Nowadays, Airline travel has become one unending slugfest that begins with paying extra for simplest of amenities, long security checks, and ends with overbooked flights and passengers trying to squeeze bags of questionable sizes into the overhead compartment.
As if that much was not enough, the cranky flight attendants and passengers, intermittent in-flight wi-fi, and long waits on the tarmac complete the horrible experience altogether.
Just when you thought it could not be any worse , the airlines raise the bar yet again with incidents like these:
When No One Volunteers
Airlines often overbook their flights and when everyone shows up on the day the staff begins, like an auctioneer, offering $200, $400, how about $600—anyone?— to anyone willing to let go of this flight for another one.
What happens when no one steps up? This week, the video that was posted showing security forcibly removing a man from an overbooked United Airlines flight and this shows exactly what happens when no one volunteers. United Airlines CEO apologised and said the company will work “with a sense of urgency” to review the matter; just another shallow promise?
The Ultimate Exit
JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater made the most famous exit ever from a job. After a heated spat with an alleged abusive passenger on a flight between Pittsburgh and New York City, Slater took to the plane’s public address system to air the problems he had to face. He then publicly quit his job, grabbed two beers, deployed the evacuation slide on the plane, and bailed out from the scene and his employment.
ALSO READ: United Airlines: Outrage as man dragged off overbooked flight
Computer Bugs
Several airlines have to deal with widespread computer outages in recent months which has led to hundreds of grounded flights, stranding travellers and a general chaotic situation. Southwest Airlines and United have suffered computer glitches that affected flights.
Delta has had not one, but two major computer outages over a six-month period: one in August 2016 and another in January. The fallout from Delta’s latest glitch was compounded by challenges among all airlines to comply with travel restrictions enacted by President Donald Trump’s executive order to block travel from seven predominantly Muslim countries.
Diet Coke As a Weapon
An alleged incident between a flight attendant and a Muslim-American woman prompted United Airlines to apologize publicly and open an investigation in the matter. The incident took place in 2015, on a Shuttle America flight centered on a flight attendant’s alleged refusal to hand Tahera Ahmad, a Muslim American at Northwestern University, an unopened can of Diet Coke.
Ahmad, who was wearing a hijab on the flight from Chicago to Washington, D.C., says she protested when a passenger sitting next to her received a can of beer. The situation soon escalated when another passenger upon hearing her request allegedly yelled, “You Muslim, you need to shut the … up,” and said that “You know you would use it as a weapon.”
It All Started With a Guitar
In the era of social media, customers often take to Twitter or Facebook to spread their tales of airline travelling woes. Musician Dave Carroll used music—three catchy songs in all—to share his account in 2008 during a trip on a United Airlines flight that resulted in a broken guitar and the company’s inadequate response.