I Hate Continental

Now with the devastation that is going on in Southeast Asia, I really should shut my damned mouth. Any complaints I have are minor compared to that. But nonetheless...I do feel the need to vent just a wee bit.

Of course what happened probably wasn't their fault, but I am not a patient person. The flight from LA to Newark was scheduled to leave LAX at 9:50 pm. By 9:45 we were still not on the plane, the plane have arrived only minutes earlier. They had to deplane the passengers, clean and cater the plane and then they'd let us on. Eventually they got around to doing all that.

And then they let us get on the plane. By now I'm used to people being completely incapable of finding their seat and putting their luggage in the overhead bins without holding up the line for a solid 10 minutes. I finally got to my seat and though I always fly coach and don't expect much, these seats had about three inches of legroom. I think this was exacerbated by the man in front of me who insisted on lowering his chair till his head was basically in my lap. Three warning from the stewardess did nothing to make him raise it. But finally, we were all boarded and ready to go.

But nothing happened.

And 15 minutes passed.

The captain, a man who sounded like he had to think heavily between each word, came on the PA and announced, rather haltingly, that the mechanics missed something in their crosscheck and the onboard computers seemed to have a glitch. He'd tell us more when he heard something.

Another 15 minutes passes.

Mr. Public Speaking got back on to let us know that they were going to power down the plane, hoping that maybe that would fix the problem. Is a plane like a computer? Do you just restart it when it's not working properly? I guess I learn new things everyday.

A little while after this annoucement, everything goes dark and quiet. Stays that way for 10 minutes. Then, they turned the plane back on.

20 minutes pass before we hear anything from the cockpit. Why is it when you want to sleep they wake you up with idiot commentary on the route the plane will take and the outside temperature (who is going out on the wing to take a walk??) but when the plane won't start, they tell you nothing.

It was only after 2 hours of sitting on the tarmac were we finally cleared for take off.

And I was thrilled. I expected either free headsets or maybe some free booze or something as a thanks for our limited patience.

Know what we got? NOTHING. Nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch. In fact not only did we get nothing, we didn't get a thank you from the cockpit and the flight personnel were all rather nasty and sarcastic. I actually heard someone ask for a pillow and be told "Yeah, whatever."

I made it to NY in one piece, tired and out of sorts.
I am not looking forward to my flight back Monday morning.