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How exactly does one confuse Philadelphia with Baltimore? Maybe it was the fact that both states have vowels in their names.
It's great that AirTran helped her out without charging her, though. I'm just not entirely sure how someone could make their way through three or four pages of selection, confirmation and payment without noticing Baltimore, MD anywhere. And it would be on the information she would need to check in and board.
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@pecan 3.14159265: For the record, I live in Washington, DC and I frequently fly out of Regan, Dulles or Baltimore. If you have multiple airports close to you and fly frequently, it's difficult to remember which airport you're flying from. I feel like Joy took responsibility for her own actions and didn't request or expect the Air Tran people to fix it. Mistakes happen and Air Tran should be applauded for going above and beyond.
@pecan 3.14159265: Not sure if this scenario applies to Joy, but if she lives somewhere near Harrisburg PA or Wilmington DE, she might be in the habit of flying out of whichever airport has the better fare or is more convenient that day. She might have just forgotten which one she booked from. Either that, or she moved recently, and accidentally entered BWI out of habit. Whatever happened, it's nice of Airtran to fix her mistake at no extra charge - I'm sure it helped that Joy was willing to admit that she screwed up and didn't try to blame the airline!
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@pecan 3.14159265:
Philly and Baltimore aren't states; they're cities. I don't know how you could make such a mistake :-)
@tbax929 is rooting for a Phillies repeat: D'oh! Can't believe I did that. Okay, I concede. Off to get more coffee.
@pecan 3.14159265: My boss wasn't fond of me one day when I purchased tickets to the wrong airport. Unfortunately he didn't notice until he and his big client had arrived at the wrong destination. It happens. Not sure how it happens, but it does. :(
Aside from that, I've also managed to show up at the airport on the wrong day. I'll never forget how nice the Finnair lady was as she put me onto the flight at no extra charge, while managing to ignore my hysterical giggling.
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@pecan 3.14159265: If she booked through a 3rd party site like Travelocity or sidestep, they will often suggest alternate airports to provide you with more options or better pricing. Alternate airports for BWI include PHL, so I would guess that if she was searching for travel out of PHL, BWI (which is a much larger airport than PHL) would come up as a potential alternative.
If she was not paying attention, it would be very easy for her to look at price or schedule and assume it was for PHL, and bot notice it was BWI.
@pecan 3.14159265: If she was checking ticket prices at multiple airports, I think it could be pretty easy to accidentally select the wrong airport. If she's looking at BWI versus PHI, at a glance I think they would be similar enough to get confused, especially if you're in a rush. And a lot of airline tickets don't list the full city and state - they just list the three-letter airport designation.
@Hil-fish: But it's PHL.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to blame the OP. I get that everyone makes boneheaded mistakes once in a while.
@pecan 3.14159265: What I don't get is why AirTran would charge that huge amount for what normally is a 1 1/2 to 2 hour drive from Balto to Philly?
I've never booked a flight myself so I guess that's the norm?
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@bloggerX: I'd guess there's a difference in airport fees, a difference in volume at the airports, perhaps the airline even has a hub - or at least flies more volume out of Philly. It's generally cheaper to fly in/out of hub cities than to fly in/out of cities that are spokes. Just they way they work.
@bloggerX: Why do they normally charge a huge amount to change your tickets?
Because. They. Can.
Three years ago my husband had a really bad flu the day we were supposed to fly home to VA from CA. Delta charged us $150 each to change to a flight on another day. There was no question about there being room on the later flight, and the flight we were supposed to fly on was overbooked, so they weren't going to lose much money by letting us switch, if any. But we were trapped, and they knew it, and they took advantage of it. Because that's how they roll.
@Hil-fish:
It's price discrimination, pure and simple. You can avoid change fees if you really want to; you just have to buy a more expensive fare class. For an airline, the flexibility to change your schedule or itinerary at will is seen as a value added service that some people (i.e. business travelers) are willing to pay extra for. They charge the high change fees as a way to discourage high dollar business travelers (who may need to fly on short notice and change their schedule at the last minute) from flying on leisure fares (for people who've planned their travel months in advance, are unlikely to change their plans at the last minute, and fly rarely so they don't really have much loyalty to an airline and its frequent flyer program). Check out the difference in price between a bargain basement, non-refundable coach fare and a fully refundable full price coach fare sometime.
@Powerlurker: It's more like this:
In the beginning, there were only high fares...and airlines found out they had empty seats. They had to find a way to keep people who were willing to pay a lot from buying cheaper tickets, so, like you said, price discrimination was implemented.
The other reason airlines charge so much to change flights is to discourage actions that could result in empty seats that, had you planned better, they could have made revenue on.
Basic thinking is this: As long as your flight costs less than 13 cents/mile, you should be thanking the airlines for giving you a great deal.
Keep in mind that the airline industry has never been cash-positive, so it's not like we're just bilking you to fund our lavish parties or something.
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@pecan 3.14159265:
1) What are the airport codes? If it is by airport code it may be possible to confuse the cities.
2) So... let me get this straight... never, in your entire life, have you been harried and busy and/or tired, had to make a plane reservation or schedule something, and not made a mistake? You must be a joy to live with/work for.
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@JGKojak: PHL and BWI. No real similarity, shouldn't even be next to each other on a dropdown menu.
I'm guessing she used to live in Baltimore area and the old habit hasn't died yet.
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Why leave Philly right now??? Sure, the public transportation is threating a strike, but that doesn't spoil the joy of watching the Yankees-Phillies play or the Giants-Eagles!
@bloggerX: Oh man, I remember how backed up SEPTA was last year when the Phillies had their victory parade. If there's a SEPTA strike on top of that, that's going to be just awesome. :-/
@bloggerX:
No kidding. All things being equal, I'd rather be in Philly.