“Yes, actually, we are that stupid”: my irrational rant against the airline industry

Sarah’s plane was supposed to land 10 minutes ago. Instead, it appears that her plane decided to sit on the tarmac in Detroit for 40 minutes for no apparent reason. The Northwest website, which very helpfully provides both a map and some written details about the flight, displays quite contrary information. According to the written details, her plane has left the gate. According to the map, she is somewhere over Ohio.

(As soon as I finished typing that sentence, my phone rang. It was Sarah. Yeah, they’re already on the ground. So Northwest is even more screwed up than I thought they were. Continuing now, having brought her back home.)

Almost everyone has an airlines-are-terrible story, whether due to a flight delayed overnight (I’ll never forget my night at Vegas airport – disaster) or security issues or whatever. Airlines are reliably unreliable. Yes, I know flying is contingent on uncontrollables such as weather. Yes, I know air travel stimulates all sorts of things in the economy and allows families and friends to see more of each other than they otherwise would. But I am tired of BILLIONS of my tax dollars going to one of the world’s most inefficient industries.

Exhibit A: Real conversation with an airline employee when I was trying to get back to DC after the holidays a few months ago.

Me: “Hi, your website wouldn’t let me check in online, said I had to come to a kiosk?”
Worthless attendant: “Yes, let me help you.” (She takes my documents and spends several minutes punching them into a computer. Then several minutes on the phone, apparently on hold. She is looking very concerned.)
Me: “Is there a problem?”
WA: “Oh, our computers are just saying you don’t exist.”
Me: (blink) “You mean you don’t have a record of my ticket?”
WA: “We have a record of your ticket. But you’re not cleared to fly.”
Me: “Not cleared by who?”
WA: “By the government, of course. According to this record, you do not exist. And we can’t let you through without that clearance.”
Me: (pointing to the identification I handed to her) “Well, as it says on my ID, I actually work for the government.”
WA: “Yeah, I saw. That’s really weird.”
Me: (thinking: “You’re telling me…”) “Does it help that I flew with you less than a week ago?”
WA: “We still have to clear it with the government. It will just take a few more minutes.”
Me: (thinking: “I… am… the government…”)

I did make it through eventually, but I had a similar conversation with another attendant, same airline, the last flight I took back to DC. I told her that her airline was the only one giving me grief about checking in online.

WA #2: “Well, you just have one of those names.”

One of those names?!? Only one in ten people in my life can spell my first name correctly. Are you seriously telling me I’m on the level of John Smith?

I will never, ever tell any boss of mine to vote in favor of the airlines in any way, shape, or form. They deserve whatever they have coming to them if they can look at a person straight faced and tell them they don't exist.

I have more important things to tend to right now, but I just had to get that out. I feel better already.