So, i'm one of the more patient travelers these days. I don't wear a belt, i keep all metal nicely organized in my bag, i don't make sudden movements, i tip the people checking my bags, cause hey it says to for some reason...i guess they don't get a paycheck to do their one and only job, i even show up 2 hours early like i'm supposed to, and i smile and greet the security personnel as if i give a crap about how they are feeling. I try to make the process of me getting somewhere as smooth as possible. And the process is horrible. Despite the numerous security loopholes i've encountered all over the country, i've bit my tongue and just got in the security checkpoint lines like any good cow going to the slaughter. Yeah that's right, there's a loophole there. when the lines at the security checkpoint are several hundred people long, it would be extremely easy to take out more people before you ever see a security guard than you ever could on a plane. and heck its so visible i'm sure you would have some auxiliary incidents surrounding the area. But that's not what i'm complaining about today, though i'm sure i'm on someone's watch list now for thinking the obvious... and i'm sure most of you have thought the same too, and if you haven't then try not to, you'd be scared at how vulnerable we all are in reality even though we throw a ton of money at our supposed security. Today, I'm complaining about United Airlines specifically. I'm taking a potshot at them because i trusted them to make things smooth this trip, and obviously i was retarded, or it is quite possible that the bar for customer service these days is so low across the board that they might still be the cream of the crop... or king of the dung heap as i was once heard.

Remember that the dress code for flying used to be business casual? i stood out like a sore thumb showing up in that... that's partially the fault of your normal travelers i suppose, but still i think the airline industry has adapted their service to the lower standard instead of encouraging the higher standard. it's not hard to wear a pair of slacks for a couple hours. heck putting on a nice shirt actually encourages you to shower and use deodorant before getting on your flight. i'm talking to you 400 lb stinky guy... how you get away with only paying for one ticket and not having to be checked yourself is beyond me... but i guess the airlines have to be nice to you even though you don't seem to be nice to any food that comes into your line of sight...

but let's get to the problems i experienced in my 4 flights (1 roundtrip with a transfer each way). Out of four flights, there were 3 delays. 1 was so crappy that they told me my luggage would be on the next plane out, i wouldn't, and the flight i was supposed to be on was going to get cancelled. Therefore my bag would be somewhere else, i would be stuck there, and would miss all the stuff i had planned for that evening. Why the fuck travel if i'm not going to get there to do the shit i wanted to? And i'm a cautious traveler too, i fully expect the airlines to fuck up. like i said i show up two hours before i am expected to get on a flight. a flight which i book for way too early because i expect it do get delayed, and one that i don't plan anything after landing because i know it takes another half hour to get my luggage, find a car (oh i can smell a future rant on rental cars... actually i got that rant on the flight i got standby'd on from a fellow passenger... he was a nice guy), and then find some way to not get extorted of more money before i leave the airport. So i somehow talked my way onto the plane my luggage was on. so if my flight was actually cancelled, i'm sorry to all of you that got stuck at the airport overnight... there were probably about 40 of you left. overnight? yeah my flight was scheduled for early afternoon and people were being told that they'd be stuck overnight. With the more than 2 hour delay i missed everything i had planned for Friday. No compensation... just lots of time stuck at the airport forced to purchase over priced food and drink and schwag because the terrorists are going to be killing us with food and drink packages and so its only fair that we pay double the actual price outside the airport for the food inside the airport. Yay security! Then right outside the gate, there are people trying to extort more money from us.... you've seen em, the people peddling the united airlines credit card bullshit blankets and t shirts, like you wanna advertise their crappy company and get royally screwed through credit card fees in exchange for a blanket you can use on their flights. luckily most college students have figured out at football games that you can put any crap on their you want and still get the gear... which is great if you have a winning team, and also great if you get the idea in your head that burning a united blanket in front of hundreds of people crosses your mind... you know up until the fact that you have nothing that could possibly start a fire crosses your mind. you'd get two chopsticks and rub those together but they charge 2 dollars for those at the chinese food restaurant a mile down the terminal. So you sit down... hungry.... angry.... frustrated.... and with a smile on your face, cause the baddies win if you give into your evil urges and show your disdain for the process that is getting from point a to point b. It actually ended up being quicker for me to drive to my next location that it was for me to fly... and very much cheaper as well, but it wasn't nearly so when i planned the trip out. I heard my name called to the podium, "yay" i thought. Only when i got to the podium the lady was preoccupied with another woman who didn't have a ticket for this specific flight, but didn't speak a word of english, yay mexico!, and who also had two friends who DID have tickets for this flight...not just a standby like moi, who just loved to explain how she should get on the plane because they knew each other. That's fine by me, if you are in a group, by all means, you should be allowed to travel together. But rationalizing this through the use of a ticket that proves other wise, speaking in a different language, and not conceding once proven wrong, thus making the plane even later, holding up the line, and making several more people furious about everything from airports, to non-english speaking travelers (met some germans too, they were actually nice as well, so i'm not anti foreigner... my disdain for the latino side has grown inch by inch because of the people that live above me.... 8 people in a small 2 bedroom apartment and not one of them grasps the concept of their stomping, music, yelling, and trash in their backyard making my life increasingly miserable, but i'll still wear that smile in public, heck i even learned the language to accomodate y'all. just like i learned italian when i visited italy, so as to not be the friggin person who holds up lines at an airport, or a restaurant, or a theater, or a museum, or anywhere). eventually, the united worker conceded and let the woman take my seat on the plane. yay. which meant that i shouldn't have been on the plane i somehow got on. how did i get to stay on, basically the other guy who was supposed to get the last seat and i calmly and with respect and reason said who would get the last seat. which is scenario that shouldn't have happened in the first place but someone fucked up on united's end. either way i got to my destination... several hours late, missing all appointments and plans i had, and pretty much having wasted my friday.

Let's talk about delay number two... when you break one of the few rules on an airline like tampering with the smoke detectors, raising your voice above a whisper, or having the last name of mohammed (poor fellows, i heard several planes leave without those passengers, i'm sure they were nice people that just got stereotyped and got held up by security, their story may never be told because then the airlines will have reason to stop them from flying. ) it becomes a federal matter. Due to existing laws though, no details are given to the passengers waiting to board the flight you drag the offender, whoever it is, off of a plane. just a nice little delayed sign, and several vague jokes when you actually get to board the plane. Delay number 3 wasn't so bad, the worst part of that flight was that they managed to lose my luggage somewhere, and i stood at that carousel waiting until the guy said i'd have to fill out some form and it would be delivered to me eventually. well specificaly he said 11 am, i said sarcastically more like 3 pm, he said no, 11. i laughed and came home in the middle of the night.

I wake up this morning to a phone call that said i had not filled out their form completely, though i had, and even better its funny because they said i had neglected to put which apartment i was in. odd, cause that was the one thing i made sure to do on the missing form, and the one thing i made sure to do on my luggage tag. Either way, because of this they told me i would have to wait at my house an additional 4 hours and would receive my luggage around 3 pm. I somehow won the argument from the night before... in your face luggage guy!

so the lessons i have learned from this weekend trip include: don't be a foreigner, don't make plans on your travel days (if you leave on a saturday and return on sunday, just don't go on your trip), security is an easily exploitable  load of bullshit, you won't get to where you are going with everything you left with, people on flights are very very patient, and we pay way too much for the way we get treated from point a to point b. that being said, i'm no longer flying United. This isn't the only bad trip i've had with them, but it sort of says something about how bad it is that instead of talking about the day i got to spend with my friend i'm talking about the other 2 days i spent traveling the 700 miles home and back.  maybe i'll get around to the fun i had tomorrow. Until then i want to know what your Airline experiences have been like. Do you have a company you always use that is fairly reliable? Rumor is Virgin America is doing rounds on the route i'd like to take.

Tell me your story, complain, argue with me, i'd like to see where you stand on current airline travel.