Passenger bemoans experience with Cape Air service

While a crowd of athletes, fresh from their competition in Pohnpei, poured out of the sliding doors of the airport in waves of the Commonwealth’s light blue colors, one man stood anxiously waiting, eyes fixed on the sliding doors, awaiting something less warm, not a friend or a family member but something as potentially important to his life: his luggage, which Cape Air was unable to provide him with on his arrival on Saipan the day before.

Alan Wickman, in an interview with Saipan Tribune, called his recent and most likely last flight with United, “the worst flight of my life.”

He said he had booked a ticket for Saipan as late as a month ago but when he got aboard in Guam, he was “kicked off the plane” because it was full.

On top of that, the airline lost both of his luggage.

“It took me three hours to find them. [United] finally got me to a hotel at midnight,” he said.

When he finally arrived on Saipan the next morning, he said it took passengers an hour to get off the plane as a crewmember could not get the door to open.

“Everyone was freaking out,” he said.

He noted that one passenger had been stuck in Guam since last Thursday and another since Saturday, and were both kicked out of their flights.

“Everybody was upset, everybody was mad, and then I get here [on Saipan] and they lost my luggage again. It was awful, absolutely awful.”

He noted that the airline’s service crew seemed like they did not cooperate well with each other, as he felt like “they didn’t care.”

He gave the example of a United service where his flight’s gate was changed, and then changed again at the last minute, as the flight was about to leave.

“We’ve got to walk another six blocks that way, and possibly miss our flight. I don’t understand why they do that,” he said.

He noted he made a lot of friends on his recent flight as collective frustration grew amongst passengers.

“They were not being shy with it,” he said about passenger frustration.

He said from this flight he could gather a general example of what people suffered under United service.

What [United would] do is, you’d be bumped off a flight, right, and they would put your bags on that flight, and you sit there going, ‘Okat, I’m here for a week’ [without] clothes. My money’s in there, my wallet’s in there, y’know, my socks and underwear, my toothbrush are in there, my bills are in there and I’m here for a week, what are you supposed to do?”

Cape Air has been experiencing a spate of flight cancellations in the last few weeks, mainly due to “mechanical issues.” United has been providing accommodating flights for stranded passengers between Saipan, Guam, and Rota.