I don't quite understand how the business of flying on a plane has evolved to the point where flyer's emit a sense of obnoxious entitlement to be on the plane. God forbid there be a delay, you know like a mechanical problem that needs to be fixed so we all don't die when we shoot off into the sky and then to make sure you don't miss your dinner plans at 6 we plummet to our deaths because you need to be somewhere.
I flew to Boston today to attend the jQuery conference (web development related event). It's being held at the Royal Sonesta. While I was waiting for the connecting flight in the Toronto City Airport, it was announced that there was some routine check ups being done on the plane before boarding time. Great, I'm glad that things are being double checked before we take off - after all while flying we are basically helpless rag dolls in the event that something goes wrong. Anyhow, after another 20 minutes (still before the scheduled take off time) it was announced that there would be a delay. Apparently something was found that was not right. I'm thinking "Great they are thorough and found something needs to be fixed". I really want to get to Boston in one piece and attend this conference.
Then all of a sudden I saw her. An anxious looking woman who was hacking away at a keyboard on an IBM think pad. As her motions caught my attention she seemed to be in the middle of placing a phone call. The phone call was to Porter Airlines. She was frustrated and upset that there was a delay. She had a dinner to go to at 6 o'clock which apparently Porter didn't care about. She accused them of repurposing the plane for another route. It was unacceptable to cause a delay unless they could explain to her just what the problem was.
Well lady here's the deal. Porter is running the airline not you. If you have critical appointments and things to do then try planning ahead and making sure you leave yourself time for unexpected things to happen. Unexpected - Ha! You should expect there to be flight delays. It happens all the time. Get over it, get over yourself and stop treating the airline people like the are some subservient half life which must bow to your command. Flying to New York and then taking a train is most likely not going to get you there faster.
Why is being a passenger on a bus and a passenger on a plane so wildly different? Why is it that plane passengers get away with giving personnel so much lip, yet on a bus the driver would like pull over and ask the person to get off. In fact I recall one night as I was busing home from a friends house some guy was all upset because the driver had taken a break before starting his route and was apparently late getting back and was angry that he was going to miss a bus transfer. The guy was yelling at the driver and the driver called a security guy who kicked the guy off the bus. The guy needed to get home somehow so he ended up apologizing to the driver and shutting the hell up before and the security guy left it up to the driver to let him back on. In the flight world the personnel would've been bending over backwards with apologies and offerings of how sorry they are.
No. Just no. People need to chill the fuck out. We are all humans and we all live on this Earth together. You're life is not so important that being late while travelling on a flying machine is going to put an end to it all. Remember how good we have it. We have flying machines. We have places to travel to. Others are not so lucky. Introspect and remember we are fortunate even if your too stupid to plan ahead so as to not stress yourself out when flying.
