Prescription Suitcase

If you read my post last week about my husband’s attempt to both fly to and return home from Pennsylvania via Atlanta, you know that his outbound trip was obnoxiously delayed.  His return trip wasn’t much better.  He flew from State College, PA to Atlanta without a hitch; in fact, he was so early arriving in Atlanta that there were a couple of flights to our home airport in South Carolina departing before the flight he was booked on, so he decided to see if he could get on one of the earlier ones and get home a bit faster.  His request was roundly rejected by the Delta agent with whom he spoke.  Apparently, since my husband had checked a suitcase, they couldn’t put him on the earlier flight because of new security regulations after 9/11 that disallow a suitcase to be on a flight without its owner.  And they just couldn’t spend the time to track down his checked suitcase in order to ensure that it got onto the same plane he did.

My husband accepted this explanation and agreed to wait for his original connecting flight.  As lousy airport luck would have it, though, his original connecting flight was canceled, and he ended up on standby for the next flight.  He couldn’t get on that one because it was too full, but he did get on the one after that.  When he arrived at home, his suitcase was waiting for him at baggage claim: off the carousel, sitting to the side with a bunch of other suitcases that had clearly arrived on an earlier flight.

What the…. ?

Apparently, if it’s convenient for the airline, the “no checked suitcases without their owners on the same plane” rule gets broken right and left.  But if a passenger asks to travel on an earlier flight for his or her own convenience, suddenly 9/11 gets invoked and the airline just can’t manage to wrangle the checked suitcase in question to the earlier plane in time.

My husband was furious, because if he had been able to get on one of the earlier flights, he and I would have had a chance to see each other before I had to leave for Kansas City.  (I’ll go on record and state that I have not seen my husband since August 13.)  Delta wouldn’t even investigate the possibility of putting him on an earlier flight because of the “no suitcase on a plane without its owner” rule, and they didn’t even bother to try to locate his suitcase so that it could be put on the same plane with him.

Lest you think this is a one-off incident, I have firsthand knowledge of at least two other similar happenings. The first was in 2004.  My husband and I had spent a couple of weeks out west with our families, and were on our way home to Pennsylvania (our home state at the time) via a stopover in Detroit on our way to Newark (which was just as close to our home in Allentown as the Philadelphia airport.)  We arrived in Detroit on time and were looking at a five hour layover before our flight to Newark, so we decided to wander over to the departure gate and see if we might be able to get on an earlier flight.  The gate agent cheerfully agreed to see what he could do for us, and not only did he get on his walkie-talkie to radio the baggage handlers to grab our bags and get them to the plane that was currently boarding, he gave us two seats in first class.  I was recovering from a bout of the flu (an unexpected Christmas gift from my parents) so the seats in first class were a wonderful thing as I was still feeling utterly crappy.  (I’d still been running a fever that morning as we made our way through security at Sea-Tac.)

In that case, the airline (Continental) made an effort to accomodate our request.  We didn’t badger the gate agent, made our request politely, and I didn’t even play the “I’m getting over the flu” card.  Two weeks ago, my husband made an equally polite request of Delta and they blew him off.  What gives?

The other incident was one I witnessed earlier this summer.  I had just gotten off a redeye from LAX to Charlotte and was heading down to the E terminal to catch a puddle jumper home to South Carolina.  A woman waiting at the same gate was also a frequent traveler, and I overheard her mentioning to the gate agent that her suitcase always seemed to make it home on an earlier flight than she did.  She asked if they would put her on the same (earlier) flight that her suitcase would be on, and they refused.  Undeterred, she watched the bags being loaded onto the planes like a hawk and returned to the podium when she saw her suitcase being loaded onto the plane that was going to make the earlier trip.  They still wouldn’t let her get on the plane, but she insisted.  I admired her chutzpah: she openly made calls to USAirways’ management within earshot of the gate agents, and just kept hassling the obnoxious ladies at the podium until they complied with her entirely reasonable request.

I describe these incidents to make a point: it is clear there is a double standard at work here.  As I said, it appears that when it is convenient for an airline to throw a checked suitcase on an earlier flight, they will break the 9/11 rule, but when a customer asks to be booked on an earlier flight in a connecting city (even with the understanding that their luggage may not arrive at the same time they do) most airlines will do everything within their power to avoid assisting the passenger.  (Continental is a notable exception — yay, Continental!)

I understand the need for this rule: the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 could have been avoided if such a rule had been in effect in 1988.  I don’t even care if airlines enforce this rule as long as they enforce it consistently.  However, it’s clear that airlines break this rule when it is convenient for them and invoke it when they can’t be bothered to look for a passenger’s bag.  How is that keeping us safer?  And why is it so flipping difficult for an airline to hunt down a suitcase to ensure that it gets on the same plane as its owner?  Baggage tags equipped with RFID chips would solve that problem, but apparently it’s cheaper for airlines to reimburse passengers for lost luggage than it is for them to implement such a system and (gasp!) improve customer service!

Where’s that air traveler bill of rights when you need it?

If anyone who works for Homeland Security, the TSA, or an airline reads this post and would like to email me to shed some more light on this subject, I would be more than happy to post his or her remarks on this blog.  Inquiring minds would really like to know!

I’ve been in lovely Kansas City, Missouri since Sunday, 8/19.  I’m working with a great client and will be in town until the 31st, and I’m looking forward to a fun weekend of bumming around in good ol’ KC!

Some of my favorite Kansas City things:

The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (including its fabulous Cafe Sebastienne)
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
The Kansas City Royals
Country Club Plaza
The Hallmark Visitors Center
Worlds of Fun

Last Tuesday, my husband had to make a trip from our home in South Carolina up to Pennsylvania for a conference.  His choice of flight took him through Atlanta, where he encountered a lengthy delay and six or seven gate changes.  When he called me to vent his frustrations, all I could say was, “Welcome to my world!”

As we discussed his unfortunate circumstances, I wondered aloud if the Atlanta airport does, in fact, have the lousiest on-time percentage of any airport in the U.S.  I decided to do a little research, and discovered that the U.S. Department of Transportation Bureau of Transportation Statistics has a lovely little on-line clearinghouse for all those burning questions about flight delay statistics, on-time percentages, and the like.  I was able to do a little querying, sorting, and filtering, and I am pleased to provide you with the following top-ten lists.  Read ‘em and weep.

The ten best airports for on-time departures , January to June of 2007:

10. SEA (Seattle, WA) - 77.77% of flights depart on-time
9. MCO (Orlando, FL) - 77.95%
8. MSP (Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN) - 78.17%
7. IAH (Houston, TX) - 78.37%
6. TPA (Tampa, FL) - 80.52%
5. OAK (Oakland, CA) - 80.62%
4. LAX (Los Angeles, CA) - 80.75%
3. SAN (San Diego, CA) - 83.25%
2. SLC (Salt Lake City, UT) - 83.50%
1. PDX (Portland, OR) - 83.87%

The ten worst appear after the jump….

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A fellow road warrior sent me this video last week and it cracked me up.  There’s more than a little truth in this! Enjoy…

Your seat on an airplane can make or break your trip.  If you get a good seat, you arrive at your destination (relatively) relaxed and refreshed.  If you get a lousy seat, you arrive feeling like you need a stiff drink, a cigarette, and a long nap.  So what’s a good seat and how do you get one?  Here are some of my own observations on the subject:

•  Aisle seats are better.  This goes without saying, for a couple of reasons. One, you have a little extra room on one side to stick your foot into the aisle if you need to, or to lean over to get something from underneath the seat in front of you.  Two, you’re off the plane faster.  If you’ve got a tight connection, you can jump into the aisle as soon as that fasten seatbelt light goes off and be out of that sardine can marginally faster than your middle- and window-seated peers.  Just watch out for those wayward beverage carts and you’ll be fine.

• Don’t knock the middle seat.  Contrary to popular opinion, I’ve actually found middle seats to be OK under certain circumstances.  If you’re on a redeye and everyone’s sleeping anyway, a middle seat is no big deal at all.  They’re also OK if you happen to be seated behind a bulkhead or in an exit row; somehow, the extra legroom afforded by these locations makes up for the fact that you’re the peanut butter in a human sandwich.

• Window seats are delightful, but only if you have the whole row to yourself.  That’s a rare occurrence in these days of overbooked, overcrowded airplanes, but I’ll still scoot over to the window seat if there’s no one else in my row.

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I’m sticking closer to home this week: just a short two-day trip to Atlanta on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Some of the most stressful parts of a trip happen before you even get to the plane. Have you seen the security lines in airports lately? It’s absurd. I’m convinced that a major cause of these long lines are infrequent, inexperienced travelers who don’t understand the 3-1-1 rule or its permutations.

Bottom line: you can’t take anything liquid through the security checkpoint unless it’s in a 3 ounce or smaller container and stored in a quart-sized zippy bag. There are some exceptions, such as medications, breast milk, and baby food, which the TSA has handily outlined on its website. (Smokers, take heart: the TSA has also recently lifted the ban on your trusty Bics!)

I’m a girly-girl, so I don’t even try to bring all of my toiletries and cosmetics along in a quart-sized bag. It just wouldn’t work. I check my toiletries and pack a day’s supply of my prescription and over-the-counter medicine in my zippy bag, along with some hand sanitizer, a travel-sized deodorant, my lip gloss, Tide-to-Go pen, breath freshener spray, and anything else I might be carrying that could conceivably be construed as a liquid.

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According to an article I came across yesterday, U.S. flight delays are at the highest level they’ve been in at least 13 years.  I could’ve told you that — I pretty much expect some sort of delay while flying these days.  I’m surprised if a flight is actually on time.  I was listening to Slate magazine’s daily podcast yesterday morning, and the subject was (again) air travel.  Apparently, even though flight delays, bumped passengers, and lost luggage are at an all-time high, the airlines are doing better financially since the economic beating they took post-9/11.

So why are we, as air travelers, putting up with this crap?  Daniel Gross’ article on Slate puts it eloquently:

What explains this dichotomy? After all, if workers at a restaurant chain routinely spat in customers’ food, took three hours to deliver an appetizer, lost checked coats, and, every so often, grabbed diners by the lapels and kicked them out the door, the chain would quickly go bust.

This Tale of Two Airline Industries can be explained by a few basic macroeconomic factors and by one highly unexpected microeconomic development—airline managers are doing a much better job running their unwieldy empires.

Customers cut airlines slack in part because they can blame other forces for their misery. The Federal Aviation Administration’s creaky, vintage system causes many delays. The Transportation Security Administration oversees the Soviet-like security lines. Weather-related problems can be attributed to a higher power.

The overwhelming majority of Americans lack an efficient alternative to the unfriendly skies. Even if a six-hour flight from New York to Los Angeles turns into an 11-hour Hieronymus Bosch-like ordeal, it’s still light-years faster than a cross-country train or car ride. For all the hype surrounding corporate jets and the advent of air-taxi services, they constitute only a tiny sliver of the market.

Meanwhile, five-plus years of economic growth has boosted demand. Between April 2003 and April 2007, the number of domestic passengers rose 21 percent—while the number of flights rose only 4 percent.

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This week finds me in Pineville, Louisiana.

It’s hot, humid, and small-town, but I am enjoying the vibe.  I’ll be getting some delicious cajun cuisine later this week!

One of the drawbacks of traveling while working (or working while traveling) is that good, healthy meals can be ridiculously hard to come by.  More often than not, I find myself with a limited selection of restaurants to choose from or a limited amount of time to eat.  I’ve resigned myself to occasionally eating fast food behind the wheel of my rental car, but I categorically refuse to fall victim to road warrior’s weight gain.  Most hotels now have exercise rooms available, and I’ve discovered a few ways to keep the caloric intake under control, too.

One method for watching what I eat on the road has proven particularly compatible with my itinerant lifestyle: Weight Watchers.  Their online tools make it incredibly easy to keep track of what I eat, and I’ve actually managed to lose about 30 pounds in the past four months.  Even if you don’t need to lose weight, using Weight Watchers can help you maintain your weight without a lot of extra effort, and the cost for an online membership is really reasonable.

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