Perhaps you saw the news over the weekend………..
Well, as rarely as I travel these days, I had some expensive First Class tickets purchased for Friday night (a red-eye to St. Louis, God help me) and very early Sunday morning (returning to SFO). I wanted to recount my tale to you, and help illustrate ………..
The Red-Eye
The flight was scheduled to leave at midnight, flying from SFO to STL by way of DFW. I ran out of things to do at the house, so I headed out early, at 9:45 a.m. I reached long-term parking a little after 10, then I got on the SkyTrain to head to the gate. I just had a carry-on with me, so there was nothing to check.
I got to the gate and settled in while we all waited. I was much earlier than I needed to be, but with my laptop, I can always read or get things done. The standard “This is a very full flight so we can check your carry-ons” announcement was made, and we continued to wait.
Boarding time came, and there was no announcement. There was, however, some peculiar action happening at the door to the jetway. Crew members were coming in and out, speaking to one another quietly, and opening and closing the heavy door. Those of us waiting were starting to wonder what was going on.
The announcement came that one crew member hadn’t shown up, and they were trying to find another. Huh. That’s odd. I had never heard of such a thing before. So what was the big deal? We could live without peanuts being handed out, right?
At that point I started to hear the mutterings from the people around me about the consequences of the flight getting cancelled. I heard one person mention how they were going to the island of St. John, and their connecting flight only flew a few days a week, so they would miss a chunk of their vacation. Another fellow mentioned he was the best man at his friend’s wedding on Saturday, and he ABSOLUTELY had to get on that flight. And so forth.
Well, I think you know where this is heading, and the texts I received told the story:
Well, people started to flip out. One guy with a Russian accent got so angry that the staff threatened to call the police. For myself, I put some distance between myself and the angry mob to try to finger out what I should do.
My objective was to get to St. Louis (I will rarely type those words, but there you have it). The fencing event started at 1:45 p.m. Saturday. I’m quite handy with airline schedules, so in short order I managed to figure out the ONE and the ONLY ticket to get me there was a Delta flight that left at 6 that morning and, by way of Salt Lake City, would arrive at St. Louis by 1:15 p.m. That was sufficient. So I bought another (obviously expensive, by that time) ticket and tried to decide among three unappealing choices:
- Sleep at the airport, since the flight would board in only 5 1/2 hours;
- Sleep, for $300, at the only in-airport hotel, the Grand Hyatt;
- Trundle my way back to my car, drive home, get precisely 2 hours of sleep, get up, drive back, park in long-term parking, and so forth.
Well, cheap s.o.b. that I am, and not thrilled about the notion of sleeping on the floor of SFO, I opted for (3). My dogs were delighted to see my home, and the four of us collapsed into bed with several alarms set to 4 a.m. I’ll save you the other details and simply state that I got up on time, and the Delta flight made it just fine, since Delta isn’t in the habit of cancelling flights suddenly for no particular reason.
Getting Home
In St. Louis, I started reading about how my flight wasn’t some freak incident. Hundreds and hundreds of flights were cancelled due to staff shortages. Maybe it has to do with the vaccine mandate. Maybe it has to do with people being content not to work. Probably a combination.
My flight home was scheduled at 6 a.m. on Sunday (so, yes, I deliberately had an overnight and a 6 a.m. departure, so this was a brutal trip even if everything went swimmingly). So, having been in St. Louis merely 8 hours (from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m.) I went to sleep again with my alarm set for 4 a.m.
I got up, got dressed, and hailed an Uber. As I stood on a chilly corner, the car that was to get me suddenly disappeared and then a replacement appeared, a few minutes away. So I continued to wait. Just before the car arrived, it, too, disappeared, and another car a few minutes away appeared. This happened literally 4 times, and I started to wonder if there was a micro-black home somewhere in downtown St. Louis. At long last, my driver – – a super friendly guy from Kenya – – picked me up, and we headed to the airport.
We got there, and I headed over to the counter. I had my daughter’s huge fencing bag with me to check, and so I got that, along with a small suitcase, checked, and I headed to the gate. Again, I was there far too early, but that’s OK. The announcements came normally, and we boarded the plane. OK, no problem. I guess Friday was a one-time thing.
The first segment of the flight was from St. Louis to Phoenix. We got on our way without incident. American Airlines, incidentally, appears to have very old equipment. Even in first class, the guy in front of me had a headrest that was semi-flaccid and kept flopping down. The flight attendant examined the situation, and decided to address the headrest in a very AA Way: he got a huge roll of duct tape and loudly wrapped the grey ribbon around the seat’s headrest several times. There ya go, Mr. First Class. Enjoy.
As we are getting close to Phoenix, a different fellow in the row in front of me called the steward over and pointed to his cell phone, which showed that his flight to Seattle had been cancelled, which meant he wouldn’t make it to his Thailand destination. The flight attendant, understandably, had nothing constructive to say about this. I mean, what was he doing to do? Push a button and make the flight not be cancelled? So I started to wonder if, yet again, AA was cancelling flights.
We arrived in PHX, and I checked the boards. My flight from PHX to SFO was on time and no problems. Cool. So I head over to the gate and start waiting.
Just about when the boarding was to begin, in a true deja vu experience from SFO, the announcement comes over the PA, this time announcing that not one, but two, crew members didn’t show. A loud groan came up from the group, since apparently air travelers had started to understand the consequences of this. And, thus, once again…….this is from my cell phone:
And, so, yet again, Tim the Problem Solver heads over to a corner with his laptop and figures out what to do. I quickly determine the following:
- There are absolutely no flights at all, all day, from PHX to SFO;
- There are no flights all day from PHX to any San Francisco airport (there are three major ones);
- If I drove to Las Vegas, there were no reasonable flights from there;
- Nor from Tucson;
- Nor from San Diego;
- Nor from Flagstaff, which evidently doesn’t even HAVE a real airport;
- Not even from Los Angeles;
- It was a nearly 12 hour drive from PHX to my home
I finally hit upon a very creative solution: Palm Springs! There is a tiny airport at Palm Springs that had one, and only one, ticket left. It was goddamned $499 for an economy seat on a one-hour flight, but by God, the timing would work out.
Thus, I shelled out $300 for a one-way car rent, $500 for the plane ticket, and set off on my trek across the deserts of Arizona and Southern California………..
I briefly stopped in Blythe, California, which has got to be one of the most destitute and sad places I’ve ever seen. I went to their very highest-rated restaurant, which was a Mexican grill, and I looked at the AA news. The company made claims that their countless cancelled flights were due to severe weather in Dallas which, evidently, targeted no airlines except American.
I was curious what kind of Biblical weather terrors must have been besieging Dallas, so I looked……….:
So, yeah, the CEO at AA is full of BS.
Once I finally made it to Palm Springs, a place I had never been, I was struck by two things:
- The roads are all named after dead people (Gene Autry Way, Bob Hope Blvd. Sonny Bono Concourse, etc.)
- All the billboards are either for Elder Abuse lawyers or Marijuana dispensaries
It’s actually a charming little airport. The rental car center is right there (thank God!) and the entire airport’s departure list fit on one tiny screen. I made my way to the gate and nervously waited. I didn’t have cause for alarm, though. This was Alaska, nor America. They don’t fuck their passengers.
We got on board. It was a combination of gay couples, ancient people, and your gentle narrator. The stewardess started giving us the safety lecture.
In the middle of it, about five rows back, a man with an Indian accent started calling out. “Miss! Miss! Miss!” She stopped. “Yes, do you need me?” He replied, “Yes, yes I do!”
She walked back to see what the matter was. And this man – – a grown man, mind you, told her the following: “She was kicking my seat, over and over, and I told her to stop, and then she did it again!”
At that point, every person on the planet pivoted their head around to see who in God’s name this man-child was. The crew member spoke to this agitated person for a while, and I couldn’t quite make out the conversation, but it was clear this guy was a complete infant. She finally asked, “Are you going to be all right now”
“I don’t know!”
She tried again: “Well, are you all right at this moment?”
“I guess, but she shouldn’t kick my seat anymore!”
“OK, sir, I’m going to finish the demonstration.”
And as I sat there, I thought to myself: if this guy’s commotion makes them bring the plane back to the gate, and the flight gets cancelled, and I’m stuck in Palm Springs with old people and marijuana dispensaries, I am going to cut this guy’s nuts off and wear them as earrings.
Luckily, for all concerned, that didn’t happen. He kept bitching from time to time about his plights, and the rest of us would say, audibly, “Karen” during the course of our flight.
I have left out plenty of color from this tale, as I am absolutely tortured by guilt at not having content up. Indeed, I woke up early on Monday to finish this post, but my middle dog – – who is lovely, but a moron – – managed to tangle with a skunk for, I believe, the 7th time in his life. So I had to deal with that nightmare, convincing me that a curse has been put upon me that is yet to be broken.
Suffice it to say that I shall be avoiding AA in the future to the best of my ability. This weekend was decidedly unpleasant.
