Nope! No “bad service” airline stories from me! My attitude is one of … sadness. Fly IAH to ORD via DFW last night on American. (I’m a 2-million mile guy, Member of the Admirals Club since 1977.) Houston: PA system out at gate, a problem as we were both overbooked and subject to a “mechanical.” Eventually arrive in Chicago (hey, I really didn’t expect—or need—a snack of any sort on the combined 3-hour, $800 flight); no one at the ORD jetway at 11PM … we wait about 15 minutes. My bags arrived, thankfully—as I was next to the lost baggage line, about 40 deep, with 1 employee painstakingly processing claims, at 1130PM.
It’s Catch23! (One worse than Catch22.) To deal with horrific losses, AA and the Other Decrepits are all very short staffed … hopefully not extending to Mechanics! (Don’t want to go there.) I am totally unemotional about the non-existent service; it’s simply pure sadness watching the Pleasure of Flight, which stayed with me for decades, deteriorate to something reminding me more and more every day of my traveling youth on Greyhound and Trailways. The equivalence, other than price, is eerie. One wee implication, not good for the airlines: I’ll take Acela from Boston to Washington to Boston for my Christmas visit to my Mom in Annapolis this Sunday. (I’d take Southwest, but the SWA lines, esp security, at BWI must come close to worst-in-nation.) Hmmm. I used to love Hitchhiking up and down the East Coast; am I too old for that?