Idiots, Entitlement, and Travelling at Christmas

      I travel at Christmas.  December 27^th is generally the busiest post-Xmas travel day and I always fly on that day.  Unfortunately, this year it also brought a massive storm with tornados to the central section of the United States.  And if you travel from one coast to the other, your connecting flight was somewhere in the weather-affected middle of the country.  I know it’s a busy travel day.  I know there is always the possibility of bad weather resulting in delays and cancellations.  I can accept all of that.  What I can’t accept is the people who don’t seem to understand those simple concepts. 

Here’s what happened: tornados damaged nearly 1500 homes and killed at least 11 people in Dallas—my connection point.  After a 4-hour delay, my flight took off for Dallas. We were at the point where I knew we should be landing when the pilot made an announcement:  “Well folks, we are 70 miles out but they have just shut down DFW and we are in a holding pattern.  We have enough fuel because we planned for this, and hopefully we’ll have an update in 25 minutes or so”.  We flew around for another hour.  Once we landed, the pilot made another announcement:  “I can tell you this now, because we got lucky.  We were heading to Austin when they lifted the holding pattern and let us land.”  Whew!!  So, we made it to Dallas—alive and well. 

Thousands of flights were cancelled, hundreds of thousands travelers were affected.  Everyone was standing in hours-long lines to rebook their flights.  I feel sorry for the airline employees who have to deal with this and I am extra nice to them, since a lot of morons aren’t.  It’s a hard job that I simply could not do without crying or punching someone.  They get blamed for the bad weather conditions all the time.  They are airline employees, not God, so I know it's not their fault. 

Anyhow, I’m standing in a very long line when I see this guy walk up to the counter—bypassing the hundred or so of us in line.  Fortunately, the gate agent pretty much ignored him and he eventually walked away.  An hour later, when I’m maybe 4^th in line now, he comes back. 

He says “I know I’m not going to Hawaii tonight but…” 

The gate agent cut him off and said. “No you aren’t going to Hawaii tonight.”  A bunch of us in line started laughing. at him.

Then he says “Yeah, but I can’t stand in this line for 6 hours.”  Seriously dude??!!  The passenger who was 2^nd in line, says “We’ve all been standing in line.”  Thousands of us have been standing in long lines at every gate in DFW—patiently waiting. Who the hell do you think you are?  Where did you develop this skewed sense of entitlement that makes you think you can go to the front of the line?  I was really hoping someone would punch him.  I wouldn’t start the fight, but I’d certainly join in. 

Then there was the older woman who got her stand-by voucher, but obviously thought the gate agent was wrong by not giving her an assigned seat.  Once again, thousands of flights were cancelled.  If you are being rebooked, you’re going stand-by, especially on an already overcrowded Christmas flight.  So, this woman has to quiz every subsequent passenger and ask if we were given stand-by vouchers.  She shouldn’t have asked me.  I’d been up 20 hours at that point and was not in the mood for idiots.  I snapped at her “Of course I have stand-by.  All the flights were cancelled.  We all have stand-by.”  I forced myself to walk away before I said “Are you really that fucking dumb??”  

Later I was sitting at my stand-by gate, charging my cell phone and overhearing another lady complaining that she had a confirmed seat and now only had a stand-by seat, and that the customer service people didn’t know what they were doing.  After complaining to everyone else, this bitch sits next to me.  I’m praying that she doesn’t say anything to me.  Wrong!  Tells me about her confirmed seat.  Hey, news flash:  we all had confirmed seats on our original flights, you moron!  Then she says she has to go to work on Monday or might get fired.  First of all, your government agency will not fail if you don’t make it to work.  You are replaceable.  Get over yourself!  Secondly, if you work for such inhuman freaks that they would fire you because your flight was cancelled and the airline refused to gamble with your life and take off in tornadic conditions, you should be grateful.  Must be horrible people to work for--go find a new job!  Said she was going to write a long letter to American Airlines.  Really?  What are you going to write?  ‘Dear American Airlines, How dare you create tornados.  It’s your fault the weather is bad.  Why wasn’t I given precedence over all the other people who are in this same situation?’  Seriously, what are you going to write???  Here’s what I would write. 

“Dear American Airlines, Thank you for getting me home safely.  I understand that you can’t fly in severe weather and that’s in my best interest.  Thank you for planning ahead with extra fuel so we could fly around and not end up in a different city, which would have made the delay even longer.  Thank you for the pleasant attitude of your employees—even when dealing with so many unpleasant customers.  I especially loved the gate agent in Pittsburgh who said she was looking forward to having a martini when this was all over.  I hope she enjoys that drink when she finally gets it.  It’s really unnecessary for your pilots and flight attendants to apologize for the weather, but they always do. Thank you for all of it—flying is an adventure.  See you next time!”