2002-01-05 - 11:17 p.m.

Unfriendly Skies, part 3

Okay, a couple of days have gone by since my ghastly travel experiences, and I have mellowed out somewhat. A little. I still want to put the blocks to Continental, just for being a bunch of rude bastards.

I talked to my friend, Carl the lawyer, and he immediately put a gloomy face on. Nearly every airline has a "terms of service" that allows them to get away with nearly anything, while not paying out any dollars. That way, when they DO reimburse you for getting screwed by them, it's out of the goodness of their hearts, not because they are legally obligated to. So there is not much hope in trying to threaten them with legal action.

My understanding is that most airlines will pay to put you up when they strand you overnight - except Continental, those cheap fucks. To save money they probably repair their planes with duct tape and chewing gum, a comforting thought.

I can understand why the airlines would try to limit their liability like that - I do the same thing myself. In my store there is a sign that says "All Sales Are Final," which really means "No Returns." Now if someone has a legitimate complaint, we'll happily take stuff back. In fact I'd say that's the case 19 times out of 20. However, if someone is being a jerk or trying to pull a fast one, we can point at the sign - which has been there on the wall since Reagan was in the White House.

Still, I have been given some useful advice on how to deal with the Continental by the gracious Belle (see my Guestbook) and I plan to follow up on it real soon. Considering that she actually knows the name of the person to write to, maybe she's had a sample of their "hospitality" too.

In the days since I got back I've had a chance to talk with some people more experience with airline travel than me, and they've given me a bit of perspective on what happened.

The stewardess on the USAir flight, although not as bitchy as the one on the Continental flight made it plain that airlines do NOT hold planes for late passengers, even if the lateness is the airline's own fault.

That's odd. I distinctly remember waiting in a plane for other passengers on a late connecting flight to board. Of course, this may have been 13 years ago, back in the vanished Golden Age of Nice Airlines.

Oh and that's another thing: the question of "fault." Basically, the airlines are only obligated to you if what happened to you was their "fault." I put this word in quotes because the concept of fault seems to be very narrowly defined. Something is the airline's fault only if it involves 1) Crew Error (i.e.: the pilot lands the airplane at the wrong airport) or 2) Mechanical Failure (i.e.: the wing falls off). Everything else is Someone Else's Fault, usually the airport's.

Of course, since I'm not sitting up there in the cockpit with the pilot, it's hard to say exactly why our planes were both late. True, our flight into Newark was delayed by problems at the Newark airport, but there were other things that Continental DID have control over. The plane was half an hour late taking off from Albany, and we sat on the ground for half an hour in Newark waiting for the plane to back into its little slot. Continental owns an entire WING of this huge airport. Surely they have some sort of influence over the ground crew.

However, the thing that really pisses me off is that Continental DID reimburse SOME passengers on our flight down, but unfortunately I have no way to prove that. Next time another passenger tells me something like that I'll be sure to interrogate them and make them show me documentation!

In the days since we've gotten back I've talked this over with a number of people and gotten some perspectives on air travel in the 2000s. It's clear that we could have done a couple of things differently to improve our chances of not getting screwed. This is not to say that we actually did anything wrong, it's just we didn't understand how badly airlines are performing these days. You need to buffer yourself against their ineptitude.

First, both ways we were taking the last flight out for our destination that evening. While flying at night essentially extended our stay and gave us an extra day, it made sure that when we missed our connecting flights, we'd have to stay overnight. If I ever fly again, I'll pick flights earlier in the day.

Second, both going down and coming up, again, the connecting flights were very close in time to each other. In both cases we had less than an hour layover. While this, if it works, makes for a pleasantly speedy trip, if it doesn't work you get screwed like we did. In my defense I will say that before this debacle I have NEVER, EVER missed a connecting flight in my life - I simply didn't expect it to happen. Now I am sadder, but wiser.

Third, and this really is an addendum to the last one, our layover times may just have been too short, PERIOD. At both Newark and Pittsburgh our connecting flights seemed to be MILES from the gates we were let off on. A half hour is not long enough to sprint across a huge airport while hauling your carry-on luggage. Even if we were on time or only a couple minutes late, we might have missed our planes anyway.

And fourth and last, I think next time, IF I fly, I will book the tickets through a travel agent. Lily got these tickets online, and while that's a cheap, convenient way to book air travel, I think there are important benefits to using an actual human. These advantages were pointed out to by my editor at the newspaper.

A travel agent is an experienced professional, and might be able to help us avoid making the first three mistakes enumerated above. Air travel has changed since the days when I was a semi-frequent flyer, and a pro would have known better what was going on. Also, when something goes wrong they would be better able to get some concessions out of the airlines, simply because they are used to dealing with them. Also, as my editor pointed out, travel agents are much bigger customers for the airlines than any one traveler could ever be - the airlines definitely don't want to piss them off.

So live and learn, I guess. After all is said and done there is still one thing I can say:

CONTINENTAL AIRLINES SUCKS!!!!!