Travelers are lashing out at airlines for poor customer service after this week's storm on the East Coast left thousands stranded and unable to get through to reservation agents.
Travelers are incensed over what they say is the airlines' effort to blame everything on the weather and take themselves off the hook.
"We don't blame the airlines or airports for bad weather, but it's their responsibility to be prepared," said Brandon Macsata of the Association for Airline Passenger Rights. "The airlines just seem to be saying, "Suck it up.' People are tired of sucking it up."
Travelers calling to rebook flights earlier this week in huge numbers were put on hold for hours or told to call back later because the major airlines have fewer reservations agents to take their calls.
For example, Continental cut 600 call-center jobs - nearly one-fourth of its 2,600 reservations workers - in February. A few months before that, it closed a center in Florida and cut 500 jobs. American Airlines cut about 500 when it closed a center in Connecticut.
United Airlines has 10,000 customer-service and reservations employees, down from about 15,000 in the early 2000s, according to Rich Delaney, president of the machinists' union, which represents the workers. United once had 17 reservations offices; it now has three, he said.
The airlines cut staff because so many people now book tickets online. The airlines themselves encouraged the trend by charging customers a fee to book over the phone.
US Airways imposed mandatory overtime for customer-service workers to handle calls during the storm. American Airlines said it asked people to cut short vacations and extended the hours of part-time workers at call centers and airports.
It still wasn't enough to handle a volume of calls that was more than twice as high as usual.
Travelers, many of them visibly exhausted after living at the airport for two or three days, said they were unable to get basic information from airline employees.
"I waited four hours in the queue just to speak to someone - just to get the news that I have to wait a few more days," said Tommy Mokhtari, who was stranded at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport while trying to get to Dubai. "They really need to have a backup plan.
Some travelers had better luck calling travel agents back home instead of dealing with airline agents standing a few feet away.
Major U.S. airlines have canceled more than 9,400 flights since Saturday.