Am I seeing the past through rose-colored glasses or did flying used to be less eventful?
Yesterday, one of my closest friends, Sunday, flew in to Nice for a three-week holiday with me. Because I read travel disaster stories all day long for another job, I was nearly convinced she was not going to arrive on time.
I didn't want to leave her in a lurch, however, so I was there at the appointed arrival time. Amazingly enough, her flight was only about 15 minutes late and she was actually on it (which was even more amazing after I heard her story). Unfortunately, her luggage was not.
Sunday is an experienced traveler, however, so she had stuffed some extra clothes in her carryon (limited to one because she was flying British Airways). After an hour of waiting for her, convinced she missed a connection or something, she called. She had borrowed a phone from another woman whose luggage had been lost and they were standing in line waiting to fill out the forms to, hopefully, retrieve their luggage at a future date.
About an hour and a half after her flight landed, Sunday finally emerged, luggageless, and we were headed to my apartment. On the way, she relayed the story about how she ended up buying another ticket for the Boise to Seattle leg of her trip because the airline said she was supposed to have paper tickets (who gets paper tickets anymore?), but she never received them. Once in Seattle, she paid a fee (British Airways, luckily, didn't make her buy new tickets) and was on her way on the flight from Seattle to London.
My past several flights have involved some sort of drama. Missed a connection in Chicago and had to stay the night (at my expense). Pilot didn't show up in Colorado, forcing my flight to be late and I missed another connection. On our way back from San Francisco, the airline didn't assign Sunday a seat. When we got to the gate, they asked her to take another flight. Eventually, after a lot of discussion, she was given her seat, but it was touch and go for awhile.
My point is, at what point are people just going to get fed up and quit flying? Will it happen? If it does, will it be noticeable? I'm considering flying home for Christmas, but I'm hesitant to fly. It's a long flight to begin with, and I just don't want to deal with any "events."
