Black Box Report

As travelers, we've been conditioned to accept being treated as cattle, grateful to get a bag of nuts or even a glass of water. We tolerate the interminable delays, rude treatment and lost luggage. But incompetence and bad service are one thing; breach of contract is something else.

This past weekend I was in New Orleans on assignment. Last night, along with two others, we arrived at that airport to head to Charlotte for our connecting flight taking us back to LaGuardia. Even though we had bought our round trip tickets more than a month ago, an indifferent agent told me, "Sorry Rich - you've been bumped."

The good people of U.S. Air decided to oversell my flight and randomly select yours truly to sweat out at check in, hoping one of the other cattle didn't make the flight or could be bought off with a round trip ticket. Long story short, I got on the flight. In Charlotte I was greeted with the same wonderful surprise - bumped again. Seeing as this was the last flight out, and all of Monday's flights to New York were sold out, I was told with a toothy grin from the young lady at the gate that I probably ought to settle into a Carolina state of mind for a while. I'll save you the painful details but I was the last cow - I mean person - permitted on board, leaving fellow travelers behind, stranded in North Carolina.

The flight home I hardly felt grateful. I felt more like the guy from Network who screams, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!" How is it ethical, let alone legal, to sell someone a ticket and only when they show up in some foreign city tell them sorry you have a ticket - not a seat? Consider the facts: If you don't show for your flight you're screwed. U.S. Air in this case keeps your money as well as the revenue from the sap who was bumped or the annoying guy on standby, grateful to have your seat.

And please, when was the last time someone from first class was "bumped?" What happens to a parent and child? Is the airline really comfortable separating family, because the gluttonous pigs oversold their flight? When I brought up this and other realities, the same young lady cheerfully told me not to worry, they'd put me up in a hotel for the night. First off, I want to be in my own bed in New York, not some fleabag dump in Carolina. Secondly, is the airline going to take care of my child care issues, lost wages, car services? At that point she stopped smiling.

The answers are not complicated. Don't oversell flights. If you have to, which I don't accept, why can't you notify each ticket purchaser past capacity they are subject to being bumped - buyer beware? Instead, the schmo who buys well in advance doesn't even receive a courtesy call until they show up at the gate.

I can't think of another industry that treats their customers worse. Until it happened to me, it never registered how obscene a practice this was and how rampant it's become.

Well now I know and I'm going to see if we can do something about it. I'm on a crusade, people. I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.