Airline Travel of the 21st Century
It is barbaric. I don’t mean that in a small way… It is the most horrible mangled mass of social regression and technical advances that fossil fuels can provide. So, as a son of a Western Airlines aircraft mechanic here are a few tips for me to remember (while I sit on the floor of an airport I damn near grew up in):
- When my cheap ticket comes in the e-mail, it will have a “confirmation number.” It is my task to enter that number at the airline’s website. It is an error to assume that this done for me even though it should be technically possible. Entering this “confirmation number” might be considered a “check in” by the airline.
- Only use “professional” parking solutions as a last resort. It was not obvious to me that these offsite parking companies can make me late for my flight. But this is so obvious! It is better to dropped off at the airport by a friend, a courtesy shuttle or cha-ching a taxi. I need to learn to lean on my friends more often.
- Book a flight at about 10am or 12am. These flight times allow me to come three hours early to my terrorist-proof airport with ease—7am or 9pm respectively (notice that I pad three frickin hours before my flight time).
- Just because I have an e-ticket directly from the airline does not mean I can fly somewhere. Sometimes the credit card payment does not “go through”—and you get kicked out of the kiosk and have to depend on a human for assistance. Humans behind ticket counters take at least 40 minutes.
- This strange phenomenon of “overbooking” might be lurking out there… waiting… Overbooking mixed with going on standby can be a curse of death…
- I’m going to need to revive my old wristwatch since cell phones must be turned off in flight.
By the way, Atlanta International has a collection of Zimbabwean stone sculptures. According to some guy “fred” (who was travelling in direction opposite mine back in November 2006), “There is a permanent Zimbabwean sculpture exhibition: Zimbabwe—a tradition in stone. Mbira music plays softly in the background. I usually walk through the exhibition. It calms me down and it helps me cope with the world’s busiest airport.”
Out of the four airports I saw in the last four days, Los Angeles, Memphis, St. Paul and Altanta, only ATL had the most useful, friendly terminal. The Delta Airlines terminal was decked out with backless seats you can sleep on, electrical outlets near gate seats for portables, panel monitors with Atlanta’s CNN blasting, openly promoted Wi-Fi access (although I was made aware of it, I did not know how to access it without umm… network access—which partly explains my lack of Blog entries for this week), and special tables (with deliberately uncomfortable wooden benches to encourage you to shorten your occupancy time) for mobile electronics users.
I consider the high quality of service and amenities at ATL—especially for Delta Airlines—a tribute to my father who retired from Delta in recent years… Delta Airlines has its troubles (my father even had some serious trouble with spoiled rich kids setting a policy trying to steal his retirement benefits) but… well… you know… This Delta tribute is for my dad…