you pretty much have two choices of airlines in chicago, united and american. i pretty much always fly united (it's just a little more blue state for me or something) but there always seem to be glitches, and although they usually treat me right, i sometimes wonder if american might be better.
well, it only takes one flight on american to remind me they pretty much all equally suck.
first off, the american terminal at ohare is terrible. there's always a million people in it, it's perpetually under construction, and there is never anywhere to sit - not to mention seeming to always have to walk a mile to get to my gate.
while there yesterday i got shuttled around to no less than 4 gate changes before takeoff, which seemed to cause total chaos, especially among the non-english speaking crowd, who didn't quite get all the muffled announcements. so while boarding, they had to basically filter out all the poeple in line who had tickets for other flights.
aa agent: "sir, atlanta is gate H9"
latin looking gentleman: (no response)
aa agent: (really loudly, as if speaking louder helps people understand english) "THAT'S AT GATE H9 - A-CHE NUEVE
person behind mexican gentleman in lin: "this is total horseshit"
not the way to make your customers happy.
okay after an hour delay we finally get on the "Super 80" and take off. this is the kind of plane that has both a disabled electric outlet in the lavatory for your electric shaver, because of course they don't have batteries, and a slot to dispose of your razor blades. not gillette trac-3 type safety razors mind you- but honest to goodness razor blades. like the kind that fit into box cutters. boy does that echo back to a safer time.
this strikes me as funny not only because you would get the rubber glove up the kiester if you tried to bring a razor blade on a plane today, but these planes seem to have a limited range of about 500 miles. who the hell was ever deciding they needed a nice clean burmashave on their commuter flight from o'hare to cincinatti?
i can't think of anything more painful than lathering up with the hard airplane tap water to shave off the five o'clock shadow while bouncing around through turbulence. what were they thinking?
i digress. did i mention i was going to new orleans? if you look at the weather yesterday, it was pretty much raining and storming in the big easy all day. but obviously it didn't cross aa's mind that they're might be a delay because once we get over the greate state of louisiana and are on final approach ("flight attendants, prepare for landing") into the runway we get notified that they have closed arrivals and we'll have to go into a holding pattern.
one problem, though. they didn't put enough fuel on the half full super 80 to go into the holding pattern, so we'll have to land at baton rouge to get more fuel!
after 20 minutes of flying to baton rouge we land and sit on the tarmac awaiting further instructions. the good natured pro bowlers (apparently, baton rouge has more bowling alleys per capita than milwaukee and is often the site of all the great tournaments you see on ESPN) who i am on board with are actually going to baton rouge and would like to de-plane.
however, american doesn't have a gate here, and renting gates costs money - so they look into getting one of those portable stair units they can wheel over to the plane like you remember from the brady bunch goes to hawaii two part episode. remember, it's pouring rain over the great state.
sorry, bowlers, you gotta fly back to new orleans, and then drive back to baton rouge.
they fuel us up, but then can't move for about an hour because they seem to have left the fuel truck in a position the pilot can't manuever around. after another half hour of finding someone to marhsall the plane around the fuel truck we are off and on our way to new orleans.
should have goneto CeBIT. i could have gotten to frankfurt faster, for sure.
