Bloomington

It’s been a week of ups and downs, and I have lots of good things to say about the panels I went to at CCCC, but that seems to be overshadowed in my mind by the hate I feel toward Delta right now. Don’t read this if you don’t want to read a really good whine.  I have to get it off my chest before I write about the good things at CCCC.

Having flown a decent amount in the last few years, I have ranked the airlines according to customer service. Jetblue is best (but then I didn’t have to deal with last Feb’s meltdown), followed by Northwest, then Delta, then United, then American Airlines, which I will never ever fly again if I don’t have to. Something, tho, has happened in the last year that has made flying and keeping on (or relatively close to) schedule an absolute impossibility. Every single flight I’ve taken in the last year has had major problems:  mechanical and communication breakdowns, delays, cancellations, and — not to be forgotten — weather issues. (I haven’t flown JetBlue in that time, but have taken every other airline listed above.) It must be some combination of this recession we’re not in, global warming,  and the  Republican administration (which  relates to the Iraq War and astronomical oil prices). And I am OVER it.

Yesterday, I was supposed to have two nice 1-hour flights, frm NOLA to ATL, then to BMI. We left NOLA late due to mechanical problems, had to fly around the ATL airport for 45 minutes because of fog, landed two minutes before my connection was to take off, and then I was put on standby for every flight because I couldn’t get a confirmed seat to within 200 miles!! of Bloomington until Tuesday morning. Frankly, that is complete complete bullshit. (All the flights were oversold, on top of the missed connections.)

The Delta counter agents told us to call Delta. The phone agents told us to see the counter agents. I attempted to keep a happy face for the first five hours of standing in lines, talking to agents who didn’t know or didn’t care, calling Delta until my phone died, and walking halfway across Atlanta to get to another terminal just to see if I could fly standby on teh next flight, with 40 other people wanting the same thing for a plane that only carried 50 people.

At 3pm, after 5 hours of chipperness on 4 hours of sleep, I finally decided to get a confirmed ticket into Peoria (45 minutes away) for Monday night and try to rent a car, or convince a friend to come get me. I would just get a Delta hotel for the night (which they’d pay for since I missed my connection because of their mechanical problems), when they told me they were out of hotel rooms. And then I remembered that Gizmo’s catsitter had the only spare key to my house and she was leaving for vacation Sunday night and so I HAD to get home to give him his pills on Monday morning. Fuck.

A colleague was also at the airport, trying to get home from her trip, and she said AirTran still had tickets, so I called and booked a one-way flight for Sunday night for $300. So much for getting that new wicker loveseat for the front porch. (This, after Hilton fucked up the hotel receipt and wouldn’t split it with my roommate, among other issues that weekend. I spent about $1500 over my budget on this goddamn trip, and people wonder why I hate going to CCCC. Thank god I got a credit card last summer, or I would still be in Atlanta and Gizmo would be puking all over my bed. Note to self: Give Laura a key. ;)

It would have cost me nearly the same to pay for my own hotel (and, btw, Delta lied about being out of rooms, which I didn’t find out until later), spending another day eating out, and renting a car to get from Peoria to Bloomington. Instead, I got home at 11:30pm last night and I heard there are friends still at the airport. My feet hurt so bad from standing in lines for 12 hours yesterday and my ankles are so swollen that I can’t even get up. If it’s going to be like this every time I fly, then I refuse to fly anymore. I was going to take the train, but figured I’d save the time. Ha! I’d rather save the greenhouse gases and have my travel taken care of. I know the trains run slow, but at least I know I’ll get there sooner rather than later. The only problem is that Delta will probably only reimburse me with a voucher for another flight. Good god. Can I sell it to anyone?! ;)

Glad to be home, behind in work again, but who the hell cares. At least Gizmo is purring and happy.

Cheryl.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 1:05 pm and is filed under Giiiiiizmooooo, my life as an academic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.