American Airline's Departure Lunge

OK.  People have asked why I write that I am "trying" to leave on Sunday.

American Airlines began commercial flights Friday.  Kleiman has bought me one for Sunday.  But yesterday I learned that it might not mean shit.

About ten days ago American announced that it was resuming commercial operations and began selling tickets for Feb. 19.  Some of our docs seats on yesterday morning's AA flight out.  Dufflebags packed, good-byes said.  Families and "day jobs" looked forward to, they walked to the airport.

That's as far as they got.

Seems the geniuses at American, after selling tickets and letting these folks make plans to get home, decided that before any new passengers could fly, priority would be given to those who had flights booked which had been cancelled after the earthquake.

Those people should sure fly first.  But why the fuck sell new tickets to new people and not let them know they were really "stand-by" -- at $700/per ticket for a 90-minute flight, I might add.

Two docs, husband and wife, are beside themselves.  They had come for a week, leaving their young children with visiting grandparents.  This is not good.

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There used to be the alternative of hitching a ride home on a military flight.  Chancy, but it worked.  The lucky ones would get a lift to Homestead AFB, a thirty-minute cab ride from Miami's commercial airport.  But for security reasons, the military, which just does this as a tremendous favor to the relief workers, doesn't tell you where the flight is going until you're airborne.  If you get to Homestead, great.  Or they could be going to a remote base that is hours from even the nearest car rental agency, much less a commercial airport.  Some of our volunteers have taken 2-3 days to get home after leaving PAP.

Now traditionally, the military stops airlifting NGO volunteers once commercial flights resume, so we have no idea if the risk of getting dropped somewhere obscure is even a possibility any more since we can theoretically get a ticket on an actual flight that might, one day, lead to a theoretical seat.

We'll see.