An extra day of vacation!!!

Tuesday, July 10

This is not the entry I planned on writing today. I thought I'd be back in San Francisco by now, not in an anonymous corporate hotel outside Frankfurt Int'l Airport. But, if you're going to travel, you have to be prepared for delays. Or not, judging by the heat raised by my fellow displaced travelers.

Briefly, because being delayed isn't worth writing about, Karen and mine's Lufthansa flight out of Florence was delayed 50 minutes, long enough that despite running from terminal to terminal, we missed our direct connection in Frankfurt to SF. The United plane was still at the gateway, but the doors were closed. They had given our seats to standby passengers, or more likely, others who had missed previous connections.

I'm guessing that almost every time an airplane door closes, there is somebody on the gate side of it who just got there and will miss the flight. We don't think about them, we are happy to have a seat and be on our way. That person, (a businessman, a family, an old woman, a first time flyer,) now gets told all the things they have to do. They have to go talk to an airline representative, they have to wait in line, they have to leave the gate, leave security, they have to wait in another line. They might have to stay in a hotel, they won't have their luggage, they'll have to wear the same clothes another day. Then comes all the consequences, like paying for another day of parking, explaining to their boss why they missed work, telling their aunt that they won't be there for a birthday party.

The first thing that happens when you buy an airline ticket is you sign all your rights away. Read the boiler plate next time, before you click the "I have read the legal disclaimer and agree to it's terms." It says you are buying a ticket, but the airline doesn't actually have to fly you anywhere. They can give your seats away, they can over book, they can loose your luggage. It's all in there, we just assume the ailine will act in good faith and take us where we want to go and in a timely fashion.


There's dry warnings about bad weather, acts of God, mechanical failure, political uprising, personnel problems. Delays are a given, they know it, and we know it, too, but nobody plans on it. It happens all the time. Just not to us right? We're good people, and bad things don't happen to good people. Yet, here we are in the back of a long, long line with other good people, waiting.

Americans are so funny when they're put off. They demand their rights, they want to speak to a supervisor, they want to file a complaint. "Somebody did something wrong, and it must be righted!" They get louder, instantly acquiring a mob mentality assuming other frustrated passengers want the same thing. Power in numbers, raise your pitchfork high, if we join together we can beat the system. All the while fuming and getting angry at the person who's most trying to help them, usually a young woman with a headset and amazing keyboard skills, who really wants you to get on another flight so you will leave her alone.

You want to talk to a supervisor? Sure, but they're even more practiced in the art of obfuscation. They have reams of scripts to placate an angry customer. This situation happens thousands of times a day, and the airline knows how to deal with it. You don't, it's your rookie season, and the rest of the team knows all the drills. Their goal is to get you on another airplane, as conveniently as possible for them.

The facts of departure times are simple. The plane leaves on time, unless it can't. Boarding time starts a half hour or more before take off. At 15 minutes they start counting empty seats, giving upgrades, and finally, taking standbys. They don't hold the plane for late connections, they don't reopen the door once it's shut. When a plane leaves late, it creates a whole world of problems and much more work for their employees, who need to get paid. It's not in the airline industry's best interest (profit/loss) to have a plane leave late for any reason.

Do you care about their problems? No, why should you? Is the fact that there are no more planes flying out tonight, or that all of tomorrow's flights are booked of any interest to me? Why does she think that an early flight with a 7 hour layover at JFK is a good idea? An agent was telling the family in front of us in line that they could fly to San Francisco via Tokyo! Another family with two small children was asked to split in half for two different flights. I guess I'm happy for the airlines that they are doing so well in the bad economy, but I'd like to go home now.

Now, just imagine yourself squatting on a wicker basket full of chickens on top of a train in India, or standing in an old school bus while descending a mountain on a goat path wide dirt road in Ecuador. Hitchhiking across Nevada at night or sleeping on a concrete bench in the bus station in White River Junction. A night in an anonymous hotel with soundproof windows under a landing strip in Frankfurt isn't so bad. Hot shower, AC, an awesome breakfast buffet, (one of the best breakfasts of our whole trip, says Karen). It could be a lot worse.

Apologies for the rant, but I have lots of free time.