Airlines Suck
I was supposed to go to work today. I woke up at 6am to catch a flight from Vail, CO to Los Angeles but of course my flight has been delayed. Shocker!
And it’s not because we’re snowed in or the engine failed or a deranged mental patient is pretending to be a terrorist. No, my 8 am commuter flight from Vail to Denver has been delayed for crew rest.
A 24 minute flight that runs on a bus schedule has been delayed over three hours because the crew needs to rest. Which is only odd because it’s the first flight out and I’m sitting in between two stewardesses which leads me to believe that maybe the pilot hit the snooze button one too many times.
And there in lies the problem with airlines. You’re completely at their mercy. If the pilot wants to sit at home and eat ring dings and ho-hos and jam out to Def Leopard’s greatest hits, then I have to sit and wait.
Meanwhile I’m missing my connecting flight from Denver to Los Angeles which just might be part of their early morning joke to ruin my day because they’re re-routing me from Denver to Palm Springs and Palm Springs to Ontario and Ontario to Los Angeles. Why not just send me through Saigon? I always wanted to see the inside of a Vietnamese whore house.
Of course while I write this they just announced that there now is a mechanical problem. It’s just funny that they couldn’t fix it while the crew was resting because now I’m going to miss my Palm Springs connection. Maybe I will get to see that whore house after all.
So needless to say, David if you’re reading this, I won’t be into work today.
Hey Man,
I don’t know if it’s too late to invoke this but- Rule 240 could help you out. Most airlines still have some version of this rule in their rulebook.
http://consumerist.com/consumer/rule-240/dont-fly-without-a-copy-of-rule-240-250368.php#American%20Airlines
don’t blame the pilots— federal regulations (read “laws”} require minimum amounts of rest between flights. So if a crew flies an airplane into an airport at 10pm, they are required to get 8 hours of crew rest, which means that they have to arrive on time in order to make your 6am flight the next morning. If they arrive 24 minutes late at 10:24pm, then they still have to get the 8 hours of crew rest. There is no choice, it cannot be shortened, or the pilots could lose their licences and possibly get fired. So your 6am flight just became a 624am flight. Blame the airline management for cutting staff, and running un-realistic schedules that have no “slack” in them. I am a commercial airline pilot and if you have any other misconceptions about airline travel, send me a post and I will gladly educate you.