Sunday, November 30, 2003

Travelling

I flew to Seattle today, and it was pretty lousy. First, I started at 4:45 EST. Second, I connected in Pittsburg AND Chicago. Third, the flight attendant from US Air had an A+ in evil customer service. She happily greeted me as I started to board with a "give me your bag you've got to check it" to which I replied "it needs to go to Seattle is that OK?" to which see replied "give me your ticket." When I gave her my boarding stub for the flight at hand she grumbled "your ticket" and looked at me like liberals look at conservatives and vice versa. She barked me to my seat and eventually returned my ticket. I had no confidence that she did the right thing which brings me to... Fourth, they lost my bag. Yippee. Not only that, it was lost between a connection from US Air to United so neither airline really seems to know exactly what's going on.

That brings me to my thought... There has to be a business in making travelling easier (at a premium sure...) I suppose to some extent this is what First class is. Why is it that economy and economy "plus" are herded into cramped quarters and treated like it's a privilege to be an a flight at all?

Furthermore, two weeks ago we went to Kaua'i which I can highly recommend we stayed at the Embassy Vacation Resort at Poipu Point also very nice. But as we were there, I got to thinking that I would've happily paid a lot of money (since the trip was already pricey) to have someone pickup my bags, take them to the hotel, and unpack them (and the same in reverse before leaving). It easily would've made my trip feel twice as long to not have to lug all that stuff from baggage claim, to the rental car shuttle, through the rental car line, to the hotel front desk, and up to our room (and then again in reverse).

Travelling needs to be easier... Or maybe it already is, and I just don't know how.