The joy of flying...

So, I'm writing this post from the lovely Manchester, NH airport. The reason I'm writing the post is because I find myself with time to write a post. In fact, I've got enough frickin' time to start War and Peace if I want; probably finish the damn thing too. Now, I'm not what you'd call a road warrior. I travel very infrequently, in fact, I try to pick jobs that require me to travel less than 5% or none at all. What this means is that I don't really understand the ins and outs of flying the way that people who do this stuff for a living do. Here's what I do know:

Flying sucks.

I know, most of you are saying, "Duh - just figure that out didya"? Well, you're right of course. Every time I've flown in the last 5 years, though, something has pretty much gone wrong. I guess the real problem I have is that it doesn't have to be this way. See, we've all heard the horror stories about people stranded on a jet on the runway for hours with no water, no clean bathrooms, etc. Ultimately, these sorts of delays are inevitable, and are in large part due to anachronistic rules that penalize common-sense behaviors and an even greater anachronism embodied by our Air-Traffic Control (ATC) infrastructure. I've read lots of articles in the past year as airline service and delays have worsened, and basically they all say that we're now paying the price for the antiquated ATC with rationing by delay. Quick aside, this is one sort of outcome we'll migrate to if we institute some form of nationalized healthcare - ask a Canadian how long s/he has to wait for a (routine in the U.S.) hip-replacement operation - but we digress.

See, the paralysis of our government to actually do something about the ATC is cause nobody wants to be the one to spend the money modernizing it. It'll run well into the billions, and with a democratic Congress, you can bet there will be snowball fights in hell before we privatize things; so we're pretty much stuck with the current system until:

1. Service becomes so shitty that somebody loses/wins an election based on the state of air travel
2. Some catastrophic accident is laid at the feet of government - nothing mobilizes spending like disaster (see Katrina)

So, we're pretty much stuck with the structural problems that exist because we'd rather spend money financing pork-barrel projects in Congressional districts and other worthless tripe. And hey, I'm strangely OK with it (numb is probably a better term), cause air travel pretty much sucks for everyone - I don't think anybody is making out on this. Here's my problem. Whenever something does go wrong, there's just a complete breakdown of anything resembling efficient and genuine communications from the airline employees. I'm sitting here now, cause, as near as I can figure based on information from the gate attendant:

"There's some sort of mechanical problem, and the dipshit pilot won't let anybody but a United Airlines (UA) mechanic address the problem. And, the only UA mechanics are in Boston. And Boston is approximately 90 minutes away. Oh, and it's snowing. Good luck, and thanks for choosing United."

Really not very satisfactory is it? An the whole "I need a UA mechanic" just drips with stupidity doesn't it? Either the pilot is a dumbass (and believe me, I don't have a huge amount of respect for these guys anymore), or there is some sort of equally dumbass rule in place that requires a UA mechanic. The subtle subtext to this is that the maintenance that seems to be needed is apparently pretty routine; I'm mean we're not talking about replacing a tail assembly.

Now, to their credit, the Gate guys are doing a pretty good job. They're helping to rebook connecting flights, but right now, none of us has any real idea about the outcome of this first leg of our journey (nobody flies UA out of Manchester to their ultimate destination). I mean, somebody has to know whether or not this flight is going to be canceled, or at least the probability of a cancelation. It's this assault on common-sense that's so frustrating, and usually (not, thankfully in this case), it's accompanied by a startling lack of civility on the part of the airline employees.

So, I'll probably sit here for 2-3 more hours, having rebooked by Chicago-Seattle connection at least one more time. I may even have to return home if the flight is ultimately canceled, but obviously nobody will tell us that for hours. Guess it could be worse, I could be stuck on the plane on the runway with no water, two screaming kids, and overflowing toilets...