08-07-2009
12:54 PM
2 Loves
Not to play devils advocate in this situation but having only flown once and it being on Southwest. (I love to drive and see the country) But the flight from Chicago to Houston was magnificent. If I could be assured to relive that every time I stepped on a plane I'd fly the 20 block I drive to work!!! I won't go into details on that since it's very apparent how well Southwest treats their passengers. After a week in Houston it was back to Hobby to fly back into Midway. This time the plane was a bit older and filled to the brim! Instead of a sweet Texas couple getting separated it was entire families. Mom and baby in one place, big brother across the plane, and two girls somewhere in the middle. I would have gladly moved to let them sit together except I was stuck in between my husband and some unfortunately ill tempered man on a business trip from New York. As we sat, and sat, and sat finally we were told why we weren't taking off. Not because of a late connection flight. Not because of a mechanical issue, not because of an over booked flight, missing pilot, lost baby, important passenger. We were waiting for maintenance to come and fix the coffee pot... So now the time clicked from 15 minutes late, to 30, to 45 and on.
Now generally I'm patient, and this story about the couple is sweet and my heart truly goes out to them, but in my case a delayed flight meant a missed bus back in Chicago. All for a coffee pot. I would have gladly gone without a cup of joe for a couple hours than ended up sitting in Midway for another 4 hours until the next bus to Rockford came.
Granted my delay was significantly longer, for a ridiculous (imho) reason, and doesn't tell any story of the human spirit but on a packed flight like the one in this story, and the one in my instance - you have to remember the number of lives it affects. While this woman got to say good-bye to her mother maybe that 15 minutes meant someone else on the plane missed their last moments with their own loved one.
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Bill,
Me again and I just thought I'd let you know I will be sticking around and waiting for SWA to open the flight I need. This is my first time flying (booking- waiting- any of it) So I suppose I don't have a lot of room to get irrate, and nothing to compare it to. And for now the money I'll spend on tickets is hanging out in my savings account accumulating interst 🙂
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This major issue I have is that I've been trying to book tickets since early December as a gift for my husband. The intention is to fly to Houston for his birthday. We would go May 12 - 17. So I've been waiting well over a month for the booking dates to expand a WEEK.... and in that time I have missed out on several deals. At one point I would have been able to get the round trip for roughly $370.00 now it's up to over $400. (i'm figuring this by seeing what it would be to book a week earlier.) So as a couple who isn't swimming in the cash this is getting to be a tidge frustrating. It's either to the point where we go to another airline, greyhound, drive, or don't go at all.
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