Why I Hate Flying

I’m in WI again this week for work. So you already know that I am not in the best mode. My time at Detroit Metro Airport did not help the situation.

Anyone thinking that jet setting around the country is a glamorous life is clearly uninformed about typical airline service. Just for this segment of my trip alone, I’ve already been subjected to far more customer service nightmares than I would accept from any other industry on the planet.

I was given a reservation on a flight that was overbooked. One of the joys of flying that you quickly become accustomed to is the fact that airlines regularly sell more seats then they have available on a flight on the theory that a certain percentage of people will cancel or miss the flight. This of course means if everyone actually shows up, someone (perhaps several someones) who were sold a seat will be forced to wait for the next flight. In what other industry would we accept this?

My flight was 2 ½ hours late leaving the airport. Of course, they didn’t come right out and tell us that. Instead, they changed the departure time every half hour for 2 ½ hours. No ability for us to get dinner or look for somewhere to hang out for a while. Just sit around here and wait for us to get to you. In what other industry would we accept this?

And no explanation either. In fact, when we initially asked the attendants what the delay was for, they claimed they had no idea. No idea? What the heck is that little screen there in front of you for anyways? That’s just being too lazy to find out. Look, I’ll accept a lot of delay if you will just tell me why I’m standing around this gate. No explanation immediately makes me think that you are just fucking with me. In what other industry would we accept this?

Finally, 2 ½ hour delay with no monetary kickback is ridiculous. My transaction with you was to give you money in exchange for getting me to WI by 8pm. Not, “whenever the fuck we get around to taking off”. I can understand weather delays, but I’m fucking pissed when you tell me that you discovered at the last second that your plane can’t fly because of a minor mechanical problem that took YOU 2 hours to fix (a screw had fallen out the stairway leading into the plane). That’s not my problem. You failed to live up to your end of the bargain. In any other industry when you fail to make a customer happy, you would reward them with something to make up for it. In what other industry would we accept “well, I’m sorry but please sit here for 2 ½ hours because of our incompetence?”