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March
2003 | America
West: Crappest airline in the USA or for that matter, the world
I
feel I must warn you in advance that my rage at America West airlines
may have resulted in misspellings, outrageous adjective stacking,
and misuse of vocabulary throughout the rant that follows. But
it had to be brought to you, the people, unedited, before one
more of you considered purchasing a ticket on this airline. Proceed
with caution.
During
my second hour of a three hour wait in line at the America
West ticket counter in the Phoenix airport this weekend,
I vowed to take revenge upon this fraudulent provider of air travel
services here in the global forum of Tiny Dog. And thus the subject
of today's rant, Avoid America West At All Costs. For lo, this
airline greatly incurred the wrath of myself and thousands of
others who missed our flights, for which we had arrived the normal
2 hours in advance, due to a miraculous, unexplained, and wildly
mismanaged line winding through the airport like a mighty record-breaking
tapeworm of America West ineptitude.
What
happened? A reasonable question that was asked in one way or another
by thousands of wriggling tape worm segments, otherwise known
as the human victims of America West's great, epic bungling that
day. All we victims know is this: we arrived to the Phoenix
airport with the usual unnecessary padding of 2 hours before our
short domestic hops to neighbor states, to be greeted
by a chaotic, teeming mass of human life, not assembled into any
recognizable form, blocking pathways and signs, yelling into cell
phones, flagging down imbecilic airport employees, who vaguely
directed them to amorphous, unlabeled groups of people allegedly
comprising the end of ticket counter lines, nowhere near one's
corresponding ticket counter. Each new arrival grappled for 30
minutes or more, and asked at least 3 clue-challenged America
West employees, before arriving at the supposed tail end of a
vast unlabeled line of angry people, disappearing around corners
into the unknown.
Having
tentatively arrived in one's supposed line, the only news that
came to the victims as we began our unspeakable wait was by way
of word on the street: the shattered details of pick-up arrangements
weeped into cell phones, angry whispered theories about Spring
Break crowds, furrow-browed second-guessing about staff cuts and
America West's simultaneous scheduled 11:00 am departures of approximately
all the day's flights. All I know is this: I've left the
Phoenix airport on this same Saturday for five years now, and
have never seen anything approaching the CF that greeted me that
day. This, combined with a conspicuous lack of slack-jawed,
shell-necklaced college twerps in faux-distressed Abercrombie
and Fitch wear discredited the "oh it's always like this
at Spring Break" excuse spewing from the cullotted and walkie-talkied
America West minions slowly herding all of us to our doom. As
the Materhornlike line twisted interminably under escalators and
around unmarked corners, inching onward with excruciating, hope-distinguishing
slowness, there was nothing to do but accept the clear fact that
one was not going to make it to the ticket counter in
time for one's scheduled flight. As this mutual fate
dawned gradually on all of the line's many thousands of victims
twisting through the lobbies and corridors of the airport, raging,
weeping, but mostly, mute resignation took hold. People selling
spots in line were not unheard of. Enterprising line victims contemplated
stepping out to buy water and snacks to sell the line at marked
up prices (not a stretch for those of us who'd spent the week
dining on $6 nachos as a primary means of sustenance). Flights
on other airlines were hastily arranged via cell, and the lucky
few stepped out for greener ticket counter pastures.
As
the hour of our flight came and went, we stood mutely, only
hundreds of yards away from our passage home, as it rolled, empty
of passengers, down the runway like dozens of other flights that
day. " Our only solace was our bitter and knowing
superiority toward doe-eyed, just-arriving passengers, stumbling
about innocently in search of America West employees to ask, "where
is the end of the line?"
Somewhere
at the end of hour two, one of the devil America West employees
stopped our line from progressing, holding up a vast many planeloads
of screwed-over passengers, and began to employ a tactic of permitting
line jumping for anyone claiming to still have a chance to make
their flight. Soon, the formerly cowed and deflated passengers
began to form mutinous bands, and took to angrily shouting
her down with outraged cries of "no one f**king asked me
at 10 if I had a flight at 11! Are you letting them cut in line??!!"
Under the growing volume of outrage, she eventually caved, and
sneaked a crowd of the screwed from the end of one hour-long accordion
line to the beginning of another. As to what happened to the thousands
of victims behind us, to this day I do not know.
There
came a time, I am told, when we reached the ticket counter, after
waiting behind thousands of line jumpers and 20-minute rebooking
marathons. By that time, I did not know whether it was day or
night, or in what city the ticket counter was located. We had
certainly traveled a very long way to get there. I was told we
were finally handed boarding passes at 12:35 pm for a subsequent
flight, over three hours after we'd first begun our endeavor to
locate the beginning of the mighty twisted line of lies and deceit.
The
one bright spot was the relatively normal wait at security; cleared,
no doubt, by the epic, unabated 3 hours plus bottleneck below.
Crying, shoving mothers nonetheless screamed at terrified
four year olds to break into a dead run after clearing security
in hopes to make flights about to close their doors. The Titanic
feel to the afternoon continued unabated until we relaxed into
our upgraded, first class seats and finally began our last ever
leg on Satan's own favorite airline, America West.
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