Motus Mentis

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.