This is my first attempt at blogging. It's been some time since I have had the desire to "pen" down some of my thoughts. But there is always the question of what to write and how much to divulge. Today, while I was reading my friend's, Amarjeet's, blog, I decided to take the plunge into the blogosphere.
I have been wanting to do something about a flight debacle that I had in March while travelling to my country, India. I booked my tickets way in advance with North West (NW) and had a convenient flight from Chicago to Delhi via Amsterdam. However, my itinerary was changed without notice to an additional stopover at Memphis before I flew to Amsterdam. Being an incessant worrier, I periodically checked my itinerary and fortunately noticed that I barely had half an hour at the Memphis airport to catch my next international flight. I called NW and let them know about my skepticism. Although the agent insisted that 45 minutes was a valid stopover, he changed my flight from Chicago to Detroit and then to Amsterdam, with a slightly longer, one hour, stopover at Detroit. I was pretty happy with the change. On the day of the flight, I received a voice mail from NW that my itinerary is being changed to the previous one due to flight cancellations. Because of their short notice, I had already boarded the bus to Chicago and ended up reaching the airport 7 hours before my flight. I expressed my concern of loosing the connection at the Memphis airport to the agent at the check-in counter. However, she was quite confident that I would be fine and reminded me of the validity of the short stopover. After the long wait at the airport, just as I was starting to get excited about my impending flight, the computer screen started flashing a delayed take off time. I rushed to the agent and explained him my predicament. He said that I could postpone my ticket to the next day, but that there was no guarantee of a timely departure of the flight to Memphis on any day. I was appalled by the nonchalance and indifference of the NW crew. I felt helpless and decided to try out my luck with the Memphis flight the same day. I must admit that the agent was nice enough to change my seating so that I would be the first to get off the plane in Memphis. After a delay of half an hour, our plane took off from Chicago to reach Memphis. My heart was sinking awaiting the fate of the Amsterdam flight. As soon as I found an agent, I asked about the flight and was informed that it had already taken off. I still had a glimmer of hope and rushed for the departure gate. Alas, It was closed! I couldn't believe I had missed my flight because of a foreseen problem and cursed NW with all my heart. I went to the gate crew and explained my situtation. I was alarmed at how unapologetic and indiffeent they were to me. They plainly told me that I would have to wait for another day to catch the same flight to Amsterdam. I was still in shock to believe that I was trapped in such an awful situation. I requested them to change my flight because I had a very short layover at Amsterdam as well. They booked me on a flight from Memphis to Detroit the next morning. This meant I would have to stay at the airport overnight with all my luggage. I requested them for a hotel room, which they rudely refused on grounds that it wasn't their fault that my flight got delayed. I was extremely furious, but could not channel that anger and demand a decent accomodation or compensation. I meekly accepted my situation and collected all my baggage and waited near the check-in counter overnight. Luckily I had company as another unfortunate soul had been booked on the same horrendous flight. We ate some junk food at the only shop that was open and took turns sleeping on chairs, while watching our luggage. We were exhausted due to lack of sleep and food. The only consolation was that I was waiting to fly "home". The next day we checked in again and were happy to be at the gate of our next flight. After a while, I noticed a delay in this flight as well. I was really mad and approached the agent, who was surprisingly nice enough to immediately book us on an earlier flight to Detroit. We reached Detroit without any hicupps in the journey. After a four hour long wait, we took off for Amsterdam. I was as giddy as a kid with his favorite toy. By the time we reached Amsterdam, we were extremely tired and had to wait for three more hours. The flight got delayed for an additional hour before we boarded it. I chugged a wine bottle with one of my best flight meals and dozed off. I finally reched the Delhi airport safe, sound and exhausted.
In the end, I feel that the airline crew can't help the air traffic or the delays or the awful connections, BUT they can be polite, humane and understanding. The least they can do to assist you is to book you in a decent hotel for an overnight delay or just look you in the eye and apoloize, empathize. As far as the airline is concerned, I vehemently believe that they should make a 45 min stopover invalid, especially for an international flight. AND the next time this happens to me, I am going to fight till they secede to my demands.
