[seeker80]

I had a normal bad flying experience over the New Year's holiday and was going to file it away with a dozen others until the economy intruded. My job is looking a little shaky and an old friend/boss has offered me a job with his firm. The problem is I will have to commute via airplane due to the fact it is 1000+ miles away. The wife has a great job with a large pharma and I can't ask her to give it up. So I will fly to work and I am filled with dread. I used to fly alot when I worked for an international bank in the 90's and saw the US airline industry deteriorate to junk status. And I don't see it getting any better soon. It is so bad, I just haven't flown for pleasure because they will try everything in their power to screw up your good time.

But since this is a airiline complaint site, let me give you my latest experience. It is a rather mild one compared to some I've had (a London/JFK/Indianapolis was epic).

We were flying out of Ft. Lauderdale on Jan 2 on a bright, sunny day. Departure was delayed because weather in ATL delayed our aircraft inbound. No problem. I have such low expectations when I fly, I really didn't care. Pushed off an hour late and the flight crew assured us our connections are probably also delayed, so we should sit back and relax because our connections will be there. A perfectly logical conclusion on their part that had as much validity as me predicting where the stock market will be in 3 months.

We land in ATL about 10 minutes before our scheduled connection departure. It is showing on the board as on time. We, of course, are 2 terminals away. We head down to the tram and see it pull away. I look at the wife and tell her we must run if we want to get out of ATL now. We come running up to our gate to see our airplane pushing away from the gate and a gate agent involved in a shouting match with 8 passengers. Seems these folks got to the gate after the gate door closed, saw the aircraft out the window and opened said door.

You know the rest of that story...shouting, little supervisor with a serious power trip, police, threats. I loved it. When I flew alot and the SNAFUs would occur, I used to pass the time watching people melt down. I have run some fairly large operations in my career and have always found airlines to be the least fundamentally sound operations. Ever. They never fail to drop the ball when the pressure is on.

The ATL agent is in full defense/shutdown mode and just keeps telling the new folks showing up to go to the customer service counter to be rebooked. We go stand in line for a few minutes before the clerk behind the counter shouts "if you haven't tried using the phones on the wall to contact reservations, don't even bother coming to the counter".

The phone res. books us on the last flight out (only one with open seats for the next 4 flights), but also puts us on standby for the next flight. She was very good. Go to the counter for the standby flight and the agent, trying to be helpful, says let me see if I can find you a seat on a later flight. I tell her I already am and she says I can't be both on standby and booked. My wife looks at me and gets ready to start and I tell her to stop. I said, fine, I will keep the booked flight and go sit in the bar. I just refused to lose my temper while I'm on vacation. Their inconsistencies and incompetence were not going to ruin my day.

Had a nice 11:15 pm flight which meant we were in airports for 13 hours to complete 3 hours of flying. And, of course, our luggage wasn't there. No where to be found. I laughed. Went back the next morning and it was in front of another carriers' luggage office.

Typical.

And I am filled with dread.