2001-12-28 - 11:26 p.m.

Flying the Unfriendly Skies

I know it has been a while since I updated, but I was on vacation in a place where my computer access was rather limited. I know that my entries have been sporadic for the last couple months, but I am going to try to get back to near-daily entries now. I know I've promised that before - let's see if I can deliver now.

In the meantime, I have just a little catching up to do.

For the holidays, Lily and I flew down to Southville to visit her parents. Of course "Southville" is not the real name of where they live, but it will do for now.

Last year we drove down there, and it's an experience I didn't want to repeat. The story of that visit is here. I find the last sentence of that entry rather ironic now: "I'd certainly go down and visit Lily's folks again - but next time I'm taking an airplane."

Ha! If only I had known!

This was the first time that I had flown since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, and only the second time that I've flown since 1990. I've never really minded flying, in fact I've always kind of liked it. Nearly all my experiences will airplanes and airlines have been positive ones, and I have none of the phobias about planes crashing that other people do. Even with the events of Sept. 11 in mind, I really did not have a problem with flying.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, that has changed.

For some reason I was rather apprehensive about this trip. It wasn't that I was worried about seeing Lily's family, I was more concerned about the trip itself. I fretted that my almost chronic lateness was going to cause me to miss planes. As it turns out, my fears were both justified and unjustified. I WAS going to miss planes, but it wasn't going to be my fault.

For some reason, yesterday just seemed to go by like a nightmare in slow motion. I had a lot of things I had to do before I left, and I worked hard to wrap them up all day, but everything seemed to be at an almost dreamlike crawling pace. I kept running into long lines, slow-moving people and unexpected traffic everywhere I went. It was maddening.

The ultimate irritation (at least it seemed so at the time) was the last-minute discovery that we had no ride to the airport. A miscommunication between me and my employee Skippy resulted in me having to call a taxi on short notice.

The taxi actually got to our house very quickly, much to my relief. The driver was a woman in her late 40s with a lilting Jamaican accent. She seemed like Miss Cleo's aunt or something. She made some strange pronouncements about how "everybody likes somebody," and then told us she had a long story to tell us, but then fell silent and forgot to continue. Oh well.

To my great relief we actually got to the airport with nearly an hour an a half before our flight. Little did I know, the fun was just beginning!

We got to the USAir ticket counter, only to discover that our flight out had been delayed by an hour - assuring us that we would miss our connection at the US Air hub in Boston for Southville. USAir then passed us over to Continental Airlines, who had a flight leaving for Newark in 45 minutes, with a connection to Southville. If we hurried, we could just make it.

We got our bags checked in quickly, and got through the security checkpoints in jig time. It looked like we were going to show up down in Southville an hour earlier than on our previous flight.

Then the problems began. The airplane was about 20 minutes late taking off from Albany, but the captain assured us that we would make up the time on the way.

He very nearly made good on his promise, but then there were troubles down in Newark. First off, there was some sort of emergency landing on one of the runways, so we had to circle in the air for a while, waiting for a runway to open up. And then, to everyone's extreme irritation, we sat on the ground for nearly half an hour, waiting for a tow truck to back the plane into its parking space.

Did you know that airplanes can't back up by themselves and need a truck to help them do it? Well, I didn't know it, but now I do.

Nearly everyone on the plane had connecting flights to make, and as we sat on the ground waiting people began to look nervously at their watches.

However, the most surprising thing about this part of the experience was the attitude of the Continental flight crew. The stewardesses and even the pilot kept making these rather defensive "it's not our fault, you can't blame us" statements. At one point I was asking the stewardess if there was something I could do once I got out of the plane that would improve my chances of making my connecting flight, she interrupted me before I even finished the question with one of these "denial of responsibility" screeds. She practically bit my head off.

So much for flying the friendly skies.

After an interminable wait we finally got off the plane. We had been told that there was going to be some sort of ground transport to help us get to our gates, but there was nobody to meet us when we got off the plane. So Lily and I took off at a run.

We got to the gate for our connection about 5 minutes late, and the plane was gone. Our initial flight was late, but the connecting flight was right on time.

It was then we got our second nasty surprise. We went to the Continental customer service counter, and there we saw most of the people who had been on our plane. They were all being told the same thing: there were no more flights out of the airport that evening, and they would have to spend the night in Newark. Adding insult to injury was the fact that Continental was refusing to hand out hotel and food vouchers to their stranded passengers! The line they were giving everyone: they weren't obligated to pay for everyone's inconvenience because it wasn't their fault!

Okay, whose fault is it then? Well, according to them, it was the airport's fault.

I'm sorry, but that explanation stinks. Continental seemed to own most of the concourse, and the connecting flight was Continental as well. Didn't they have any control over the ground crew? Couldn't they have held the plane for five lousy minutes? Couldn't they have gotten the initial flight out on time, like they did the connecting one?

At the time, I was actually kind of mellow about this outrage. I think I was more preoccupied with just finding some food and lodgings for the night. Lily, on the other hand, was steaming.

I think the thing that held most of our anger in check was one of the passengers ahead of us in line. She was a skinny woman with glasses and short red hair, and she was utterly irate over the way Continental was treating her. She was shouting and swearing, and at one point said that if Continental wasn't paying for her hotel room she was "going to kill somebody."

Lily and I and the other passengers in line looked at each other, pie-eyed. This is not the sort of thing one says loudly in these days of almost paranoid security. We half expected uniformed guards to haul this woman away in handcuffs, but she eventually stormed away under her own power, without vouchers.

Her cranky rant had the odd effect of calming the rest of us down. It was easy to see that she wasn't getting anywhere with the stone-faced Continental bureaucrats, and she was just making an ass of herself.

I should point out that the attitude of the Continental employees at the "Customer Service" desk was no better than that of the flight crew. They were arrogant and snippy, like us being stranded in Newark was OUR fault instead of theirs. Unbelievable.

We wound up spending the night at a Ramada Inn near the airport. In spite of Continental's incivility, I have to say this - the Newark airport made it very easy for us to find accommodations and a place to eat. And there was a free shuttle to take us from the airport to the hotel, thankfully, so the financial screwing we were getting was somewhat limited.

The next day brought a new round of headaches. We had to get up at the crack of dawn to catch our flight out, but we got through the security checkpoints quickly. We tried the Continental "Customer Service" counter again, and found a new bunch of arrogant shitheads. They did give us vouchers for an overpriced airport breakfast though.

At the gate for our flight, we saw several people from the flight the night before. Lily, while talking with one friendly woman, found out that she had actually gotten vouchers for dinner and a hotel for herself and her family out of Continental. How did she accomplish this miracle? She didn't bother arguing with the "Customer Service" counter, but instead found the Continental executive offices, and hassled a manager until she coughed up some vouchers.

Ah, so Mr. Hamster has learned something new. To Continental, "Customer Service" means "people whose only function is to screen you so you don't get to talk to anyone who might actually help you."

After this, a small miracle occurred. Continental actually got us to Southville airport! Hallelujah! I almost felt like falling down on my knees and kissing the ground when I got there.

But wait, there's more!

When we got to our hotel, I called Continental's 1-800 number to see if I could get some reimbursement out of them. After being put on hold for 10 minutes I talked to yet another surly "Customer Service" person (surprise!) who refused to reimburse me. When I told him that others on my flight had gotten vouchers, he all but called me a liar. He asked me if I'd asked the people to show their receipts. Sorry, service-boy, that's the kind of paranoid shit that assholes like you do. However, it would have been helpful if I'd known the names of the people who got the vouchers. Oh, well.

However, this is not the end of it. Somehow, some way, I am going to get some money out of Continental. When I get home I will talk to a lawyer I know to see if I have any legal options. If all else fails I can try to give Continental a bunch of bad publicity.

That starts here!

If any of you can help it, NEVER fly with Continental Airlines. They will screw you, then treat you like shit and blame you for their own incompetence. I'm going to make a point of telling this to everyone I know until they cough up some cash, the bastards.