Travel Story

 I sat and read through a piece from the Department of Transportation, where Pete Buttigieg did a big hype.

Buttigieg is concerned about the numbers for first half of 2022....where a quarter of all flights were delayed in some fashion, and 3-percent were just plain cancelled.

Some government guy trying to fix or resolve what is a private industry issue?  Yeah, and generally....this tends to make a bigger mess out of things.

If you go back over thirty years....you can find various periods and airlines....that were 'hot-wired' to marginally function.  Things would generally reach a level where customers just refused to buy their tickets....even if they were discounted heavily.  

One odd element of the current mess, a fair number of pilots in this Covid period....got tired of waiting, and found other jobs or airlines to work for.  So recruiting new pilots is a difficult thing.  

My worst experience with cancellations?  I was sent from Germany to a Air Force school in west Texas for a four-week class.  Things ran fine from Frankfurt to Dallas....then I had to progress from Dallas to a town on the far end of Texas where the base was located. 

The 1:30 PM flight was cancelled (it was 105 F and it was too hot for this particular plane to take off).  That moved me to a 3:00 PM flight.....but same story (it was cancelled).  That moved me to a 5:00 PM flight....it was cancelled.

Eventually, around 7:00 PM....they had brought some larger frame aircraft out and were flying around 120 of us via that plane.....to resolve all of delay issues.  

I wasn't that hyped-up or negative about the experience....it is what it is.  

I admit....the whole system developed and set into motion around the US....hinges on you making two or three 'legs' to your trip, and a simple six-hour plan could easily fall apart.....putting you into chaos to find a hotel room in Memphis because the second 'leg' simply can't occur today.  

But you really don't want the US government to be in the middle of this.....trying to suggest they can fix it.  The only outcome in this mess....would make a ticket twice as expensive.