Come Fly With Me - Or Perhaps Not

I only have one more day left in my "Teacher as Writer" class and I don't know what I'm going to do when this class is over. I've so enjoyed getting to know my classmates and also being given this amazing gift of time to work on the novel I've always dreamed of writing.


Everyday someone in the class was responsible for presenting a writing prompt for the day. Since yesterday's prompt was to write whatever you were inspired to write from listening to the Frank Sinatra song " Come Fly with Me", I thought I'd share what I wrote since the travel portion of my blog seems to get the most neglected. If I had an abundance of money or a job that afforded me the ability to travel more, I'd probably get to write about it more often, but as for now, we seem to be holding firm at the "lust" in wanderlust.

Come Fly With Me - Or Perhaps Not

The song “Come Fly with Me” hearkens back to the day when flying was considered sexy and glamorous. Now instead of sexy and glamorous, we have security lines, baggage searches, interrogations, and the TSA attitude that “everyone is guilty until proven innocent.”

  

I used to love to fly and my love for travel began as a child. My dad worked for Delta for 37 years and so flying was a huge part of my childhood, teen years, and young adulthood. But then a little thing called 9/11 happened. Within two weeks of that fateful day, just as I knew it would, the airline offered my dad early retirement. Airlines needed to save their shirts, and long-time loyal employees were the first ones to be suggested to go. Perhaps it's for the best anyway. Certainly my dad would no longer recognize the beloved airline he used to work for. Delta used to be considered one of the best airlines to work for in terms of perks and employee morale. Now the entire airline industry's workforce, not just Delta's, appears to be overworked, underpaid, and ill-equipped to deal with the hoards of angry customers that leash their venom upon them daily.

37 years working for Delta almost always afforded my dad (and his dependents) top seniority on the stand-by list. After the full-fare stand-bys, our name was pretty much always at the top of the list, making flying for free a piece of cake, and often in first class to boot.

Now as a retired employee, his priority is so far down the list that attempting to fly non-revenue stand-by in these days of fewer, fuller flights would be travel suicide. Needless to say, I am a full-fare paying customer now.

I miss those days when we could just say, “Hey, Miami’s nice this time of year”, or “I’d sure love to go back to Greece” and at a moment’s notice, show up at the airport with ID card in hand and jet off to some exotic locale without once having to present any form of payment.

Okay, truth be told, that never really happened, but knowing that you COULD do it if you wanted to was a comfort that has long since vanished. As I continue to listen to the song, Frank Sinatra croons about wanting to get his sweetheart "up there" and that they are both starry-eyed. I miss those days of being starry-eyed over airline travel. Maybe one of these days we'll not just long for enjoyable airline travel, but it will actually exist once again - for everyone, not just the frequent fliers.

Flight 253 and the Continuing Demise of Airline Travel

I have had CNN on nonstop since Friday evening. I just can't get enough information about this whole terrorist plot that was thwarted by passengers and faulty explosives. Another reason I can't stop watching is that it happened in my own backyard. Detroit Metropolitan Airport is but ten minutes from my house and I have even taken flight 253 (labeled flight 53 before Delta acquired Northwest) a time or two when my husband and I lived in Germany and would fly home to visit family.

What disturbs me the most about this whole situation, however, is not that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was able to board the plane with these explosives (though that obviously disturbs me a great deal). No, what troubles me the most is the knee-jerk reaction that the TSA chose to implement immediately following the foiled plot. Passengers were quickly ordered to remain seated for the final hour of flight, not permitted to get up to use the restroom, retrieve items from their carry on luggage, or even use a blanket and pillow.

I find this type of reaction counter-productive. Future terrorists will not be looking to repeat this same plot; they will be looking to try something different. And by requiring passengers to remain completely still, denying them the simple right of using the restroom, what exactly is that helping? All it will do is cause the future Abdulmutallabs of the world to go into the restroom TWO HOURS before the flight lands instead of one.

I honestly don't know what the answer to this dilemma is. Body scanners are clearly a breach of privacy with most people, but the minutia of these regulations is merely calling out a challenge to the future terrorists of the world. All I know is that treating every person on board an 8-hour flight across the ocean as if they're criminals is not the answer. That was clearly proven two days later when, on December 27th, the exact same flight from Amsterdam was interrupted by another Nigerian man, this time completely harmless, because he was legitimately ill and needed to use the restroom with great frequency. When I first heard about the December 27th story, I immediately thought it was due to the ridiculous TSA restrictions and not because the man was a terrorist.

As someone who loves to travel, if these restrictions continue, I don't know how often I'm going to be boarding an airplane in the future. I already had a very negative experience with TSA returning home from Vancouver this summer when they confiscated my boarding pass and passport for 15 minutes while they questioned me and patted me down THREE TIMES because they detected a substance on my laptop that is sometimes found in explosives (but is also used in perfumes). It was one of the most traumatic and humiliating travel experiences I've ever had, and one that I don't wish to relive again. So what I want to know is why I was exposed to scrutiny while Mr. Abdulmutallab was allowed to just pass right on through?

Flight Canceled? Try Invoking Rule 240

You learn something new everyday. I was watching a show on the Fine Living Network called "The Top 20 Travel Tips" and the number two rule was to invoke rule 240 if you're ever in the unfortunate situation of experiencing a flight cancellation.

Rule 240 states that if the airline cancels a flight for a reason other than weather or an act of God, then they are required to put you on the very next flight to your destination regardless of the airline. So if Delta flight 1780 to Los Angeles is canceled and they can't get you out on the next flight until 8 hours later, but United has a flight leaving in two hours, then they must put you on that United flight - even if the only seat left on that flight is a first class seat.

You have to keep in mind, however, that the flight cancellation must be due the fault of the airline and not unavoidable circumstances. It might be a good idea to carry a copy of this rule with you whenever you travel just in case you find yourself in this position (and just remember that each airline has a different version of the rule, so print out a copy of your airline's version). Just remember that if you miss a connection due to weather, the airline will not honor the rule and you'll have to wait it out in the airport with everyone else.

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Here's another great tip I learned when watching the aforementioned travel show: scan a copy of your travel documents and email them to yourself so that if, God forbid, you were to lose your passport or other identification, you have a better chance of more quickly resolving the problem and having new documents issued to you so you can return home as quickly as possible.