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Sometimes flying for pleasure is such a pain that you need a vacation when you get to your destination. Case in point, a recent cross-country trip with my family.
It seemed easy enough, catch an early morning flight in Columbus, change planes in Phoenix, and fly on to our destination. All was going well until the dreaded announcement that there was a problem with one of the radios on the plane and we would be delayed for a little bit. I knew that our layover was short. I headed to the counter to see what was up just as the gate agent made the dreaded announcement that the flight was to be delayed several hours. Around 50 people quickly joined our line. For 90 minutes the gate agent searched for alternatives for us. The only option was to fly us 450 miles the wrong direction to JFK airport in New York, stay in a motel and fly out the next day on a different airline. The logistics were a nightmare for the agent and for my daughter, Abby, who was slowly trying to solve the complex task of getting six people all the way across the country.
We finally got on our flight the next day, our first seat assignment had been all us in row 27, the back row of the plane, you know the one, right in front of the restrooms. When we got to the gate, we were told we had been upgraded. I should have asked more questions, for we were now spread all over the plane. I wrote this from the dreaded middle seat, with two strangers on either side of me. They both liked the arm rests. I can't blame them.
It was an exit row, so I guess there was that, but we were an hour into the flight, and we were 150 miles south of Marietta at 31,000 feet. We were a day into the adventure and we hadn't gotten very far.
Who's at fault here? Well, it's not Adam, the gate agent that worked for 90 minutes to solve our problem, it's probably not the airport shuttle driver in New York that took nearly an hour to arrive and take us to our hotel. It's not Jet Blue, the airline that American Airlines used to get us across the country.
The nation has really not returned to a normal footing in a post COVID-19 world. Airlines shrunk during the pandemic and are struggling to meet demand with fewer flights and fewer employees. The service industry struggles constantly to find workers. The pandemic deeply hurt some industries, forcing changes in others that many were not prepared for.
I may have been stuck in the middle seat, but in effect, so is the rest of the nation, flying through the air at 30,000 feet unsure when we will reach our destination and what it will look like when we get there.