Well, my ordeal with US Airways continues. Last Wednesday, my cousin took a train from Salzburg to Munich and was supposed to fly from Munich to Philadelphia and onto Dallas. When all was said and done, she had to spend two nights in Munich, one night in Philly, and ended up arriving in Dallas on Saturday morning.

Under the EU’s EC Regulation No 261/2004, she should be entitled to some compensation (600 Euros) even though she was flying on a US-based carrier. So today, I set out to make the claim on her behalf (her English is pretty good but she is a bit shy) and see what we needed to do to make sure she was compensated for the delays and cancellations. Not surprisingly, this ended up being a frustrating task.

First of all, there is no mention on USAirways.com regarding the steps that need to be taken in these types of situations, so I used the passenger rights sheet US Airways handed to my cousin (to their credit) in the hope that it would lead me in the right direction. It turned out to be like those workers’ compensation posters employers hang on the wall. It has some general info that no one at US Airways has any clue about.

The numbers on the EC 261 hand out were for the Munich Airport Desk and EU generic agency. Neither of which could tell me anything about what I needed to do to make a claim.

I then found the Customer Relations number on the US Airways website and went through the prompts to try to find a human to no avail and was directed to another number for ticket refunds (not a toll free number). On Sunday this number redirected back to the original number I had called (putting me into the phone equivalent of a maze with no exit).

OK the gauntlet had been thrown down (I was/am now on a mission), so my next step was to call reservations (surely someone would answer that number) and ask for a supervisor. I was able to get a human who said they “thought” this was handled by ticket refunds but they were only open on weekdays.

I should note that I was on my best phone behavior because it does no good to put anyone on the defensive.

Monday morning I got in and organized my desk to do some work as I prepared the location of my speaker phone to be in ear shot fully expecting to be listening to “muzak” for a while (Did you know Frank Sinatra can belt out over 18 tunes in an hour?).

Tick Tock, Tick Tock exactly one hour and 10 minutes (on a toll number) later an agent picked up, Steve.

Of course Steve listened intently as I quickly sped through the story and he quickly admitted he had no clue what to do but he assured me if I faxed over the information he would get right on it and call me back.

Steve, can I have your last name? (no), Badge Number? (no), call back number so I can skip the 70 minute wait? (no). OK, Steve I trust you to call me right back (I know — I should have asked for a supervisor). I faxed over all the relevant materials to the number he gave.

No callback from Steve, at this point on Wednesday morning.

It’s truly baffling to me, at times, how the airlines get away with treating customers the way they do. People on the phone often act like you’re trying to pull a fast one on them, as though you’re trying to claim compensation that you have no right to.

Well, I’ll keep you updated. In the meantime, I’m trying to convince myself it could be worse. After all, my cousin told me that a fellow passenger missed her own wedding because of the delays.

(Read my latest updates on the US Airways ordeal — US Airways: The Final Battle?)