Thread: Standby listing w/ ATA?

Well. . . just an update on my Standby attempt.

I finally found a way to list with ATA. I just called their regular # (1-800-225-2995) & talked to somebody w/ reservations. They were able to list me.

The bad news is my planned flight from PHX to OGG (which AOW said was wide open), is booked up. 7 open seats, but 12 non-revs already listed.
The good news is the flight on Friday is still open, and availability looks good. Im listed on that. It looks like my trip will be 1 day shorter.

The other bad news is that Southwest's flights on Friday are booked up, so I have to fly into PHX on Thursday & stay overnight. Hopefully an old friend of mine still lives there.

Randy, can you check availability on my SW flight for me 1 last time? Pretty please?

9-1 SDF-PHX: WN 276

Thx!

Well, I thought I'd give an update on my Southwest & ATA standby travels

Thursday (9/1)
Southwest from SDF to PHX went smoothly.

Then ATA from PHX to OGG the first night we couldnt get on. The availability looked poor, & we didnt think we would anyway. Thats ok. It gave us time to catch up w/ an old friend in PHX.


Friday (9/2)
The flight had good availability, but it was delayed 5 hours due to mechanical problems. At this point we felt like we were living in airports.
The flight to OGG was uneventful although we didnt arrive & get our baggage until after 11pm Hawaii time.


Sun (9/11)
Time for the trip home. I called mid-afternoon to check availability. 50 open seats. This is good.
I get to the airport (after checking out of the hotel & turning in the rental car) and they tell me that Saturday's flight had been cancelled due to mechanical problems, and all the people who couldnt get out Sat would be on our plane, which btw was delayed 6 hours. No seats for us.
So we had to scramble to find a rental car at 9pm Sunday night, then go find a hotel room (tried a dozen places before finding one w/ an open room.)

I return to the airport early afternoon on Monday to inquire about seats on that night's flight. The guy at the counter promised me that everything had been worked out, that they brought in another plane to get out the people who were held over from the prev. night, and there were 100 empty seats on the plane.

Good.
Oh . ......well, except that that guy was full of crap.
WE got there 4 hours before the flight & they "accomidated" us. They went ahead & assigned our seats, which was good, because the plane was subsequently filled w/people who did not take the prev. night's flight.
So it worked out, but the misinformation was frustrating.
Wonderfully [note heavy sarcasm], on our (red-eye)flight back, an old lady was seated beside us who left her reading light on for the ENTIRE flight. Needless to say we didnt get much sleep on that flight, and if I wasnt a nonrev, I would've . . . . turned it off for her.

The flight back from PHX to SDF on Southwest went off w/out a hitch, and we finally made it home Tuesday afternoon.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Migflanker:
...and another non-rev falls into the Hawaii black hole.

So Dave, what did you enjoy most about Hawaii?

Keep'em flying </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I would say the hike up to the waterfalls above the 7 Sacred Pools. Beautiful hike, bamboo forest, nice waterfalls. Very nice.
Snorkeling was great too.

Otherwise, I'll have to give you my glass-half-empty impression of Maui.
This is it: Almost every one of the native-Hawaians we ran across were mean. They seemed to want nothing more than for you to leave. The island overall was not impressive, and very expensive. There seemed to be no real culture. Luau's are fake & dont count.
There was nothing in Maui (besides snorkeling & maybe riding bikes down a volcano) that you couldnt do/see in Costa Rica (and for 1/3 of the price!). Plus I didnt feel safe there. I felt as I was being watched & occasionally harassed (by the locals) all the time, and there was broken glass all over the ground at every tourist stop from all the break-in's.
I wont be going back to Maui.