Thinking for yourself
One show on TV I really like to watch is Airline. It’s on A&E, which in itself is probably a bit of a black eye, but in fact it’s not too bad of a show. I recommend watching it if you have time - don’t make a special effort, but definitely Tivo it (or whatever type of recording device you have) if you think about it.
The show is basically a camera crew at various airports that follow around Southwest employees and basically find interesting people at the airports to make a show out of. 90% of these people are in some kind of funky mood because either they’ve been drinking, are afraid to fly, got bumped off a flight, or some combination of the above.
What’s boggling to me, however, the is complete lack of thought most people have when something doesn’t go their way. Here’s my recap of a typical story:
Person misses flight.
Person gets mad.
Airline employee says next flight is in 4 hours.
Person gets even madder. Says you have to get them there NOW.
Airline employee says no way they can do that, you can wait four hours.
Person says that that won’t work because their son’s best friend is going to be pitching out the first ball at the little league game and they have to be there to see it.
Airline employee says there aren’t any other flights going there for four hours.
Person throws a fit, wants to talk to a manager, etc.
Now, I can understand that you are mad because you didn’t make your flight. But I can’t fathom why someone would think that throwing a fit is going to change the fact that THERE AREN’T ANY FLIGHTS GOING TO WHERE YOU ARE GOING. Yes, you are screwed. But it’s not like calling the guy’s manager is going to unscrew you. Just give it up.
Anyway, this show will get your panties in a knot, or make you laugh a lot at people’s misfortunes. Depends on your personality, I guess.
I recommend checking it out.
December 20th, 2005 at 9:42 pm
Reminds me of working tech support.
When there’s a hardware problem and admin’s are already in the process of swaping out hardware/imaging hard drives/whatever, the owner of the company isn’t going to press the magical button that makes it just happen.
The people who are responsible for doing it the good old fashioned manual way are ALREADY DOING IT.
/geek
December 21st, 2005 at 7:18 am
I’ve seen airline several tims myownself. I completely agree with your assessment. Why do people think that going apeshit is going to suddenly convince SW to fly a plane to their destination?
My theory is that these people are poor, uneducated types. To them, $400 is alot of bones to shell ote for a flight and they think they are entitled to first class service since they paid so much.
In summary, fuckem if they can’t take a joke.
December 21st, 2005 at 7:25 am
my favorite is when they miss a flight (because they’re late, perhaps) and want to do some finagiling and the southwest rep says something like “okay, well, the difference in the cost of tickets is $29, so you’ll have to pay that in order to do what you want to do” and not only are they pissed, but then they say that they don’t have that kind of money and can’t afford to pay it.
Seriously - if you can’t carry money (even a credit card) when you when you travel, you shouldn’t be traveling.
December 21st, 2005 at 8:50 am
Sometimes, though, your justified to go a little blitzkrieg. I had an air canada flight get delayed for almost an hour because the flight crew didn’t show up (and there wasn’t traffic - it was close to midnight). Then they didn’t radio ahead to let anyone know we were running late, so my next flight was sitting there when I landed - and I got to watch it take off, too, because no one had aired ahead. So yeah, sometimes, its perfectly justifiable to air it out a little - just remember the people your airing at are at best going to get you a free meal
December 21st, 2005 at 9:10 am
I agree - though on this show most of the time it’s the passenger’s fault as to why the problem occurred. And at least 50% of the time it’s alcohol related.
December 21st, 2005 at 10:50 am
I watched this show for a good while until I started seeing reruns and then removed it. Good tims!
To be fair to the general population, in at least a third of the incidents the SW employees were just being dicks. Often it seemed like they were just looking for an excuse to exercise their authority and ban somebody from a flight.
I remember one episode where they wouldn’t let a guy fly because he was “acting drunk.” AFTER the flight left, they contacted a relative or something to verify his story that he has a medical condition and was permanently sleepy-looking. Shitty.
Food chain of power-trip HS dropouts:
Cops
Security guards
Airline employees
Soup nazis
Postal workers
December 21st, 2005 at 10:59 am
Love the show. It’s funny how every episode is the same, someone gets too drunk to fly.. Southwest airlines is nice because they allow their employees to have some fun with their jobs (as much as they can in that industry). I just flew Southwest back to Indiana yesterday. The lack of assigned seating would normally deter me from Southwest, but with a toddler and priority seating I knew we wouldn’t get screwed.
December 21st, 2005 at 12:28 pm
I saw the show enough to realize that all episodes are virtually the same, just different people. Cause really, the only things that can happen to cause someone to be mad at an airport are drunkenness, missing a flight, afraid to fly or some combination of those. Still “eh” quality entertainment.
I have never got upset at the ticket counter people because I understand there’s usually nothing they can do. While we were waiting for our flight out of Louisville to Chicago to Munich, the plane was nearly 45 minutes late. We only had an hour lay over in Chi-town, so I started to worry. We ended up like a cliche’d scene from a movie where the couple is running through the terminals trying to make their flight. O’Hare is a BIG effing airport to be running through ass wheel. If we wouldn’t have made the flight, I doubt there would have been a 4 hours later option.