U.S. Air Travel is a Mess, and We All Know Why
Having just taken a vacation to Las Vegas with the little wifey last week, I have a fresh perspective on how hosed up U.S. air travel really is right now. Nothing runs on time; airports are over-crowded due to incessant flight delays and cancellations; and everyone’s in a really bad mood because they’re going to be late to get where they’re going, because airports are over-crowded because of incessant flight delays and cancellations.
Making our own travel experience even worse than it needed to be, we decided to fly on Southwest out of Love Field because it was $50 cheaper than flying on American out of DFW. We are not seasoned Southwest flyers, mainly because we like having an assigned seat on the plane; thus, neither of us thought to check in the moment we got that 24-hour ahead email from Southwest. As a result, we were among the last cattle to get on the car in Southwest’s ‘70s rock concert boarding system.
Our flight had already been delayed for 2-1/2 hours, when, just as it looked like we were finally getting ready to board, the gate agent grabbed the microphone and cheerily informed us that the pilots had arrived, but the flight attendants were nowhere to be found. Those ladies and one chubby little man received a mix of boos and applause when they finally straggled up about 15 minutes later.
Of course, we were among the lucky travelers that day, the ones who only had to wait an extra 3 hours to get off the ground. This is what has no doubt become an “on-time departure” in Southwest’s new nomenclature. Coming back from Las Vegas, our return flight was only 30 minutes late taking off, and our pilots damn near killed us all with a too-hot landing that filled the cabin with the aroma of burning tires as they taxied at what seemed to be about 40 mph in a desperation dash to the gate for a true on-time arrival.