paragiraffe

Rather unexpectedly, I found myself booked on a flight from Atlanta to Boston this past Tuesday, on Delta Air Lines. My flight was scheduled to leave at 9:55 p.m., which is late but worked out great because Shaun could drop me off at the airport after work, which he did. Delta’s on a big marketing kick right now about how they are becoming a better, customer-focused airline, with a slew of ads beginning “Change is…” and ending with such gems as “TXTING U UR FLT STATUS.” The ads also talk about more choices for onboard entertainment (individual screens on select flights), more self-check-in kiosks, and new flight attendant uniforms (?). As Atlanta is not only a hub but the headquarters of Delta, I was hoping to have an absolutely marvelous “new Delta” experience. (I was also kind of hoping Curt Schilling would be on my flight, but that’s another story maybe for tomorrow.)

Check-in was a breeze although security was not. Once at the gate they let us know that our pilots were running late but since the plane was already there they would start boarding once the pilots touched down. True to their word, by about 9:45 p.m. we were all seated on the plane, which, understandably although disappointingly, did not have individual tv screens with HBO On Demand. I text messaged Shaun with “No tv screens. Boo new delta!” And he responded with, “Change is… Making ads about superficial stuff and not even following through on that.” Then, at 9:55 p.m. a flight attendant announced we had two hour delay and would promptly deplane. This put our departure at 11:55 p.m. and subsequent arrival in Boston at 2:13 a.m. Fantastic. I text messaged Shaun with, “Change is putting you on the plan then delaying 2 hours and making you get off.”

During my two hour delay I went on a concourse pilgrimage for a non-junk-food snack and eventually scored a banana. I went in the bathroom and cried because it was late and I was cranky. I briefly considered drowning my sorrows in alcohol but refrained due to continuing gastrointestinal problems. Oh, also, I did the stupidest thing ever: I accidentally locked the keypad on my phone. I have never set the code for this so I had no idea what to do, and having a cell phone at this point in time was pretty crucial. I tried 1234, 0000, etc., but nothing worked. I cried some more. Finally I parted with too much of my money at one of those airport internet kiosk things that charges you by the millisecond so I could Google my problem and discover it was the last four digits of my phone number. (I am an idiot, yes, thank you.)

The flight did leave after the delay, and we arrived in Boston about 2:30 a.m. putting me in bed around 4:00 a.m. In Delta’s defense they do have numerous self-check-in kiosks and are pretty generous with the inflight snacks, but, wow is air travel generally awful right now. Compare also to my trip at Christmas where they couldn’t get the door to the cargo hold open on the plane for an hour.

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