How would you have handled the situation if you were kicked off a flight for apparently no reason?
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84 thoughts on “Passenger Kicked Off Hawaiian Goes Viral + Our Experiences”
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How would you have handled the situation if you were kicked off a flight for apparently no reason?
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A while ago I also had an issue when flying 1st/business from mainland to Oahu. There was a family of 4 (a father, mother, 4-5 year old son, and 1-2 year old baby). They were in seats 1G, 1H, and 1J. I was in the row behind them. The son thought the seats were a jungle gym, climbing all over them. When he was not all over the seats, he was bawling his eyes out. The father was drinking most of the time, not taking care of his children. The mother was focused on carrying the baby. The flight attendant only asked the family to quiet down after some passengers complained. I spent $3000 for the roundtrip, but it was so not worth it. When I complained to headquarters, they gave me a $100 credit towards my next HA flight.
Agree with the companies figuring out how to make money without providing customer service. Fwiw, I work restaurants in Miami, one Michelin starred. That level of customer “service” would result in termination. Super competitive. Fwiw
I would have left the minor child on board, let the plane depart, then notify the airline that the plane disembarked, after your removal. Let them handle the public outcry and have them answer for their major screwup and see what they did eith the minor unac ompanied child!
You never ever do something that could traumatize a child. This parent did everything right. Hawaiian Airlines did everything wrong.
Always, always check the status of your Hawaiian Airlines flight status. Hawaiian has changed flight times on us and others we know many times without any notification in recent years, especially interisland flights. Customer service is not the least bit concerned that you may have been inconvenienced. It’s not the way to run an airline but Hawaiian gets away with it. Don’t ever take for granted that your flight plans are “locked and loaded” with Hawaiian. Double-check your itinerary before you go! And do not let them get away with trying to charge you a change fee.
Hi Rob+Jeff Per your post, I checked my Lihue-Kona flight again(2nd time) and saw that they had changed my flight+departure again. Called Hawaiian direct and told the agent it was not acceptable. She rebooked me for a later flight albeit a stopover of 1hr in Honolulu. I made sure no charge for changing the flight was included. Will be ✓ing it now every week until we leave. Took an hour to reset the itinerary.
Hi Debra
Thanks. We are both doing the same thing with future itineraries that you are. Still perplexing. Flight changes are normal; not notifying passengers certainly is not.
Aloha.
My husband and I booked tickets to the mainland. We recieved a confirmation email with a confirmation code. When we arrived at the airport our itinerary wouldnt pull up. After waiting in line for customer service they had no record and said it was due to an error on their website from being ‘overloaded.’ Luckily there was room on the flight but we didn’t get the seats I had paid extra for. Hawaiian has really gone down hill but when your main competitor is southwest the bar is just getting lower and lower.
We had an issue with HA for our inter-island flight during our trip in June. We had booked our flight in Jan and selected seats with my wife sitting next to my 6 year old and me sitting with our 2 year old. Two weeks before our flight, I checked the website and noticed the flight number had changed and the seats we picked were no longer our seats. Now all of us were sitting separate. Luckily, I was able to fix the issue online. Had I not checked early, it could have been a problem. Talking with the family next to me on the flight, they had the same issue, but didn’t realize the change until the night before when they checked in and had to call HA to fix it as no seats together were available. Thanks BOH for excellent articles
Hi Matt G.
Sorry to hear about your experience, and glad it ultimately worked out. Had we not checked, the options available when we would have checked in 24 hours in advance would have been slim to none.
Aloha.
I hope a thorough investigation happens for this passenger & he receives some free tickets for X number of years. I feel that HA operates on an island vibe. This might be good for being @ a resort but a disaster for passengers. IMHO, UA, AA, DL, AS & WN are much more professional & responsive.
We just had a horrible experience with HA in OGG. Showed up 3.5 hours early for a flight to Tahiti. Tried to check in at regular counter, was told we had to go to “Guest Services” for international flights. Line was super slow as every agent at the counter was having issues. Our super young-looking agent, was reading off a “cheat sheet” to figure out what to do. She did not understand the difference between “vaccinated” and “boosted”. So, she decided that she was not letting us on the plane because she didn’t want to get in trouble. She kept running away to the back when we asked to speak to a manager This happened for 2 hours! Finally 40mins before departure, a competent manager came out and got us checked in and on the way.
Not HA biggest fan, but considering they handle 10 million passengers a year, I think some grace is appropriate! Props to the jilted passenger for keeping his cool and setting a good example for his child. We need more of this kind of civil behavior in the world. Some mistakes are just mistakes, nothing more, nothing less!
Aloha,and I must admit I don’t think I would have been nearly so complacent. They owe this guy and his daughter a lot more than his reimbursement. HA better take a very close look at what went wrong from purchase to the supervisor who denied him any recourse back at the gate.
Wow. Kudos to Ryan for his restraint. I would hope I could react similarly in such a situation, but I doubt it.
It’s a great story of how some people are still civilized in this wacko country. As for myself, let’s just say I’m part of the wackos, wish I could behave the same as that man. Have not been kicked off a plane, and do not want to be tested. Great step for mankind.
Thank you, BOH, for this info. I had tickets for a flight in early October but have decided to cancel them. There is no excuse for Hawaiian in this day and age to treat passengers with that kind of indifference. Thankfully I have the means to fly any airline I chose and Hawaiian will no longer get Any of my business. Mahalo.
Hawaiian is a badly run airline. Used to fly Aloha many years ago and when they went out of business, we kama’aina were stuck with HAL and their monopoly attitude. Thank God for South West—free baggage and no change fees and more aloha.
Our experience with Hawaiian Airlines is they are great to fly, but, trying to have an intelligent conversation with their reservation and customer service reps is close to impossible. To me it seems to be a training issue as last month in a telephone conversation with them I had to make the rep aware of HA’s ticket change policies. I have also had them try to charge us with change fees when they changed the flight schedule. Just yesterday my friend said he has better luck using the “chat” box that pops up. We have 3 future flights booked with HA. Love the information supplies by “Beat of Hawaii”!!!
Hi Marty.
Thanks. Good reminder about trying chat instead of calling. Also wondering if the wait times might have been shorter.
Aloha.
We recently had six flights canceled by Hawaiian. One from the Mainland and five interisland flights. Fortunately, all flights worked for us.
Sometimes, things work out.
Chuck A.
HA changed my fligh without notification too. We are traveling Kona to Tahiti. They changed our Kona to HNL flight which gave us a very short layover in HNL which is something you do not want since they only fly to Tahiti once a week. So if you miss that flight you are out of luck until next week. I’m going to keep checking my itinerary on a regular basis until we fly.