Back on Terra Firma

Finally back in Calgary. What a horrible experience. Okay, I'm not a world traveler. I've been to a dozen or so cities in North America over the past few years speaking and presenting so I'm not a newb, but I'm also not a pro. However I do know when an airline service sucks. The last 24 hours has been just that. Suckage. Huge suckage with no hope of redemption. All courtesy of America West, the worst airline I've ever been on.

First off, the last week was great. Thanks to everyone that came out to DevConnections as it was a blast. I'm hoping to get out to Orlando for the Spring 2007 one (ping me if you're looking for a specific topic that interests you as I'm just putting together my abstracts now). Sorry for the lack of technical content blogs as I really didn't get too much time to see anyones presentations or spend much time at the conference itself (however I will post notes, resources, links, and code from my presentations in the next few days). Rather most of my time was soaking in Vegas and all the craziness it encompasses (like the Venetian below, absolutely spectacular)

Oh yeah, the airline story.

It started way back with the departure from Calgary, but that's so long ago now. However Sunday has been just reliving that experience ten-fold. First our flight out was to be at 11:59pm Sunday night. We did call them to try to rebook, and as God is my witness I've always been able to pay a $100 rebooking fee (or no fee for that matter) yet these bozos wanted $400 for each ticket to rebook for an earlier flight. No way. Yeah, midnight is a truly stupid time to fly but in retrospect when I booked the flight it was the only direct flight from Vegas to Calgary so I thought it would be okay. Red eye, empty airplane, lots of sleep, no big deal. That thought changed when we got to the airport at 9:30pm and saw a line longer than the exodus itself from Egypt. Apparently America West only has one line, for all flights. Nice.

An hour in the ticketing line to check our bags in and then carry those bags over to another area with another line. Oh, this is efficiency at it's finest. Luckily that line was short (about 20 people) and we just dropped off our bags, hoping they would arrive with us in Canada. The security line however wasn't as short and that was another 45 minutes of listening to how they're short of bins so shoes have to go on the conveyer belt. Sure, since 9/11 security is hyped up and all that jazz but get a clue Vegans, having 8 different check-ins all merge into one line is just not cool.

Finally we made it through the security checkpoint only to find out that they now wanted to "check our documentation" for all passengers on the flight. So another gigantic line with the clock ticking away at when our flight might actually take off. What was even more frustrating is that they said (finally) if you have a "DOCS OK" printed on your ticket (which we did back at the initial checkin) you didn't have to do the double-check. Thanks for telling us that 20 minutes after you make us line up for the check in the first place. And what the hell is with this extra doc check? I mean, we've been through ticketing, we've been through security. If you haven't got it right by then, an extra check isn't going to help much (other than make people peeved at the airlines, like I am).

Okay, we're on board. Flight is full so no chance to upgrade to first class but then given the fact they wanted $400 each to change our fights, I would have hazard to guess they would probably want more for an upgrade (even though they advertise you can do it for $50). Then we wait.

And wait.

And wait even more.

The crew is coming over from another flight so we have to wait for that now.

15 minutes.

20.

The crew arrives but now there's some checklists they have to go through and it'll only be a "few more minutes".

30.

Now there's some ventilation thing that has to be checked by maintenance.

40.

The lights go out and the video starts playing telling how we're all going to die and when we do, make sure you use the seat cushion as a floatation device. Actually, at this point I'm going to use the pilot as a floatation device as I'm sure he has a big enough head.

The flight finally took off and it seemed to go well. Until about 15 minutes this side of Calgary. Then we hit a bad spot of turbulence.

You know when you're on a roller coaster and you take that first dip down the big hill towards the winding bend? Yeah, it was like that. Only worse.

I'm sure the plane basically flipped 90 degrees on its side, the started to drop down. It only lasted a few seconds, but that was enough to warrant screams and gasps from the more awake people behind us. Yes, screams as in "We're all going to die" sounds. Not something that you want to hear on a plane. My heart was pumping and the adrenaline was churning but for me, until we slip into a flat spin and I see John Candy in a devil suit sitting next to me, I just shrug it off. The pilot came on immediately to tell us everything was fine and then proceeded to tell us that every 5 minutes until we landed. Close, but no cigar but still it was something to perk you up at 4 in the morning.

Like I said, I'm not a world traveler but in the times I have traveled I've never see a more incompetent collection of buffoons running a circus like the ones at America West. Bottom line, I will never, ever, ever, never, ever fly with these morons again. You couldn't pay me to step on their planes again.

Worst airline (and flight), ever.

Anyways, goodbye Vegas. It's been fun. Next time I'll fly Canadian.

You can check out my Flickr set here to see all the pics I took down there. Enjoy!