John’s Blog

posted by admin on Aug 13

It was a short trip. I tried to make it as easy as I could. Nonstop. 90 minutes. No checked baggage. Ground transportation pre-arranged.

But I was flying out of Logan. I expected securty to take a long time. They’ve had a history of security problems in the past, and I was expecting it to take a while. So, following the directions in my confirmation materials, I arrived two hours early.

Check-in took all of 30 seconds. With no baggage to check, I entered the confirmation number at the kiosk, and it printed a boarding pass. I was ready to go. I was relieved to see that the flight was on-time. I’ve heard horror stories.

I hadn’t eaten, so I stopped for dinner before going through security. It didn’t take long — you can only kill so much time eating airport fast food.

So with 90 minutes to go, I went to take on security. It was the usual stuff. Shoes off. Laptop in a separate tray. The whole thing took about five minutes. I packed everything up and headed for the gate.

There are three gates inside security. The first thing I noticed was that it was crowded. Very crowded. Too crowded. At all the gates. I found mine, and was relieved to see that my flight was still on-time. The only problem was that the flight before it was late. And the flight before that was late. And that one should have left five hours ago.

At the terminal, there were no seats. There was no open wall space. There was barely room to walk. There was a line of about 20 people in front of the counter, but no one working it. This could take a while. I decided to get in line, because I figured I would have a question by the time I got up to the front. Plus, there was no where else to go.

Twenty minutes went by. An airline employee — one airline employee — appeared. He made an announcement. Flight #1 was coming from Baltimore. It hadn’t left yet. Flight #2 was in the air. It would be here by 8:00, and then depart again at 8:30. That was only about 2.5 hours late. Flight #3 was also in the air. It would be departing at 8:30. At least, that’s what I thought he said. True, he was only standing about 15 feet away, but he was using one of those PA systems that the fast food companies ripped out of their drive-throughs because nobody could understand anything. Plus, he seemed to be having some difficulty with the language.

Another half hour. I inched my way toward the front of the line. By this time, the board behind the counter had been updated to reflect the new times. We were making progress. Finally, I made it to the front.

“You have two flights leaving from the same gate at the same time. Are you expecting further delays, or are you going to change the gate?”

Smile. “We’ll see.”

“What’s the reason for the delay?”

“Weather.” Apparently, airplanes don’t work in the rain. Maybe they’re solar powered now. I don’t know. This guy certainly didn’t have the answers.

“Thanks for your help.” He didn’t understand sarcasm, and, since I was wasting everyone’s time at that point, I just moved on. I later learned that “weather,” in airline-speak, actually means “we’re not admitting it’s our fault, so don’t even ask for anything even though you should have been home by now and we’re going to keep you sitting in this sweaty terminal for another three days.” But I didn’t know that at the time.

I was still a little hungry, so I looked for a snack. There was a cart set up in the corridor that had snacks and soft drinks. The soft drinks didn’t have prices on them. I took that as a bad sign. I looked at a candy bar. $6.50. I’m not that hungry. You know those little packages of crackers they give you in family restaurants when you order soup? $1.98. No thanks. I’ll eat on the plane.

I finally found a seat at the next gate over, and read an e-book on my laptop until the battery died. Then, I listened to my mp3 player until I was out of new podcasts. I heard an announcement. Remember the teacher in Charlie Brown? It sounded a lot like that. All I heard was “Akron.” That was familiar. I would like to go to Akron. Tonight, preferably. After all, I have this little piece of paper that says you’ll take me there if I give you money. And I gave you the money. Months ago. You promised.

Reluctantly, I gave up my seat and walked back to the gate. Lots of people were walking toward me. Good sign? Maybe. There was another line at the counter. And the announcement was over. And the board hadn’t changed. I missed it.

I saw the airline worker leaving. I followed him. He went to the next gate. Another announcement. This time I was standing right next to him. My flight had changed gates. They would be boarding shortly. We would be leaving at 8:15. Only 75 minutes late. Must be my lucky day.

So the people who were already at our new gate weren’t particularly happy. There were already three planeloads of people occupying every possible square inch of living space, and these interlopers were coming in to take their plane. Some of them were still waiting for their 12:30 flight. A few of them were going to Atlanta to catch a 4:00 flight to Los Angeles. It was already 8:00, so they were debating whether to spend the night in Boston, or try to get to Atlanta, so they would at least be closer to home in the morning. They told me about the airline definition of “weather,” and lamented that the hotel was going to cost more than the plane tickets. We were still in Boston, after all.

I wished them luck and got on the plane.

Remember when you were in elementary school, and the school didn’t have any money? They used to pack the kids in on the bus. “Three in a seat,” the driver would say. We hated that. The seats were designed for two. Even if we were a little smaller, we still didn’t really fit. But school buses are luxury stretch limos compared to airplanes. Imagine riding three in a seat to, say, Mars and back. With someone sitting on your lap.

I found my seat. Window seat. I only had one small bag, so I kept it with me rather than risking the overhead bins. I sat down, and fastened my seatbelt. Then I had a problem. I wanted to put the bag on the floor, but my legs were in the way. There wasn’t any room between my knees and the seat in front of me. So I stretched my legs as far forward as I can, put the bag on the floor of the seat next to mine, and slid it under my knees. Perfect fit. No problem. As long as I don’t need anything out of my bag for the flight, I’ll be fine.

My seat neighbors joined me. I would have liked to have said that they were 6′2″, 350 pounds, and definite violators of the little personal space I had left, but they weren’t. They were nice enough people.

Eight-fifteen. Time to go. Greeting from the captain. Safety drill from the flight attendants. Check of the overhead bins. Lights dimmed. Nothing. I adjusted the air vent. The air was blowing in my eyes and drying my contacts out. I tried to turn on my reading light, but it didn’t work. I looked out the window. Nothing. Quiet. The captain came on. He was afraid he had some bad news. We had 75 more minutes before we could leave the gate.

The lights came back on. The air vents went off. The flight attendants hid from the passengers. I shared my puzzle book with my seat neighbor. Laptop battery was still dead. I played with the XM radio thing on the seat arm. It didn’t work. I read the in-flight magazine. In desperation, I contorted my hand into my bag and retrieved my mp3 player. Jimmy Buffet should cheer me up.

“He’s on his third drink before the wheels of the plane leave the ground.” I’m not surprised.

I started doing the math. If we leave when the captain said we would, we’ll land at 11:00. De-plane, find my car, drive home. I should get to bed around midnight. The alarm goes off at 4:15. It was not going to be a fun morning.

More time. More math. I left for the airport at 3:30. If I had just driven home instead, I would have been there around midnight. Glad I decided to fly.

The captain again. Sorry for the delay. Good news. We’re clear to push back. Lights off again. We wait in line for a runway. Apparently, lots of flights are backed up because it… umm… rained earlier in the day. Who knew the weather could be so unpredictable? Thank goodness the airlines aren’t responsible for acts of God.

So we left the ground at 9:32, almost exactly 2.5 hours late. The other passengers seemed genuinely relieved that it “wasn’t so bad.” I guess I need to lower my expectations.

The flight itself was uneventful. No important parts of the plane fell off, at least that I noticed. They gave us beverages and little bags of pretzels. The pretzels had something printed on the package about how to eat cheap airline pretzel snacks. It was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek. I heard a few chuckles. I couldn’t read it. My light was still broken.

By the time we landed, I had no patience to deal with ground transportation. I walked the half-mile or so to my car and drove home. I made it to bed shortly before midnight, and awoke seconds later at 4:15.

Here’s the thing. No one else seemed bothered by this, let alone outraged. Evidently, they’re used to it. I had it easy, because I didn’t wait six or eight hours before finding out that my flight was canceled. But even the most basic tenets of doing business tell us to occasionally treat your customers with a modicum of dignity or respect. Since the airlines apparently don’t understand this, let me offer a few pointers:

• It would be nice to have at least as many seats in the gate area as you have on the plane.
• Remember when you used to have those little monitors that told people about arrivals and departures? Those were kind of nice, because we could see when delays were happening, or when our flight was going to get delayed because our plane was still in Atlanta. Sure, we were upset to see that no flights actually leave or arrive when scheduled, but deep down, we were grateful to know that we would eventually get out of the airport.
• Have staff on hand who can help answer questions and get these people where they need to be.
• Why is it that I can hear announcements made through the whole airport about security restrictions, but I can’t hear the information I need to know from the guy standing 20 feet away?
• Sometimes it rains. That’s not my fault. I still have a contract that says you’re going to take me home at a certain time. Deal with it.
• Don’t leave people sitting on a plane at the gate. It’s like sitting in the driveway for an hour before driving to the amusement park. “This car’s not moving until you apologize to your sister.” Oh, bother.
• Weld the seats in the upright and locked position. I don’t want to spend an hour and a half with some stranger’s head in my lap.
• Give it up on the snacks already. It’s stupid and insulting. Spend the extra money to splurge and give me a whole can of soda instead.
• Make your executives fly coach across the country without telling anyone who they are. Once should be enough. CEOs should have to do it Thanksgiving weekend.

The bottom line is that the airline industry — as a whole — has lost touch with any sense of customer service they may have once had. The only thing that keeps them in business is the fact that none of them are any better than the others. If you have to raise ticket prices, then do it. But stop treating people like cargo.