hawaiian airlines

[shaveice]

just blowing off a little steam here. on sunday, my wife, daughter and i were supposed to fly to maui at around 7:30 am. we get there early, park the car, carry all our stuff plus our daughter's car seat, stand in line, get to the machine that issues tickets, punch in my confirmation code and then the machine spits out 3 boarding tickets... or so i thought. we then proceed to the security area and a female security worker asks where the other parts of the tickets might be. i tell her that all i have is what the machine gave me and that she's holding all of it. she shrugs her shoulder and lets us through and we proceed to the departure gate. we sit, eat some snacks, and then the boarding announcement comes along. we stand up to board early cuz of our daughter and walk towards the gate. then the hawaiian air worker asks where the other half of our tickets are. i told her that that's all the machine gave me. she then says that the tickets are not signed by the security agent and it should be signed. i told her that i'm totally unaware of that requirement since i'm not a security worker and that if there's been a error, it was made by the security worker, not me. she asks us to move to the side and wait and so we do. i stand within hearing distance to the hawaiian air worker who is told not to hold up the plane! i couldn't believe it! to make a long story short, the hawaiian air worker at the gate had all the charm of a navy seals instructor. in the end, the plane took off and another more helpful hawaiian air worker came along. he asked us to follow him and we walked all the way back to the ticket counter where he issued us new tickets for a later flight.

bottom line: 1) i don't think that hawaiian air worker at the gate has any sense of what customer service means and while she may not have been able to let us through, even pretending that she was sympathetic to our circumstances was way beyond what she was capable of expressing. 2) if you travel as infrequently as i do between the islands, let me tell you that the machine that issues your boarding passes should issue a ticket that has two parts. i travel internationally way more frequently than i do between islands and i know that boarding passes on those international flights contain "two parts" to each ticket but i obviously can't ask a machine why it issued me the ticket it did and there was no hawaiian air worker within sight to ask. 3) the security worker who let us through surely failed to do her job and should never have let us through. not only did she not sign the tickets that i gave her (that hawaiian air claims is required of everyone who passes through security), but she let us through with what turned out to be only half of a complete ticket.

will hawaiian air take steps to purchase machines that issue ticekts correctly more frequently? i don't think so. will the security worker be informed of what happened and take steps to avoid a similar situation in the future? i don't think so. as a third hawaiian air worker commented to me as we were walking back to the ticket counter, "homeland security tells us what to do, not the other way around."

i will be writing a letter to hawaiian air and to the airport security but it may all be for naught...

[kimo55]

Re: hawaiian airlines

"homeland suckurity; helping ijits get jobs..."


that sux shave. sorry for yer pilikia.

[craigwatanabe]

Re: hawaiian airlines

Hopefully your arguement will net you some comp tickets for your troubles. I'm a computer nut but I won't trust a computer just yet when it comes to something like an E-ticket. When I get my boarding pass I like to know I have at least a verbal confirmation that this pass will get me on that plane.

I generally prefer Hawaiian over Aloha but with Hawaiian's move to the 717, the seating is a bit cramped. My friend Greg was an engineer for Boeing and he told me that when Boeing bought out McDonald Douglas, they took the MD-95 or more commonly known as the DC-9, made some cosmetic and engine changes to it and renamed it the 717.

I wish Hawaiian would take out at least one row of seating to make the inter-island trips a bit more comfortable. I think the loss of five seats per trip shouldn't break their bank accounts.

[timkona]

Re: hawaiian airlines

You missed your opportunity to work the system for your troubles.

At the point of infraction, you needed the MANAGER of the ticketing, and the MANAGER of the Security Company, and at least one high MAKAMAKA from Hawaiian Airlines, all getting their ears waxed well.

You would have plenty leverage for free tickets at that point.

[Miulang]

Re: hawaiian airlines

When those e-tickets spit out from the Hele On machines, you get a boarding pass and a receipt (which also looks like a boarding pass). If you don't get both of those, you need to find someone at the ticket counter immediately.

I had a 2-leg flight from SEA to OGG (via HNL) and when I used the Hele On machine at SeaTac, I thought I got all the parts of my ticket (2 boarding passes), but as I left the area, the woman who was going to use the machine after me called me back and gave me the rest of my ticket. Sheesh. Good thing she was alert (as opposed to me being half asleep). Tim's right, though. The time to complain would have been when you were still at the airport.

Miulang

[Jonah K]

Re: hawaiian airlines

What's wrong with using Hawaiian's "Web Check-in" on their website? As a somewhat frequent flyer on Hawaiian Airlines, I've learned that it's easier to print out my boarding passes at home, instead of getting them at the airport. As an incentive to use their "Web Check-in" service, they usually give you 500 or so extra frequent flyer miles.

Cheers,

Jonah K

[craigwatanabe]

Re: hawaiian airlines

What's wrong with using Hawaiian's "Web Check-in" on their website? As a somewhat frequent flyer on Hawaiian Airlines, I've learned that it's easier to print out my boarding passes at home, instead of getting them at the airport. As an incentive to use their "Web Check-in" service, they usually give you 500 or so extra frequent flyer miles.

Cheers,

Jonah K

One thing about web check-in service is that it is assumed that your seat is confirmed up to boarding. When you're standing in line at the gate is not the time to find out that your E-ticket is invalid or was cancelled later on because of some human or computer glitch in the system.

Sure it takes a few minutes later to stand in line and get a green felt tip-penned annotated boarding pass at the counter, but this way you know up to that last possible minute of checking that everything is as planned and should not have any problem at the TSA or boarding lines, human eyes has determined that there is a God and you will board without the embarrassment of having to be pulled aside looking like some kind of terror suspect.

[shaveice]

Re: hawaiian airlines

thanks for the feedback/comments. miulang, regarding the receipts, did you know that printing the receipts is optional and will not be printed automatically? after the tickets are printed, a new screen will appear and ask if you wish for the receipt(s) to be printed. in my case, i pressed the "yes" button and the machine printed 2 out of the 3 receipts before giving me an error screen. i didn't think the receipts were needed so i just left, assuming that the boarding passes would be sufficient. in fact, the receipts were totally unimportant. i showed it to them but it was irrelevant. the boarding passes that i had did not have the required signature of a security worker so they didn't allow us to board the plane.

about getting some kind of compensation like free tickets, i wasn't even thinking about it. even now, it would be nice to have but i won't give it a second thought if i don't get anything. what would make me happier is a sincere letter of apology (they don't have to say that they were "wrong") but a letter where a) some hawaiian air rep says something about looking into the printers inside those machines and b) some security rep says that all workers will be informed of the need to sign boarding passes so that they and hawaiian air will be on the same page and so that a similar incident will not happen to someone else.

i'm usually a pretty tolerant person and can go with the flow but i was particularly upset cuz my elderly parents were at the kahului airport waiting to pick us up...

[Miulang]

Re: hawaiian airlines

thanks for the feedback/comments. miulang, regarding the receipts, did you know that printing the receipts is optional and will not be printed automatically? after the tickets are printed, a new screen will appear and ask if you wish for the receipt(s) to be printed. in my case, i pressed the "yes" button and the machine printed 2 out of the 3 receipts before giving me an error screen. i didn't think the receipts were needed so i just left, assuming that the boarding passes would be sufficient. in fact, the receipts were totally unimportant. i showed it to them but it was irrelevant. the boarding passes that i had did not have the required signature of a security worker so they didn't allow us to board the plane.

...

If you had check in baggage, didn't they ask to see your boarding pass? They asked for mine so they could match it up with the baggage tag I got.

Miulang

[shaveice]

Re: hawaiian airlines

If you had check in baggage, didn't they ask to see your boarding pass? They asked for mine so they could match it up with the baggage tag I got.

Miulang
. . . . . . . . . . . . .

no checked in baggage; we flew in on sunday and flew back to honolulu that evening so the delay cut into our already short trip...

(actually, i'm not sure i understand your question. we couldn't board the plane we were supposed to be on and we were later issued new tickets for a later flight...)

[Jonah K]

Re: hawaiian airlines

One thing about web check-in service is that it is assumed that your seat is confirmed up to boarding. When you're standing in line at the gate is not the time to find out that your E-ticket is invalid or was cancelled later on because of some human or computer glitch in the system.

Sure it takes a few minutes later to stand in line and get a green felt tip-penned annotated boarding pass at the counter, but this way you know up to that last possible minute of checking that everything is as planned and should not have any problem at the TSA or boarding lines, human eyes has determined that there is a God and you will board without the embarrassment of having to be pulled aside looking like some kind of terror suspect.

Hmm, I always have a confirmed seat on Hawaiian Airlines, even if they have to bump someone. I guess that could be one reason why some folks might end up with "invalid" or "cancelled" E-tickets.