Plan B Forum

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Bay Area woman trapped in airport for eight days–all for lack of a $60 baggage fee



Sure, hurricanes and unseasonal blizzards can create major delays in air travel. And the ordinary air traveler faces plenty of exasperation via the heightened, and not always rational, security measures of the Transportation Safety Administration.

But Terri Weissinger, a native of Sonoma County, Calif., has suffered a new scale of airport indignity: Seeking to start a new life in Idaho, Weissinger was condemned to eight days in the limbo of the San Francisco International Airport--because she was unable to pay the fee her airline assessed for an additional piece of checked baggage.

As Michael Finney, a correspondent with the local ABC news affiliate KGO, reports, Wessinger, "was broke" when she left for the airport. (You can watch Finney's report in the video clip above.)

"She had nothing but an airline ticket and $30 in her pocket." She also hadn't traveled by air in the last five years--meaning that when she stepped to the ticket counter to check her bags, she was in for a serious case of sticker shock. The U.S. Airways agent checking her in told her that it was cost $60 to check both her bags. Weissinger offered to pay the fee when she arrived in Idaho, but the agent declined. She also offered to leave one bag there at the San Francisco Airport. That, the agent explained, would be in violation of security regulations.



Wessigner's next move was to try to scare up the full fee by calling friends in the area. She came up empty, and by the time she'd finished working the phones, she missed her flight. That's when things started to get truly Kafka-esque. To get a new flight "she'd have to pay her bag fees plus $150 in change fees," Finney notes. Without a place to stay nearby, Weissinger stayed the night at the airport. She awoke to more bad news: U.S. Airlines explained that, since she couldn't pay a change fee, she'd have to book a new flight from scratch. That would run about $1,000.

For the next week, Weissinger could do nothing but wander up and down the San Francisco air terminal. At one point, she says, she was treated for anxiety at the terminal's medical clinic; when she sought police assistance, she reports, she was nearly brought in on vagrancy charges. Her ordeal stretched out over eight days--and it only came to an end with the generous assistance of parishioners at a chapel called "The Airport Church of Christ." They gave her $210 that covered the original fee arrangement that Weissinger was able to restore with U.S. Air--the $150 change fee together with the $60 to check her bags.

Weissinger says that she never saw any baggage fee notification when she booked her flight on the online travel service Orbitz--nor did her travel itinerary carry any such notification. There is, however, one small silver lining in this whole grim Tom Hanks-style saga: Weissinger was traveling in April, and since then, federal rules have forced online travel services and airline reservation sites to feature prominent notification of baggage fees prior to booking a flight. As for U.S. Airways, an airline representative told Finney that "We have apologized to Ms. Weissinger, but unfortunately are unable to offer a refund. When you purchase a non-refundable ticket, you accept the terms and conditions. If a passenger cannot travel with their bags, they need to make other arrangements."

Translation: A U.S. Airways apology and $60 will get you two checked bags.

Scooter wrote:Well, seriously though, what exactly was the airline supposed to do for her?

She didn't have enough money to pay a fee that every other passenger is required to pay. What basis did they have to make an exception in her case? ....

Sorry, no sympathy for acting like a complete idiot.

Scooter wrote:And I went on Orbitz to test her claim that she did not see any warnings about additional baggage charges. Without even getting to the point of actually paying for the flight, there were no less than three notices about baggage fees (with links to more detail) that would have been staring her right in the face as she navigated through to select and book her flights, in all cases immediately adjacent to whatever she would have had to click on to move on to the next step. She was a victim of nothing but her own carelessness, and again, that engenders not a shred of sympathy from me.

Weissinger was traveling in April, and since then, federal rules have forced online travel services and airline reservation sites to feature prominent notification of baggage fees prior to booking a flight.

Yeah, she at very least could have offered to give blow jobs to travel-weary businessmen in the airport bathrooms.

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Bay Area woman trapped in airport for eight days–all for lack of a $60 baggage fee

A British woman was strip-searched and locked up in a German prison cell for two weeks after being arrested for an alleged 'crime' a former boyfriend had been suspected of committing years earlier.

Tracey Molamphy's nightmare ordeal began during a 2008 flight to Munich with her then-boyfriend, Lee Chapman.

German authorities arrested the 40-year-old after her name was flagged up on an immigration database.

For the next two weeks she was forced to share a cell with a heroin addict for more than 22 hours a day, and was just hours away from being extradited to Portugal - where the alleged offence had taken place 12 years earlier - before her lawyers were able to secure her release.

German officials made the arrest as the result of an incident which took place in 1996 while Miss Molamphy and Mr Chapman were holidaying in Portugal. Mr Chapman was unknowingly in possession of £120 in counterfeit notes and when he tried to get the money changed, the couple were arrested.

They were detained for 24 hours but, after a brief hearing conducted entirely in Portuguese, were released without charge - or so they thought - and simply ordered to leave Portugal on the next flight out. For the next 12 years the couple travelled regularly throughout Europe without incident - until Miss Molamphy's arrest in Munich.

It transpired that Portuguese authorities had charged Miss Molamphy with being an accessory to forgery and that, under European Arrest Warrant legislation introduced in 2003, she could be detained and extradited anywhere within the EU without evidence. Mr Chapman escaped similar charges because Lisbon officials did not have his address.

Miss Molamphy, from Lancashire, told the Sunday Telegraph: 'When we found out what it was about, he [Mr Chapman] told the Germans it should be him in custody, not me, but they took no notice.'

After two weeks behind bars, Miss Molamphy's team of lawyers were able to obtain bail and the charges were eventually dropped - but only after Miss Molamphy had spent £20,000 in legal costs. Had she been extradited back to Portugal, she faced months in custody awaiting trial and up to five years in jail for her 'crime'.

Miss Molamphy, who split from Mr Chapman in 2009, is now suing the Portuguese authorities for wrongful imprisonment and mental anguish.

Describing the experience as 'horrible', she said: 'It's really affected me. It's knocked my confidence and I was really down about it for a long time. We spent a lot of our savings on legal fees. We worked hard for that money and it was hard to lose it.'

The incident has been condemned by human rights watchdogs who say that Miss Molamphy's action, which gets underway in Lisbon this week, will be a test for the controversial European Arrest Warrant law.

Fair Trials International chief Jago Russell told the Sunday Telegraph: 'Tracey is the victim of a fast-track extradition system which is being used for the most petty crimes and years after the alleged offence.

'Her case is just the tip of the iceberg. Last year alone over 1,000 people were extradited from the UK under these laws. Until they are reformed, many more are going to suffer this kind of ordeal.'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1cy0jebKz