Almost each one of us will have an airline story to tell - be it flight delay or poor food or customer service etc. Incidentally, I for one, should confess that I dont have any bad experience with any of the airlines I have traveled so far in the past 10+ years. I am neither a business traveler nor a holder of any "miles card" with any airline. Each time I pick one based on cost and travel itinerary ease. The closest I came to a bad experience, if you want to call it one, was with Air India when I flew with them during my grad school days. But then it was just a delay and I had all the time in the world so din't care much. AI compensated with good food for me then.
When I say I din't have any bad experience, I should also add, that for no apparent reason, I used to cautiously avoid any European airline however fast the travel is with them. After moving to US west coast, Singapore and Cathay kind of became the norm. Recently in the unfortunate event of my father's demise, we had to travel via Europe in (drums roll !!) Lufthansa - Now I have something to tell for a bad airline experience or rather experiences -
* On our way back to San Diego, we missed our connection at Washington due to immigration delay. We had only 1.5hrs time there to clear immigration/customs. Even after my repeated phone calls to makemytrip.com and Lufthansa in India itself, asking them to change my itinerary to allow more time, they refused. Each one pointed the other and said if the system approves, its good. But then Murphy prevailed and United flight connection miss seemed certain. The Lufthansa staff there talking to us were outright adamant that it was not their problem and that hotel acco was out of the question. When all hopes seemed to end, fortunately to our luck, we found out the connection had actually got delayed too because the UA pilot din't show up in time. Thanks to him we made it SD as planned. I dont know what I would have done with my kid and my elderly mom in Washington winter (thanksgiving day) had the United airline pilot not delayed the connection by showing up late.
* Now after six months later, I was facing the undesirable task of sending my mother , that too alone by herself, in the same Lufthansa airline. The confirmation of elderly wheelchair assistance was consoling. But again Murphy prevailed and that too where it mattered. My mom was told there is not a wheel chair available when she got off at Frankfurt. Somebody directed her towards an elevator and left. Apparently she had no clue where to go. Imagine a first timer, alone, tired and old, in a foreign airport with trouble understanding the staff's english accent too. Apparently, she got the courage to keep going and asked a passenger-cart driver to take her to the next gate and the blue-collared gentlemen/women had obliged to our relief. I couldnt imagine what would have happened had she missed the connection.
All the while my notion about most European airlines was that if not for their vantage position connecting the americas and the east, they would be flying empty. It just got confirmed. There we go then -Now I too have an airline to hate !
Still: Blue Angels captured with D40 during Miramar Air show.
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