick us up. The agent said “we are not sure where that plane is now”.

Uncertain that it was another questionable promise:

The first day they gave me the option of taking a bus to DC that they knew for sure would fly out “sometime that night”. They did not know any details, so I decided to pass on spending all the hours on the bus on the still snowy roads and most likely get stuck at the DC airport. I found out the next morning that that plane did not leave DC as “promised”.

Angry from the service:

After being told I could get a hotel voucher if I re-booked a flight for a later date I was denied a voucher due to “missing my flight”. What!?

We asked the manager if they could help with line control because it was getting really frustrating that we were waiting for hours in line when others were coming from the side and elbowing their way to the front. The managers response was, “What am I supposed to do? How can I make a line? Why don’t you do it?” A fellow passenger found out from a different airline that airlines can request stairs to get passengers on and off quicker. He asked the manger if he would do that, and he said he didn’t know about that and would check. Likely story. He was often seen trying to escape the hoards of travelers attempting to get answers from him. 

When I was finally able to check into an actual flight I was told I would have to pay $100 for my extra small checked luggage. In response to asking if it could be waived due to the fact I did not receive a hotel voucher last night I was told I needed to talk to the manager…..

Frustration that you were headed to another line:

….I then had to wait in another line for an hour where the manager took me to a different check-in agent. This one proceeded to yell at me that I need to pay because it was “policy, no exceptions, pay for it or throw it in the trash!”. It would be one thing if they let you pay for it as you checked-in, but of course not, you had to wait in the re-booking line for two hours, followed by waiting in the initial check-in line again.

Before you counteract with “other airlines were like that too”, let me point out that Aeroflot once ‘accidentally’ sent me to the JapanAirlines check in desk and the agent was extremely friendly and actually went to find out the answer to my question for me and came back to deliver the answer! I walked right up to the ticketing desk of Lufthansa without waiting and got a friendly representative who told me exactly when their next flights would be and how much they would cost. Korean Airlines made an announcement that let passengers know what was going on and that they were canceling a flight because of the continued uncertainty of JFK. I overheard another traveling explaining to someone else that he called his airline and re-booked a ticket on such and such date.

In the end I’m sure it was a stressful experience for all employees and travelers who were unfortunate enough to be at JFK that weekend. All I can say is that I hope my boss appreciates the effort I undertook to ensure I returned to work on time!