I’m currently at a conference at Lehigh University, and it’s given me pause to really reconsider air travel. Every time I travel, seems something goes awry. Coming back from a conference in California about a month ago, the last leg of my flight was canceled because the plane needed a new tire, and all of Charlotte didn’t have a tire for that particular aircraft. I could swallow that since the aircraft wasn’t safe to fly, but the line to actually reschedule my flight took about 2 hours, and they couldn’t get me back to Newport News (where my car was) until almost midnight the next day. Fortunately, my wife came to get me in Norfolk. I was significantly peeved to not choose US Airways for my next flight to Vegas that I was going on in the next couple of weeks.
Coming back from Las Vegas (on United), the company had issued some “cost saving measures” that meant that the pilots couldn’t have the engines on before we boarded on the flight from Dulles to Richmond. It was hot that day, so they turned the fans on for us, which drained the auxiliary power, which meant the engines couldn’t be started. Well, they brought some field units on, but after the first three didn’t work, we disembarked the aircraft to wait for maintenance to bring a fourth unit from another unit to get the aircraft started.
In my latest trip (unfortunately back on US Airways), I got to Lehigh yesterday afternoon, but my bags only made it as far as Boston. I was first told my bags would be on the 4:00pm flight, but when I called at 6:30 to check, they told me they’d be arriving at 7:00pm. I called at 9:00 to check, and they told me my bag would be delivered by midnight last night. Since I wasn’t woken up by my phone last night, I called again this morning. I was informed that the delivery service began at 8:00am, and they had a 4 - 6 hour window for delivery.
I’m thinking that the next time I need to travel, Amtrak is looking a lot better…