Howdy! Sorry for the delay. I've posted a blog every Monday for two years now, but this week has been crazy and I didn't have time.
Anywho, I've previously mentioned how the Crowdstrike outage stranded me in New York days after the initial glitch. Replacement flights for a route that's generally under $300 one way, were between $700-2000 due to surge pricing which really shouldn't be allowed in general, but especially not during bulk flight cancellations. My husband accepted the refund from Delta, as it was the popup notification announcing the cancellations, and he was half asleep at the time. We'd literally woken to the notifications a half hour before we were to head to the airport. By accepting the refund, he waived Delta's obligation to cover the price difference of rescheduled flights. I was supposed to be flying back to New York, from Texas, in ~two weeks anyway, to take a road trip to Cedar Point roller coaster park, in Ohio, for my nephew's sweet sixteen, so it didn't make sense to spend an obscene amount of money flying home, just to fly back so soon after. Instead my husband bit the bullet, heading back and relieving our pet/house sitter. I stayed put, flying from NYC to Dallas yesterday, a day after the Ohio trip concluded. I was then supposed to fly from Dallas to College Station yesterday afternoon, but due to a handful of hiccups that didn't happen.
There was a mechanical issue after I boarded my American Airlines flight at LaGuardia, delaying takeoff for ~40 minutes. Then, arriving at Dallas-Fort Worth airport, another plane was at our intended gate so we taxi-ed for ages, finally de-boarding a terminal away. While we were taxi-ing, I got the boarding notification for my transfer flight. DFW is a big airport and there is a tram between terminals. Using the DFW map, I raced to the gate, taking the tram, but found the gate had closed. The customer service representative I approached said I'd missed boarding by only a couple of minutes.
I explained what happened. She said the next flight, which would be late at night, was full, so being on standby wasn't looking good. There would be another flight in the morning but I wasn't offered a hotel nor meal voucher, and being on standby, my seat wouldn't have been guaranteed. I declined being put on standby, called my husband, and he drove the three hours to pick me up, then the three hours home. Our epileptic dog received her evening medication very late but we didn't have another feasible option.
Today, Wednesday August 7th, I called American Airlines customer service, as advised by the representative at the airport, and requested a refund. She said to request it over their site tomorrow, that due to technical constraints both trips are currently still assigned to my itinerary but should drop off today, at which point the request can be placed. I should be issues a partial refund, to cover the missed flight, but they will do nothing to make up for my husband having to drive a total of six hours yesterday, over their mishap.
It's very frustrating. This experience wasn't unique. My husband and I joke that there is a curse on Dallas airport because every single time we've tried to transfer there onto a flight to College Station, it has been an ordeal, either been cancelled outright, or like today, there wasn't enough time for the connection to be made. The pattern is obvious to the extent that I avoid transfers home from Dallas. Had this not been a work night, I'd have flown to Austin or Houston instead, even though the College Station airport is minutes from home. I have zero faith I'll ever land there. Better for my husband to have to drive two hours home from Austin, 4 total round trip, and one and a half from Houston, three total, than three from Dallas, that amounts to six, all told.
Worse, the issues with flying domestically (I can't speak for internationally) have been pervasive since the Covid 19 pandemic. John Mulaney said Delta Airlines is where life is a "fucking nightmare" but it's all of them, all of the major USA airlines. Prior to Covid, I had one story-worthy flight debacle, and that was in Europe, because Air France was on strike. The majority of my flights, and I traveled more frequently then, were easy. It's not easy flying anymore. I have to bank on there being delays, cancellations, on missing connecting flights due to airline mishaps. Since Covid I've flown to Vegas twice, NYC a handful of times, and my husband has flown to D.C., Chicago, and Denver, off the top of my head. It's been chaos every time. He's had to sleep at the Dallas airport twice due to sudden cancellations.
My in-laws were supposed to fly from South Carolina to NYC on August 6th, via Jet Blue, their usual airline. There was a storm in Chicago, where they plane was reportedly supposed to be arriving from, so their flights were cancelled at the last minute with no warning. They were returning from a large family event and the lot of them were forced to rent a van to drive all the way home because the next flight wasn't until the following day and the airline wouldn't pay for hotels. The flight was cancelled "due to weather" so the airline wasn't obligated to fund their extended stays, but the weather was states away. Certainly the airline should've been obligated to figure out a better solution than leaving a family stranded states from home. If they couldn't pull a plane from elsewhere on short notice, then they should've chartered a bus. Something. Not leave their passengers to figure it out.
I see headlines about how the Biden Administration is holding airlines accountable, and I personally reported my experience with Delta to the Department of Transportation, but the consequences aren't severe enough given how airlines continue to slight their passengers. I would like airlines to be legally prevented from overbooking flights, banking on cancellations. When flights aren't full, I'd like the airlines to be obligated to fly them anyway, rather than allowed to cancel them, stranding passengers and leaving them on standby lists. There need to be more specific standards for what weather extremes they can alter flight itineraries over, and where that weather can with with regards to the flight paths. If the weather isn't on the direct route the flight is to take, that shouldn't count. There need to be better protections for personal property, including luggage, but more so for disability aids. Wheelchairs can cost tens of thousands of dollars and airlines are notorious for destroying them. Ideally, I'd also like it to be easier to bring pets into the cabin. I'd happily buy seats for my 30-35lb dogs, but I will never risk their lives by stowing them.
It's just a shame. I used to look forward to going to the airport, perusing the mall, reading and napping on my flights. Now I dread flying because it's always an ordeal. If Amtrak had pet-friendly cars for my medium sized dogs, I'd use them to visit family for the holidays.
The airlines need to be better regulated, and the Biden administration is dropping the ball, letting them get away with being so disorganized. It's like the CEOs and their boards realized how much they could get away with during the pandemic and never went back. Now the passengers suffer. My single biggest voting issue is that I'm anti-genocide and therefore voting against the Duopoly, but it would be nice to see anyone running on a platform of more stringently regulating the airlines. It's appalling that they've been allowed to continue like this for so long.
Thanks for stopping by. I drop a new blog post every Monday (except this past one!). Toodles!
Newsletter
Hi! This post is late and fairly light. I was spending time with the in-laws so I've not been very productive lately. However, I did finish the painting I started last week.
I'm currently reading What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami. It's nonfiction, and more about is running than writing, as you may have guessed from the title, but overall interesting.
My husband and I are saving to buy a house, and what with inflation, I'm probably re-entering the standard 9-5 work force to build our savings. Thus, anticipate similarly brief newsletters going forward. I'm not great at balancing multiple jobs, and it'll be art and writing that suffers. Still, it's only temporary. The goal is to buy a house in a year or two, closer to family.
Thanks for stopping by! I drop a newsletter every Monday. Toodles!
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