Last weekend we went to Chicago for a wedding. We flew round-trip from Boston, on American Airlines.
Our departing flight was scheduled for 2:13 p.m. on Friday. We checked a bag and went to the gate, but just before we were to board, we were told that our aircraft, a Boeing 737, was having some sort of problem with its engines, and that the maintenance crew were taking a look. The flight was delayed for an hour, then for another hour, and then again. The gate agent reserved us tickets for a flight early the next morning, but the airline offered us no voucher for overnight accommodations, because we live in Cape Cod, two hours away by car. (A room at the nearby Hilton would have cost us about $600.) We worried that sooner or later the flight was likely to just be canceled, but weren’t sure whether we ought to wait and see if it was eventually going to go, or try to get on another Friday flight (and sort out refunds, etc. later).
After waiting a bit longer, we spoke to a different AA agent at the service desk — a fat and sullen fellow — who told us that we had in fact actually been taken off the original flight, that our bag had been removed from the aircraft, and that in order to retrieve it we’d have to leave the security area and go to the baggage claim. When we got there, we were told that our bag hadn’t been removed at all, and so we’d have to request it. I waited by the baggage claim for 30 minutes or so, where it finally appeared.
We then learned that the flight we were originally booked on still hadn’t been canceled, and that we were still booked on it. So we re-checked the bag, and went back through security, and back to the gate, where the flight was now listed as departing at 9 p.m., using a different plane. It did indeed get going (at around 9:30 or so, as I recall), and we finally made it to our hotel in Chicago at about half-past midnight.
Our flight back on Monday was scheduled for 4:48 p.m. — another American Airlines 737. At 4:15, again just before boarding, we were told that the aircraft was having some maintenance issue, and would be delayed. We boarded a little over an hour later, then sat in the plane at the gate for another 45 minutes or so, at which point the pilot explained that the problem was with the system that pressurizes the toilets. We had two choices, he said: we could wait for a new plane, or take advantage of the fact that above 16,000 feet, the differential between the cabin pressure and the ambient pressure makes it possible to flush the toilets without the onboard pressurization system. (This would mean locking the lavatories for a while at the beginning and end of the flight. By unanimous voice-vote, we opted to fly, and so we did.
So: two American Airlines flights, two Boeing 737s, two mechanical issues, two inconvenient delays — a small sample, admittedly, but a 100% failure-rate. The previous time I flew, a couple of months ago, I was delayed by a software failure that affected flights nationwide. When our son came to visit over the summer, his flight to Cape Cod from NY was delayed for seven hours due to mechanical problems, and when he flew home a week later, his flight was delayed for hours and finally canceled, and he ended up taking a bus from Hyannis to Boston, and then a late-night bus back to New York.
I’m old enough to remember when we used to be pretty good at this stuff, with far more primitive technology. I’d ask “what the hell is going on??”, but really I guess I know the answer, and I suppose you do too.
9 Comments
Well Malcolm look at the bright side.
At least y’all didn’t book an overnight flight to the ISS. With a layover at Chicago’s O’Hare.
I’m just not sure at the moment, whether the answer to your rhetorical question is
DEI
or
Affirmative-action
…but then, they’re basically subsets of the same virtue-signalling stupidity.
MM,
Yes, all that and so very much more.
Malcolm, the travails you describe sound like America of the 1970s. Shoddy workmanship, simple things breaking, lack of planning by those responsible for it and oh by the way, we employees are not being paid fairly and should unionize. Or if in a union we can strike so we get more and then everything will work better all around.
The 1970s of course was long before DEI and not too far into AA to study its track record.
Yes, you make a good point, Robert. I had a ’71 AMC Gremlin (if you can believe it!) and it was unspeakably shoddy. I remember other cars of that era being equally lousy — the Ford Pinto comes to mind, which you’d often see with bumper stickers saying “Hit Me Easy, I’m Full Of Gas”.
I think this was due, back then, to the fact that the US was the unrivaled hegemon of world manufacturing, and we’d become lazy and complacent for lack of competition. Germany and Japan snapped us out of it by making way better cars that took over much of the domestic market.
Now, however, we seem no longer to be napping; this time around it feels more like senility and exhaustion. We’ve given up.
Flight delays are frustrating, but flight safety is an impressive example of continuous improvement. In the 1970s there were over 30 fatal commercial airline crashes in the US. Since 2009 there have been none, even though passenger miles flown have tripled.
For family reasons, we travel between Northern Colorado and Tucson several times per year, usually by car. When recently flying that trip, I was annoyed by a 3 hour delay. No fun, but still better than our regular drive of 14 hours over 2 days with an overnight stay in some crappy-ass town like Socorro, NM.
dp,
You make a good point also. I wonder how much longer that streak will continue.
Perhaps it will: I can certainly imagine that AI might have an important role to play in air-traffic control.
Between your comment and Robert’s, I’m starting to think that my tone might have been a tad too grumpy and pessimistic in this post! But it does seem that every flight I or any of my family have been on recently has been either delayed or canceled, usually due to equipment and maintenance issues.
I suppose I should look up some stats on the prevalence of flight delays in recent years. Perhaps I’m leaning too heavily on anecdotes, and imagining something that isn’t there.
P.S.
Data here. (Worse, but not badly so.)
Malcolm, “We’ve given up” then we have finally started to catch up with Western Europe meaning-we are an entitlement society in many respects. Hope not.