Isn't Air Travel just Fun? haha
In case you didn't realize, that was pure sarcasm coming from someone who is now in his 19th hour being stuck at San Diego airport on his way to China (yes, he never left). Just to give a quick summary of the situation:
I was originally scheduled to leave San Diego yesterday (the 16th) at 10am for Salt Lake City, transfer to Tokyo, then onto Shanghai, arriving 9:20pm on the 17th...then, flight from San Diego to Salt Lake City was delayed nearly two hours, meaning that I cannot connect to the Tokyo flight from SLC.
The ticket representative thus rebooked me for San Diego to Detroit (at 11pm, a 12-hour wait...) from then onto Shanghai, a direct flight arriving 7pm on the 18th...
THEN, after a murderous 12-hour wait in the airport, San Diego to Detroit flight got cancelled, leaving me to reschedule once more: this time leaving from San Diego to Minneapolis to Tokyo to Shanghai, leaving here at 7am (another 6 hour wait at airport...eh...) and arriving at 9:20pm on the 18th (so, exactly 24 hours later than the first, original schedule)
Meanwhile, somehow my bags went straight onto the original delayed San Diego to Salt Lake City flight, from where it was transferred to Detroit (because they can't catch the missed connection to Tokyo) and actually managed to get onto the direct flight to Shanghai that I would have been on too if the San Diego-Detroit flight was not cancelled...
Thankfully, I don't have much in terms of urgent matters over in Shanghai (besides worried parents of course, but been updating them on the situation through emails) so I can chill and be bored at San Diego airport for as long as I want...but, the major schedule screw-up of this time did remind of the last time I was in a similar situation and actually had something urgent to deal with in my final destination:
Back in the spring of 2009, I was doing a solo trip through New Zealand before my final exam week at Univ of Sydney (where I was studying abroad). My flight to Sydney from Queenstown (via Auckland) was supposed to get to Sydney two days before my first morning exam. Thinking everything was under control, I walked to the Queenstown airport at the end of a great trip...everything went to hell from there...
Day 1: original scheduled morning flight from Queenstown to Auckland was cancelled...immediately rebooked for afternoon flight, which also got cancelled...then attempted to rebook night flight...was told that ALL flights out of Queenstown airport FOR THE NEXT THREE DAYS are cancelled due to intense fog (no, it wasn't that "intense"...I guess safety first, yeah?)
shell-shocked, I desperately asked around for ideas, was told that Christchurch airport (half a day by bus away) was still open and had flights to Auckland...immediately book Christchurch to Auckland ticket and get bus ticket from Queenstown to Christchurch in the morning. Stay up all night in hostel worrying (at least I met that Braizilian dude I mentioned in a previous post)
Day 2: hop on bus early morning, got to airport by afternoon...finds out that flight to Auckland DELAYED...forced to rebook Auckland to Sydney flight once more...by the time the Christchurch flight landed in Auckland, it was 1am on Day 3(=the day of my first final exam)
Day 3: my tired body lands in Auckland, sleepiness completely goes away when heard that Auckland to Sydney also delayed (!!!)...pray to God I actually make the test in time...get on flight to Sydney, and arrive at Sydney airport at 6:30am (30 minutes before exam begins)
Mad rush through immigration (the Aussie border guys seem to totally believe my "I am gonna miss my exam in 30 minutes" story, let me off the hook easily)...mad dash to taxi, and taxi slows to a crawl in the traffic...good thing Univ of Sydney not far from airport...
Arrives at school front gate 6:57am (3 minutes!!!) mad dash to classroom (ok, even though I fortunately didn't have any checked luggage during the process, still had big backpack with all my travel stuff...clothes, souvenirs, etc...) Arrive just in time to the classroom as the students make the procession to enter...(sigh of relief)
Of course, I did pretty badly on the test (I was supposed to study those two days before the test...instead I studied the entire Air New Zealand customer service system...) but the moral of the story: clear and simple, air travel is one of the least reliable, untimely thing ever (more than bus or rail, in my experience) and because its so consistently bad, people have become passive to all its faults.
Sitting here in San Diego airport lobby at 2am, its clear how passive people are. No one is arguing about a cancelled flight (the Detroit flight was cancelled because of the airport's "night curfew" at 11:30pm, not mechanical problems) and everyone is just sleeping as if everything is normal (well, as normal as you'd expect at a red-eye condition in the airport...)
Maybe this is an American thing. Americans, so used to traveling by plane in long-distances, have seen many many ordeals of delays, cancellations, and rebookings so that they are not only knowledgeable of these sort of things but highly tolerant of them. The only alternative they have to waiting for the plane would be to drive across the country.
Maybe alluding back to the failure of public transportation here in America, a similar situation would unfold quite differently in China, where the railroad provides a much cheaper, albeit more time-consuming way (but quite comfortable too, with soft bunk beds with fluffy sheets and pillows) for long-distance travel.
People in China, thus, expect higher standard of service at airports (because of higher costs they paid compared to trains) and delays/cancellations are absolutely not tolerated (again, because Chinese trains generally very punctual)...
Their impatience with the complications of air travel means that Chinese people will quickly display anger at any sign of deviation from the original flight schedule.
In fact, as a personal experience, I was once on a flight from Beijing to Shanghai that was delayed by a mere hour. the 200-some passengers immediately a verbal barrage against the airline service personnel (to the point the female attendants were on the verge of crying)...at the end, the airline was forced to give around a $100 compensation per person for the delay (a major financial setback for the airlines, considering the original ticket price would be 200-300 dollars one way)
I do not approve the violent behavior of these Chinese passengers, but it is perfectly understandable how they can use "we have alternative means of travel" as leverage against the airlines providing bad service.
Because no such viable alternative means of long-distance travel exist in the US (American trains have bunk beds but trains are slower and much more expensive than flying...thats still weird to me), airlines in America practically have monopoly over long- (and some mid-) distance travel.
The result is airlines being completely unapologetic in times of bad service and passengers who are unable to keep those bad services in check. Such passivity of the passengers can only be reduced significantly when US (and countries with similar area sizes, such as Canada and Australia) develop viable commercial competition to the airlines through investing in long-distance public transportation such as trains.
I was originally scheduled to leave San Diego yesterday (the 16th) at 10am for Salt Lake City, transfer to Tokyo, then onto Shanghai, arriving 9:20pm on the 17th...then, flight from San Diego to Salt Lake City was delayed nearly two hours, meaning that I cannot connect to the Tokyo flight from SLC.
The ticket representative thus rebooked me for San Diego to Detroit (at 11pm, a 12-hour wait...) from then onto Shanghai, a direct flight arriving 7pm on the 18th...
THEN, after a murderous 12-hour wait in the airport, San Diego to Detroit flight got cancelled, leaving me to reschedule once more: this time leaving from San Diego to Minneapolis to Tokyo to Shanghai, leaving here at 7am (another 6 hour wait at airport...eh...) and arriving at 9:20pm on the 18th (so, exactly 24 hours later than the first, original schedule)
Meanwhile, somehow my bags went straight onto the original delayed San Diego to Salt Lake City flight, from where it was transferred to Detroit (because they can't catch the missed connection to Tokyo) and actually managed to get onto the direct flight to Shanghai that I would have been on too if the San Diego-Detroit flight was not cancelled...
Thankfully, I don't have much in terms of urgent matters over in Shanghai (besides worried parents of course, but been updating them on the situation through emails) so I can chill and be bored at San Diego airport for as long as I want...but, the major schedule screw-up of this time did remind of the last time I was in a similar situation and actually had something urgent to deal with in my final destination:
Back in the spring of 2009, I was doing a solo trip through New Zealand before my final exam week at Univ of Sydney (where I was studying abroad). My flight to Sydney from Queenstown (via Auckland) was supposed to get to Sydney two days before my first morning exam. Thinking everything was under control, I walked to the Queenstown airport at the end of a great trip...everything went to hell from there...
Day 1: original scheduled morning flight from Queenstown to Auckland was cancelled...immediately rebooked for afternoon flight, which also got cancelled...then attempted to rebook night flight...was told that ALL flights out of Queenstown airport FOR THE NEXT THREE DAYS are cancelled due to intense fog (no, it wasn't that "intense"...I guess safety first, yeah?)
shell-shocked, I desperately asked around for ideas, was told that Christchurch airport (half a day by bus away) was still open and had flights to Auckland...immediately book Christchurch to Auckland ticket and get bus ticket from Queenstown to Christchurch in the morning. Stay up all night in hostel worrying (at least I met that Braizilian dude I mentioned in a previous post)
Day 2: hop on bus early morning, got to airport by afternoon...finds out that flight to Auckland DELAYED...forced to rebook Auckland to Sydney flight once more...by the time the Christchurch flight landed in Auckland, it was 1am on Day 3(=the day of my first final exam)
Day 3: my tired body lands in Auckland, sleepiness completely goes away when heard that Auckland to Sydney also delayed (!!!)...pray to God I actually make the test in time...get on flight to Sydney, and arrive at Sydney airport at 6:30am (30 minutes before exam begins)
Mad rush through immigration (the Aussie border guys seem to totally believe my "I am gonna miss my exam in 30 minutes" story, let me off the hook easily)...mad dash to taxi, and taxi slows to a crawl in the traffic...good thing Univ of Sydney not far from airport...
Arrives at school front gate 6:57am (3 minutes!!!) mad dash to classroom (ok, even though I fortunately didn't have any checked luggage during the process, still had big backpack with all my travel stuff...clothes, souvenirs, etc...) Arrive just in time to the classroom as the students make the procession to enter...(sigh of relief)
Of course, I did pretty badly on the test (I was supposed to study those two days before the test...instead I studied the entire Air New Zealand customer service system...) but the moral of the story: clear and simple, air travel is one of the least reliable, untimely thing ever (more than bus or rail, in my experience) and because its so consistently bad, people have become passive to all its faults.
Sitting here in San Diego airport lobby at 2am, its clear how passive people are. No one is arguing about a cancelled flight (the Detroit flight was cancelled because of the airport's "night curfew" at 11:30pm, not mechanical problems) and everyone is just sleeping as if everything is normal (well, as normal as you'd expect at a red-eye condition in the airport...)
Maybe this is an American thing. Americans, so used to traveling by plane in long-distances, have seen many many ordeals of delays, cancellations, and rebookings so that they are not only knowledgeable of these sort of things but highly tolerant of them. The only alternative they have to waiting for the plane would be to drive across the country.
Maybe alluding back to the failure of public transportation here in America, a similar situation would unfold quite differently in China, where the railroad provides a much cheaper, albeit more time-consuming way (but quite comfortable too, with soft bunk beds with fluffy sheets and pillows) for long-distance travel.
People in China, thus, expect higher standard of service at airports (because of higher costs they paid compared to trains) and delays/cancellations are absolutely not tolerated (again, because Chinese trains generally very punctual)...
Their impatience with the complications of air travel means that Chinese people will quickly display anger at any sign of deviation from the original flight schedule.
In fact, as a personal experience, I was once on a flight from Beijing to Shanghai that was delayed by a mere hour. the 200-some passengers immediately a verbal barrage against the airline service personnel (to the point the female attendants were on the verge of crying)...at the end, the airline was forced to give around a $100 compensation per person for the delay (a major financial setback for the airlines, considering the original ticket price would be 200-300 dollars one way)
I do not approve the violent behavior of these Chinese passengers, but it is perfectly understandable how they can use "we have alternative means of travel" as leverage against the airlines providing bad service.
Because no such viable alternative means of long-distance travel exist in the US (American trains have bunk beds but trains are slower and much more expensive than flying...thats still weird to me), airlines in America practically have monopoly over long- (and some mid-) distance travel.
The result is airlines being completely unapologetic in times of bad service and passengers who are unable to keep those bad services in check. Such passivity of the passengers can only be reduced significantly when US (and countries with similar area sizes, such as Canada and Australia) develop viable commercial competition to the airlines through investing in long-distance public transportation such as trains.
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