I do feel rather bad for them. They live in/around St. Louis and a tornado destroyed their airport the day after they left and their return flight home was cancelled. After an hour on the phone with an agent, they managed to reschedule their flights for Tuesday. But checking them tonight ... only one of the three names came up on the site, and he doesn't even have a seat. Another phone call, and the other two got seats for late day.
I'm so annoyed with the airline system ever since September 11th. It's frustrating that people paying for their seats get booked and bumped and struggle and struggle and struggle to get home. In this circumstance, the act of god is uncontrollable. But all the increased and insensitive security screenings are really too much for my conscience. Thus, I will not be flying until these issues are resolved.
And hopefully these boys make it safely home. Before I have to put them to work around the house (and make them start packing my stuff for my move.)
Meh, the screening stuff isn't that bad at most places (although the rebooking and seat bumping most definitely blows), I think a lot of the outrage was media hype and the potential implementation of stuff which hasn't materialized yet (and may or may not in the future).
ReplyDeleteAnd this is from the person who gets pat downs while holding a baby.
My mother, however, agrees with you, and had gotten into quite the argument with Peter over it last summer when he was saying that flying was a luxury and if the screening bothered people they shouldn't do it and she was saying that it wasn't a choice for many and it was an invasion of privacy.
I do know that the screening process varies drastically airport to airport, and that in general you can get through with all sorts of stuff you shouldn't really have (such as playdough, as apparently it could be a plastic explosive) without much trouble. The big airports are usually way better at only doing the quick-walk-through-metal-detector-no-shoes thing, I think the small airport TSA staff have too much time on their hands.
Oh, and breast pumps are hard to identify on ex-ray and freak out screeners when you tell them what it is :-D