I missed my flight after waiting for an hour trying to check in and being bounced around to different desks
I just had the worst experience travelling and feel so frustrated. I genuinely want to understand if my frustration is valid or if someone else would have known what to do. I booked flights through my company’s corp travel site. The ticket I get is American Airlines. I try checking in the day before on the American Airlines website but the site keeps crashing. I figure it’s not a big deal and I’ll check in before my flight tomorrow. The flight is 7am and I get to Pearson at 5am. I try to check out at the American Airlines kiosk and I’m not able to. The screen says to wait for an attendant so I wait maybe 10 mins and no one is around. I get into the line for the desks and, although the line is not long, there are only 2 desks open and it’s 40 minutes before I’m able to talk to someone. When I get to the front she says this is a porter flight and you need to talk to the porter desk. Nowhere on my ticket confirmation does it say porter so I’m not sure how I was meant to know this. I go to the porter desk, by the time I can talk to someone she says check in is closed. She calls her supervisor, explains the situation but I don’t think the supervisor even listened. I tried talking to other porter agents but they kept talking to the same supervisor who just kept saying the check in was closed. I honestly must have been less than 5 mins past the check in time when I spoke to the first porter agent. I was on the verge of tears and getting more frustrated trying to explain I did everything I thought I was supposed to do so I just left and booked another flight. This flight was the same that the ticket says American Airlines but the carrier is porter and guess what? I wasn’t able to check in at the porter kiosk but it worked at the American Airlines. I understand there’s strict times and rules in place when you’re dealing with so many people travelling, but I honestly feel like this is set up for you to fail. You shouldn’t have to be travelling the same airline/carrier situation or do extensive research every time you book a flight to know where to go. It’s awful not being treated like a human with no accountability or understanding on the other end. I’m not a new traveller and I don’t believe there would have been any issue with me getting through security and on the flight if I had been given a ticket at that time. I had no checked baggage and no special requirements. It honestly felt like that supervisor was just getting enjoyment from turning someone down.