Skybus - Not recommended

(Repost from myspace. Btw, this airline went out of business 7 months after this.)

Skybus - Not recommended

Jason and I flew on Skybus to Ft. Lauderdale this past weekend. I thought it was a great deal for $140/ticket and we just bought the tickets two weeks ago.

You get what you pay for.

The plane had radio problems and couldn't be repaired, so we had to wait until another plane was available. Therefore the flight was delayed four hours. (However, we weren't aware it was going to be this delayed until several hours later.)

You don't get assigned seats, you just get in line and then sit where you want. We weren't sitting in the right place, so when they told us to start lining up, we ended up in the middle. We stood in line for two hours, waiting. They finally told us it would be another hour and to take a seat. Most people just left their luggage to hold their place and wandered off. (With the PA announcements stating that you shouldn't leave your luggage unattended, it was quite funny.) It was truly a mess.

Also, since there's no ticket agents, no 800-number, you have to do everything through the internet. We wanted to find out if we could get a refund, or apply our tickets to another date, or even get a flight the next morning. We could not. They told us if we had internet access, we could email the company to ask, but we were sitting at the gate without a laptop. Not sure what they expected us to do.

They don't have pillows or blankets on the flight. They don't serve a meal or any drinks. They sometimes (emphasis on sometimes) have food and drinks to sell, but of course, at outrageous prices. We packed food and bottles of water for the trip home yesterday. We also packed food and drinks for the way down, but ate them while waiting for the plane. Oh, that's another thing, everything in the airport closed at 9pm. So when they finally announced that our flight was delayed, there was no where for anyone to get anything to eat or drink. There were vending machines, but people found out (the hard way) that it only took quarters. Even the pilots had a difficult time finding something to drink. There was a place outside of the gates to get food & drink, but you couldn't bring the drinks through security.

So our flight was supposed to take off at 8:00 pm and get in at 10:30 pm. We left at 11:45 and got in at 2:15. We also had a 90 minute ride to Naples, so we didn't get to bed until 4am. (And I felt bad asking Mom & Gary to pick us up at 10:30 pm.) It was a mess. Oh, and there were people at the Ft. Lauderdale airport at 2:30 am waiting for our plane to take them back to Columbus. That means they weren't going to get in until 5:30 am. I guess we have nothing to complain about compared to them...