by Pa Rock
Dissatisfied Flyer
Last Sunday when I flew from Kansas City to Salt Lake City via Delta Airlines, I gave that company some props because they furnished a nice assortment of juices, eggnog, and cookies at the gate prior to our very early morning departure - and the plane left right on schedule. I was impressed and said so, even though I was (am) righteously still pissed over the price of the round-trip airline ticket that they cheated me out of back during the pandemic. The ticket hung around in cyber space for awhile before being cancelled and not refunded by the company.
But, I am a magnanimous person and was quick to compliment the company on their exemplary service last week. Now I would like to take it all back.
I flew back to Kansas City from Salt Lake City today, again on Delta, and this time it was a rolling horror show - absolutely the worst flying experience that I have ever endured. My ticket was purchased and paid for around four weeks ago, and my son checked me in as soon as that process was opened. Yet when I got my seat assignment it was as though I was their least valued customer. I had been placed in Zone 8, the last group to board, and my seat assignment was a middle seat of the last row of the aircraft - back just in front of the latrines. There were only five people left behind me as I boarded - a man and his wife and three small children, and when I got to my seat there were only five empty seats left - the row of three in front of me and one on each side of me. Obviously I was not going to sit between a parent and their child, so I graciously moved to the window seat - even though there was no window on the last row of that particular aircraft where I sat curled up against the curved wall of the plane for the duration of the trip. And to frost the cake, the air vent for my seat didn't work.
I had given the corporate gods at Delta seventy dollars (thirty-five each way) extra to check my one bag, and I am sure that it traveled far more comfortably in the cargo hold than I did in the plane's rumble seat.
I have said it before, but this time I mean it - no more flying for this angry customer - ever. somebody else can hav my seat in the flying cattle car - and they are welcome to it!
Arriving at Kansas City's relatively new airport did nothing to improve my attitude. The gate where our plane de-boarded was about a half-mile from the baggage claim, and if that is an exaggeration, it is only by inches. When I finally made it to the parking garage, after collecting my big bag, another formidable hike, the lot's one elevator was out of service. The last time I had been in that airport, in July of 2023, that same damned elevator wasn't working then either. Hey Kansas City, fix it or turn it into a gift shop!
Here is an interesting fact about the airport in Salt Lake City. The more than forty food vendors in the airport charge "street prices" instead of the criminally high prices that most other airports charge, including Kansas City. A fair price for airport food - what a concept!
Molly and company, Pa Rock will be out to see you in Oregon in the spring - and I will be driving again. I I just don't have the strength or patience to fly!
Some day all the oil and gas will be gone and the airlines will finally be forced to release their stranglehold on American public transportation. I wish that I could be around to see it happen, but for the time-being . . .
Keep them doggies movin', rawhide!
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