The Saxton family spent six days at SLC Airport before getting a flight home (ABC News 4)A Virginia family spent six days stranded at Salt Lake City International Airport before a generous donor purchased them a flight back home.
"We just sit and walk around and wait for our flights," Curtis Saxton told local affiliate ABC 4. "We've been here for every flight, rolled over for every flight," said Saxton. "We're still at the bottom of that list."
Curtis Saxton and his wife Nicole Bennett, along with their 13-year-old daughter Sadee and 4-year-old son Dominic, had used a relative's buddy pass, to fly from Virginia to Utah.
Buddy passes are technically lower-end version of standby flights, meaning that the Saxtons were forced to wait until all passengers, including regular standby requests, had been seated.
And with so many Americans traveling on summer vacations, there just weren't any seats available on their return JetBlue flight. So the family was stuck at SLC Airport from Aug. 15 through Aug. 21.
Even worse, they were forced to sleep on airport benches and because of limited funds, could afford to eat only one meal per day. "There's a lot of people walking by and staring at you and kind of laughing at you," said Bennett. "It doesn't feel very good."
The family hadn't even been able to shower since the day they arrived at the airport. "You feel gross," said 13-year-old Sadee. "It's embarrassing."
The family said neither they nor their relatives could afford to purchase a ticket back to Virginia at the standard price.
However, once news of their plight was reported, donations quickly arrived. United Airlines purchased a motel room for the family and an anonymous donor purchased them a ticket back to Virginia, which they used on Wednesday morning.
Before the donations arrived, things had gotten so bad that 4-year-old Dominic began vomiting on Sunday and had to be evaluated by airport paramedics. "I have been hungry, hungry, hungry, hungry!" Dominic said.
It should be noted that JetBlue did nothing wrong here. In fact, the airline said it was without options, as it could not take away tickets from other paying passengers on flights that were already fully booked. A independent survey of airlines passengers released by J.D. Power and Associates in June ranked JetBlue as the top industry airline for customer satisfaction for North America.
No sympathies here, if one is too poor to travel (especially with children) then don't.
Your collective inability to acknowledge this obvious truth makes you all look like fools.
I'm inclined to agree with you about the irresponsibility of the parents not planning for emergencies, but I do have sympathy for the kids caught in this situation....it certainly isn't their fault...
I was kind of disappointed when I opened this thread...from the title I naturally expected that rube had posted his holiday snaps...
I tend to agree as well Jim, but I do think that some people (even very intelligent ones) have absolutely no idea what sort of restrictions are placed on the tickets they're travelling on, and not all that many people could afford to cover the epxnenses for nearly a week's delay in their return in this paycheck to paycheck, credit crunched country of ours. It's all well and good to say they should plan for contingencies, but some might say "I have a ticket there and one home and can cover my expenses for the holiday, so let's go", not recognizing the likelihood of their travel being interrupted or planning what to do if it is. Silly, but not all that surprising.
No one in the airlines is at fault here, but I do think they could do a better job explaining what the restirictions on/conditions of travel are and what is the likelihood it might be interrupted (and who is responsible for what at that point).
I think we all used to travel like that when we were younger, but some of use just never got beyond it--even with kids. And as i said before, I do think sometimes the airlines don't make it all that easy to understand what our real risks are.
