tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8662171249638416805.post8568689422041722342..comments2024-03-16T05:34:13.675-07:00Comments on The Commercial Curmudgeon: Lots of villains, no heroesJohn F Jamelehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18351383534436377360noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8662171249638416805.post-61828600634378139972016-06-30T00:21:13.893-07:002016-06-30T00:21:13.893-07:00Last week my flight on Air France to Paris out of ...Last week my flight on Air France to Paris out of Dulles was delayed for five hours. Forty-Five minutes before boarding, I was handed my new boarding pass and a $10 meal voucher valid only at Dulles and only that day--- so after hanging around the gate for more than four hours, I was given the opportunity to get something to eat and very, very little time to actually take advantage of it. If I didn't know that getting any kind of meal voucher as an apology for inconvenience- or any kind of actual apology at all- was about as rare as legroom at Fenway Park, I would have asked why the hell they could not have provided the voucher four hours earlier, when I could have done a little menu shopping, instead of just before boarding, when I basically had to grab a chicken sandwich soda from the shop closest to the gate. John F Jamelehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18351383534436377360noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8662171249638416805.post-35794216548033047992016-06-18T17:46:47.839-07:002016-06-18T17:46:47.839-07:00Your mistake: thinking an airline would actually h...Your mistake: thinking an airline would actually help you out. That was your problem right there.<br /><br />Today's airlines make air travel as miserable as possible. Their goal is not to serve you. They really couldn't care less about you. As I learned the last time I flew home from an event. My flight was late to the airport where I was to make my connection, and do you think they cared that there was no flight to my home city until the next morning? Nope. Do you think they paid for an overnight hotel stay for me? Nope. Do you think they could even help me find a place to stay so I could pay for it myself? Nope. All hotels were booked solid, including the one connected to the airport. I ended up sleeping on a few cushions pushed together in the corridor of the hotel leading to the airport, because I simply could not abide trying to catch any Z's in the airport itself. Not with the blindingly bright lights, roaring cleaning equipment and CNN blasting at 9,000 decibels from every TV screen in sight. But even that was a lucky catch, as all the seats in the hotel lobby were already occupied by sleeping people.<br /><br />I want to emphasize here that this was not due to any weather delays. This was just an ordinary day.<br /><br />Oh, and then the next morning when I finally got a flight out, they gave me a boarding pass with the name on it of a man I had never heard of in my life. I am a woman. Luckily, I noticed this error before I got to security and had TSA pulling me aside and asking me all kinds of unpleasant questions about what I thought I was trying to do, attempting to fly using the identity of a man I didn't even know.<br /><br />I don't remember which airline did this to me, but does it even matter now? They're all like this. You can actually get a roomier seat and possibly better service on a bus (depending on the bus). And who knows, with flight cancellations and reschedulings, the bus might even get you there faster. The arrival of competitors like Megabus really forced Greyhound to improve, and there's sometimes a bit more choice out there. And when you get on the bus, they won't make you dump all your liquids.Morning Kvetchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12212725744949084479noreply@blogger.com