[dward]

A flight to Milwaukee to attend my nephew's graduation turned into a 27-hour surreal nightmare. We sat on the tarmac for 90-minutes after being diverted to O'Hare, supposedly there were no gates available anywhere in that huge airport. We were told there would be busses for us to Milwaukee. 45 minutes after the "bus time," we were told to go to a gate for a flight to Milwaukee. The agent at the gate had no idea why 100+ people just stampeded to her gate. After a loud confrontation with "suits" who shouted over the loudspeaker demanding patience, we were offered meal vouchers if we stood in line and showed our ID - in the amount of $5.00 (wow, how generous!). Another gate was eventually designated. The plane that left that gate sat on the tarmac for two hours allegedly due to an air traffic control issue. Once back in the terminal, we were offered a choice - take a regularly scheduled bus (capacity 50) or try again on the plane after refueling. We took the bus (having run fast enough to be among the first 50 to get to it - we're 60 and 70 years old respectively). Throughout, the USAirways personnel (with hardly an exception) were astoundingly nasty, uncaring, and incompetent. Only after a huge amount of correspondence, including a list of most of the passengers sharing e-mails about their pursuit of compensation, we get an offer of $200 toward future travel on USAirways - as if we'd ever use that!