bumping

So I leave Perth on a 0530 flight to Kununurra (fine)… threeish hours there, only to drive five hours inland and swag in the bush for the night, 200 km from the nearest roadhouse (that means fuel, food, water, and people – all 20 of them). I am travelling at this point on my own […]

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Once again, Delta overbooked the flight. Not only did they overbook, but because the flight left from Accra, Ghana, Delta Airlines felt they could get away with bumping 60-70 people without compensation. The explanation: “Why didn’t you check-in for your flight 6 hours before takeoff like other people did?”

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None of the following vignettes really raise up to a level of “hell,” but they were certainly inconveniences. The first: In 1977 I was invited to a conference in Lynchburg, VA for high school students. My father arranged the flight through his employer (AT&T). When I went to the airport to fly home, Piedmont had […]

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On a flight from Washington D. C. to Phoenix, I experienced a series of fairly normal events that piled up in a comical fashion that resulted in a 24-hour plane flight. It started innocently enough with the plane pulling away from the gate 20 minutes late. We were about fifteenth in line for take-off, so […]

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My wife and I were flying from LAX to Tucson labor day weekend about 8 years ago on Southwest. We were already about 45 minutes late before we finally pushed back from the gate. As I watched outside from my window seat just in front of the wing I saw a ramp attendant running towards […]

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I arrived at the Spirit Airline counter at 645AM for a 745AM flight to Boston, MA out of Ft Lauderdale. FL. The rep said sorry you are late and we already sold your seat. They offered to book me on a 10 AM flight for a $50.00 fee, so after arguing to no avail that […]

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Having done quite a bit of traveling to date, I’ve experienced a number of oopsies, some the airline’s fault, some a passenger’s fault and some simply an act of God. These include getting hit up for a bribe by airport staff in Belem, Brazil in 1989, taking two days to get from Orlando, FL to […]

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This isn’t my experience, but it was shared with me the other day by a couple I know. They are both disabled and cannot drive, and they were going to a banquet in a city four hours’ drive to the south of ours. They took another friend with them to assist them. They flew American, […]

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Holy Bovine!

November 16, 2007

in Luggage Stories

Air India: Holy Cow! (Pun intended.) I just flew them from Newark to Paris. 1. On arrival, my luggage was delayed by TWO HOURS. 2. On departure, the flight from Paris was delayed by FIVE HOURS, leaving me to miss my connection to SFO. 3. At Newark, I had to spend TWO HOURS waiting on […]

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