In Its First Week, Independence Air Has Hits, Misses

ATLANTA

The good news for the passengers on Independence Air Flight 1205: The airline was placing them on another flight to get them out on time and avoid an approaching summer storm.

The bad news: Airline ticket agents seemed not to know Independence's computer system well enough to rebook the passengers smoothly.

It was the second day of operation for Independence Air and I was already on my fourth flight, testing the nation's newest low-fare carrier, based at Dulles International Airport. For more than 14 years, Independence Air had existed as Atlantic Coast Airlines, a regional flight operator for United and Delta Air Lines.

It picked the summer to strike out on its own, hoping to avoid weather problems that could befall it in winter. But it learned pretty quickly that summer storms can wreak equal havoc on airports, especially Atlanta Hartsfield and Dulles.

The gate agents struggled to rebook the 18 or so passengers on Flight 1205. After about 10 minutes, the agent looked at me and several other passengers and suggested we have a seat. She would bring the boarding passes to us after she printed them out, she said.

I declined, and instead watched her struggle with the computer. She then asked the customer service trainer, who was too busy working with two other agents to help. Frustrated, the agent pulled out a book titled "Customer Service Training Manual" and tried to figure it out for herself.

About five minutes later, we had success. She handed us our boarding passes for the new flight. Other passengers seemed slightly put off by the incident. "We're happy to get on an early flight," said Lance Retter of Atlanta.

"But they seem a little disorganized," said his wife, Rose. To which her husband responded, "But that doesn't mean they won't be good."

The Retters were forgiving of what may have been only opening week glitches because they were able to purchase two tickets to Dulles for about half of what they would have normally paid. Just three days earlier, they bought two round-trip tickets for $160 apiece. To get those prices, they said, they normally had to book weeks in advance and fly into Baltimore-Washington International instead.