Of all the places to be stranded during a historically large snowstorm, Florida is not a bad one.
The word "stranded" takes on new meaning when it’s sunny, warm, you’re playing tennis and eating Mom’s home-grilled salmon. So, no, I don’t expect any sympathy.
I did, nonetheless, catch some flavor of the disarray that swept the nation’s transportation system last week. And I’m not sure what to make of it. Is there something wrong with the system, or with the people using it?
I wasn't one of those unfortunate travelers stuck inside an airplane sitting on a tarmac for 10 hours, but it's easy to say something was wrong with the system that let that happen. Nine JetBlue plane-loads of people were stuck for six or more hours during Wednesday's storm. JetBlue seems to be acknowledging that it blew it bigtime, but the fact that it did has prompted talk of congressional hearings on a passenger bill of rights law.
Air passengers, now more than ever, live at the mercy of others. We must take off our shoes, leave home our pen knives, put our tiny little liquids into just the right bag and separate that bag out. We must accept all culpability if we didn't hear every little bizarre instruction correctly. Compliance is the name of the game. Chances are that when those JetBlue travelers reached their fifth hour on the tarmac, they wanted to storm the door, but they were afraid they'd be arrested as terrorists. And that'd be hard to explain back home.
But how far should that bill of right go? No piece of legislation can make travel go smoothly when 27 inches of snow is falling. And what about non-flying travelers? What recourse do the motorists who weren’t warned that the Pennsylvania highway they were getting on was blocked have? What about the would-be bus traveler I heard about who was sold a ticket and left waiting while a sign declared that all departures were on time, when really they’d all been canceled?
On a brief jaunt to visit my folks in Florida, we were supposed to fly home Wednesday, the very day Vermont was getting pounded with more snow than the state has ever seen in one 24-hour period. Sometime Tuesday, when it became abundantly clear that the storm was going to be a biggie, I called the airline and postponed our flight to Thursday. Took only about 10 minutes on hold to reach a human. Though she first tried to tell me our flight hadn't been canceled yet, she didn't argue when I suggested it was likely to be.
Thus, we spent Wednesday in pleasant warmth instead of airport hell.
Thursday, we awoke to learn that our afternoon flight out from Orlando to Dulles had been canceled, though earlier ones had not been. Back on the phone, it took a little longer to reach a human, but we switched to one of those earlier flights. We arrived at Dulles to a sea of despaired passengers waiting for flights that never seemed to depart. Our flight to Burlington flashed the promising "on time."
When our time came, though, we learned what a ruse that was. For the next three hours, we watched our departure time inch farther into the night. Every seat in the waiting area and then some was taken while six planes sat unused outside. Flights were canceled to un-snowy destinations like Jacksonville. The corridor was full of disgruntled travelers, some of them on their second day of delays, some on uncertain stand-by status. It wasn't necessarily the weather, but having the right flight crew and the right plane in the right place. It was, as one passenger said, the luck of the draw.
It didn't look any more fun to be the solo airline employee fielding an endless line of rerouted travelers, trying to pretend you know when the flight's really going to go or the real reason it isn't, or to be the flight attendant who didn't know whether she'd be going to Providence or Burlington. Given the airline bankruptcies and the fact that we paid $193 apiece for our tickets to Florida – a price that can’t be any higher than it was 20 years ago – you have to wonder if the airlines aren’t the ones being held hostage.
Our flight was finally called and we proudly passed the other despaired passengers, only to sit at the gate for an hour because there was no one to load our baggage. Yes, that was an absurd reason to be sitting there, especially given that it was a fairly small load. Yes, there was grumbling. But give the flight attendant and the pilot credit - they went out and pleaded our case.
At one point the pilot got off the plane, prompting groans from the seats. He came back with a pizza for the flight attendant, who said she hadn't eaten in 10 hours. A nice gesture, I thought. Another passenger, though, grumbled that he should have brought her pizza, too. Some passengers think it's all about them.
So a passenger bill of rights? Yes, I'd like to have the power to object to being held on the tarmac for hours. I'd like to know the real reason my flight's being delayed. But I don't think the pilot has to buy me pizza. It’s not always all about me.
- Terri Hallenbeck
