I remember in college thinking how cool it would be traveling for business. I'd fantasize about jetting around the country as a marketing pro in a power suit (hey, it was the late 80s), eating at nice restaurants, staying in amazing hotels, entertaining clients and getting laid (again, this was a college fantasy).
Like most of my college fantasies, this one never materialized either. Oh I've traveled around the country alright. And I've eaten at my fair share of nice restaurants, stayed at some amazing hotels and entertained hundreds of clients (and for the record, honey, the only action I've seen on the road is watching traveling salesmen hitting on local bar flies). But business travel is by no means cool or glamorous. And I was reminded of that this past weekend.
Me, Mike and Annie flew to San Francisco last Thursday for a meeting with our client The Family Violence Prevention Fund. It was supposed to be a simple overnight trip. Friday afternoon, somewhere over Missouri, the Southwest pilot told us the ice storm in Kansas City was too severe for us to land, so we diverted to Louisville. Louisville is no place to be stranded. The only reason I'd ever want to be stuck in Kentucky is because I'd spent 7 days at the Bourbon Festival and was arrested for attempting to break into Hunter S. Thompson's boyhood home.
So back onto the plane we went for a fun-filled ride to the flight's ultimate destination: Baltimore.
Now I like Baltimore. We lived in DC for five years and enjoyed our visits to the Inner Harbor. But this visit wasn't planed, and by the time we landed it was 11 p.m., and we hadn't eaten since that morning.
Thank goodness we have the best travel agent in the United States. Mike was on the phone with her from Louisville so she could book us on a flight out of Baltimore the next day, and more importantly, book us in a decent hotel that night.
We grabbed our bags, found a ride (Ray, a kind, middle-eastern gentlemen with a sedan) and headed for downtown Baltimore.
Oh, I forgot to mention two things:
1. Mike, my boss, had been traveling since the previous Tuesday and had started his week in New York. He flew from there to San Francisco for our meeting. And now here he was, back on the east coast, less than 24 hours later. By the time we got to the hotel, he was as chipper as Donald Rumsfeld the day after the election.
2. The Ravens were hosting the Colts in the playoffs, so drunk fans in purple filled the streets, hotels and bars.
After checking in around Midnight, we headed to the closest bar -- James Joyce Irish Pub. We proceeded to drink away our pain, fill our bellies and buy T-shirts so we'd have something to wear the next day on our flight.
Saturday afternoon...1:35 p.m...we're on the plane, buckled in and ready to go home. I close my eyes when I hear, "Ahhhh, folks, this is the captain, and I'm sorry to tell you this flight's been canceled."
Weather was the culprit, supposedly. Can't land in KC.
We file off the plane, call our travel agent, re-book our hotel and a flight for the next morning. By 3 p.m. we'd waited in all the appropriate lines, collected our bags and found another ride back downtown (Jacob, a friendly, fidgety Russian with a comfortable suburban).
Like cheesy actors in Groundhog Day, we checked back into the hotel and ended up back at James Joyce. Johanna, our waitress from the previous night, served us again. I ate the best beef stew I'd ever had, drank a few Makers Marks, and we watched the Ravens lose to the Colts.
At 6 a.m., Sunday morning, we were back at beautiful Baltimore Airport with the rest of the stranded KC passengers. After two days of unplanned travel, everyone was in a GREAT mood. More than once I heard Southwest's name taken in vein. There was a great debate among our coterie about whether the weather or the fact that Southwest didn't want its plane stuck in KC was the reason we were all wearing two-day-old underwear.
Groundhog-day-like, we're strapped in our seats. This time we make it to the runway and are powering up to take off. I close my eyes. And then the engines die down. We pull-off the runway. Mike buries his face in his hands. There's an audible group moan.
"Ahhh folks, this is your captain. As we were taking off, a little warning light went off. We're not sure what that means. We think we've got a reliable plane, but we're going to let our maintenance folks check it out."
Two mechanics and two hours later, we're on a new plane, getting ready to take off. I tell myself the probability of this flight not taking off is so low it's not worth thinking about. I close my eyes...and then snap them back open. We take off. And we land in KC 2.5 hours later.
The odyssey was over. My body and brain felt numb. I just wanted to see my family and sleep in my own bed. I didn't care who's fault it was -- nature or Southwest's -- that I experienced another "glamorous" business trip. I didn't care until I found out from a friend that he had flown into Kansas City on Saturday on a Southwest flight from Phoenix. Saturday was the day we were told the airport was closed.
Throughout the situation, the majority of Southwest personnel handled the situation admirably. But not once were we offered any sort of compensation for our trouble. They never offered to pay for hotels, and they never offered to pick up our return tickets to Kansas City. We ended up spending a sizable amount of extra money because of our delay, and it's debatable whether it was a corporate decision or mother nature that caused it.
At the very least, I would think the most profitable, most loved airline would do something for the few of us that experienced this situation. They could easily credit each of us that are Rapid Rewards members with a travel voucher for anywhere in the U.S. It's practically free for them, and they'd dispel any ill-will most of us have for the company after the experience. But as of this writing, I hadn't received a friendly email from Herb.
I gotta believe these adventures are supposed to teach me something. Patience is the obvious answer. Maybe it's appreciation -- for my family and fellow humans. I just wish they would have taught a class in this back at KU so I wouldn't have had such high expectations about the joy of business travel.
technorati tags: Southwest, Baltimore, Travel, Ravens, Colts, JamesJoyce,
So I'm 