Delta Rant.
I am Finally in an exit row of a Boeing 737 looking out the window down at clouds, clouds, and more clouds from my 20,000-feet-up vantage point: a mere 700 or so miles from my final destination. This San Francisco trip is now indelibly emblazoned on my psyche. An ill-fated venture from the inception, the AGU conference, was surely not the highlight of this adventure. I doubt I will ever attend another AGU gig – at least not one in San Francisco a week before Christmas. I’m woefully behind on everything and now my beleaguered flight back has me increasingly in the hole. Focus for Posting: Delta Sucks Big Piles of Monkey Dung. Side note: I do concede the weather and random customer crap had much to do with my crappy trips, but still…. I keep the Delta Rant title for this post. Noted.
I am almost at a loss for where to even take my musings. There is so much… I will spare you the flight out there for the most part only because it would fill a volume if I went into the crazy details of it ALL, but I suppose the story starts there. When things were still fresh last Monday, I vented a great deal about it to and with my friends and colleagues, and so my vehement agitation has mostly dissipated in its specificity… the overall ugly purple aura remains, however, like toxic fumes left over from burning trash in a barrel and only intensifies with this follow-up trip back home.
My first flight last week was cancelled and so instead of having a lovely seat, I got stuck one row from the back in the noisy treachery of the unwashed masses. And by unwashed masses, I mean Diana. I will not divulge her full name or where she lives or the names of everyone around me (as by the end of the flight, Diana had pulled every little bit of information out about everyone ad nauseum), but suffice it to say, Diana will live on in infamy. I made my way to the window seat, irritating this woman on the aisle who wanted me to step over her as she babbled on about being scared to fly and what was my name and oh great to have a seat mate sort of talk. I cringed. Probably visibly. This is not the plane partner I seek. My reaction was guttural and appropriate. I’m the kind of person who hunkers down on the plane, pops the headphones in, and opens a good book. Dive Dive!!! This was not to my liking at all. And it only got worse. Her fake fur coat and all of her skeletal belongings reeked of smoke and alcohol. She was drunk and grievously unhealthily coughing and complaining of lung cancer or pneumonia depending on the hour. Thankfully, the 7AM crew only gave her 3 vodkas before they cut her off…. I cannot put into words how awful that flight was. The incessant inappropriate blather and offensive probing had us all exhausted, unhappy, and in need of spa services. We were on the plane with her for 6 hours (stuck on tarmac for 1.5 on overbooked flight to SLC). This was the start of my trip. I smelled like a smoke-filled bar by the time I got off that flight and desperately needed a shower. Step one. Diana done. The second leg of that trip was a delight in comparison… I think I was so traumatized that I don’t remember much after that until arriving in SF.
San Francisco itself was DELICIOUS. Food was awesome. I will not taint that thought with the craziness of flying vent, and so stay tuned for a much more enjoyable posting after this one.
Flight Back. Started yesterday. Arrived at SFO to find big lines and angry people. At the time of hotel departure, the flight was still on time and all was well. We got there a little over an hour early only to get to check in line and have a woman trying to get to Paris cut in in a most rude way. She was cancelled and not getting out for 2 more days (had she seen the news about Europe?? je dis, non). She had lips that will never decompose. I took small comfort in that. We were told we were probably going to miss our connection and that the computer had re-routed us, but that we wouldn’t know for sure that we would miss connection unless we actually flew because everything was delayed. Sigh. OK… so 2.5 hour delay later, we were faced with SFO=>SLC=>PHX=>ATL=>PHL. We tried desperately to do better… at one point, someone proposed even a connection through Bermuda… This actually appealed to me.
Salt Lake City found us working with a few women at the Delta Club who apparently were just as sick of things as we were. One in particular was woefully rude and not terribly ‘with’ it. A bad combination, for sure. I have gold status and my travelling companions thankfully are platinum and so ultimately we got a couple of over-night vouchers out of it, but we had to fight for those and me with my lowly gold status was out of luck. We stayed in SLC after opting out of the chaos of all night flights through 5 airports and we were lucky enough to procure a few overnight bags from delta with tooth brushes and old spice deodorants and such. Apparently, only men are expected to need these. Finally on this flight. hooray!!
After the scarring of yesterday, I feel lucky the flight left this morning… the pretty bits of snow and the de-icing had me worried, but here I am almost back to Philly over a day later. Next up: Rush hour. Wish me luck.
All in all it has not been a good experience flying the friendly skies this trip… not one little bit.
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