As noted on Grrbear's blog, the L&B Crazy Fun Nuptials(TM) was a mighty good time. And exhausting. Undoubtedly, y'all will hear stories about the crazy fun aspects of the trip. But this mornings (short) post will involve a rant against American Airlines, whose service yesterday was - in a word - sucktastic.
We had two legs to get back to the Bay Area: one from Chicago O'Hare to Dallas Fort Worth and the second from Dallas to San Francisco. The leg from Chicago to Dallas was fine. No complaints. The plane left 4 minutes after schedule and arrived with plenty of time to catch the connecting flight. But when we got to Dallas, things went down down down hill. Like, way down hill. Our flight, which was supposed to depart at 5:20pm, got pushed back to 6:47, then 7:09, and then 7:25. I don't even know when the damn thing actually borded and left. The most annoying part was that our plane was parked in the jetway all the while (i.e. - we weren't waiting for a different flight to come in) and there was no explanation by the airline as to why we were delayed and when the issue might be resolved. When we got in the air, the one beverage service (there should have been 2) was dissapointingly missing baggies of pretzel snacks (boo!). And when we finally got to SFO (2.25 hours later than expected), there was a plane parked in our arrival gate and we had to wait "5 minutes" (which SLOWLY turned into 45 minutes) on the jetway because the airline was too lame to direct us to an unused gate. I was crabby and hungry* as hell and decided, on the spot, that A.Asslines would be getting a letter**. By the end of our day, which began at 5am PST, I was pretty damn beat when Jiggity and I got home at 10:30pm PST (4 hours later than expected). I was even less happy when my alarm went off at 6:45am this morning, but it's the price one pays for a kick-ass good weekend.
In the middle of our long wait in Dallas, Jiggity came up with the theory that all flights departing Dallas are purposefully delayed so that passengers are forced to buy food from one of the MANY food vendors (all of which serve Pepsi products, by the way). This made us think back on all other departures from Dallas and we concluded that all of them (3 in total, including our trip to Chicago on Friday) were delayed. Conclusion? Pepsi = evil.
I can't have a post about the Asslines without mentioning our flight from Dallas to Chicago on Friday. For that flight, we not only had a delayed departure (because our crew was stuck on another delayed flight), but we had to wait for 20+ minutes on the runway when we arrived in Chicago because the ground crew couldn't find our plane.
Sucktastic!
*In my opinion, they should have broken into the unpurchased snack boxes to keep the angry passangers from cannibalizing their neighbors.
**A letter which will undoubtedly go unwritten.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
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4 comments:
Sucky! You should totally write a letter - you will get stuff!
My last trip through DFW was uneventful, but next to me was a flight to MSP that was delayed two hours (i.e. it was still there when my flight to MSP was supposed to take off). Those folks were mighty pissed, but that was Northwest, not American.
Way in the past, Cap'n Mikey and I flew American through DFW to MSP, and all I remember is a full-out sprint to make our connection.
The only thing I like about DFW is that they have Au Bon Pan - I'm very in favor of nontraditional (i.e. not fried) fast food options.
Glad you made it back - I'm so much peppier than I was yesterday, and I wish the same for you tomorrow after you get a good night's sleep!
Write a letter, write a letter! Demand a miles voucher for your pain! So few people take the trouble to write and complain, I think it gets a reaction. I'm always saying I'm going to write a letter, too, and rarely do. I'd emphasize the lack of information - because that's something they have control over.
I'm also in the "write a letter" camp. I mean, what, 75% of your flights were late by more than an hour? That's riconkulous.
Demand either they give you eleventy-billion dollars, or a crapload of miles. They'll pick the crapload - trust me.
Write a letter! Get a free flight! Write one for Jiggity too, and you'll get even more free miles!
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