Hey, does anyone else remember when air travel was fun?

Flights had menus where you could choose your meal without having to pay more for everything except the air and the water.

If something happened to delay your flight, you were handed generous meal vouchers. If there were further delays, you would be whisked off to a nice hotel, usually with a thoughtful pack of toiletries, sleep shirt, etc.

Now I know that time has passed. Air travel BC (Before Covid) was both more affordable and more awful. (Not so much of the former, but LOTS of the latter.) But since Covid, I think the airlines have declared war on their hapless customers.

Take last August. I knew things were bad when the Hub and I landed in Frankfurt for a short layover and found our flight was delayed for several hours due to heavy rain. (Meal vouchers were not on offer.) We went into a restaurant and a small mouse (Hub’s version)/large rat (my story and I’m sticking to it) ran across my chair. I screamed and raced out, followed by the Hub. So much for dinner.

We went to the gate but they were already canceling planes right and left. And then they canceled our flight as well. “Don’t worry,” the person at our gate said. “You will be given hotel and meal vouchers.” She pointed us to an already long queue and we shuffled over along with the other hundreds of abandoned passengers.

Why were we stranded, you may ask?

We had pilots and crew. We had planes, and the planes had fuel. What we didn’t have was bus drivers. Seems the Frankfurt airport buses passengers to their flights. But these were German bus drivers. Their shifts were finished and THEY WENT HOME. And they weren’t alone. EVERY AIRPORT AND AIRLINE EMPLOYEE LEFT TOO. Passengers who had been waiting dutifully in our miles-long queue began to mill around. We had no food, no beds, no information.

Finally, a lone lady went behind the information desk. People clapped and cheered. She looked startled, before picking up a mop and bucket and beginning to wipe the floors.

Mothers with babies tried to find disposable diapers before laying down on the floor with their children. Seniors huddled into chairs. People shared food with others. Everyone looked for a place to stretch out and wait for the airport staff to return. The Hub and I were lucky. Exploring the upstairs section, we found a room with some chairs and a working electric outlet.

I plugged in my phone and got busy. When I finally got through, I was told Lufthansa was busier than usual, and I was number 573 in the queue. I pulled some clothes out of my little suitcase, made a pillow, and settled in for the duration. By 1:15 AM, I was only at number 470 in the queue.

 

While the Hub spent the night on a Starbucks table, I stayed online trying to reach Lufthansa. It took all night, but I waited throughthe hundreds before me in the queue.

At last! I was connected to a human. She was sure it would be at least three days until we could board the flight to Glasgow. She suggested I call back and book new flights. I told her about the 570 people in the queue I’d just waited through and how that plan was not going to work for me.

Subtext: You’re MY human on the other end of this phone conversation, and I’m not hanging up until you get me out of here.

I just kept naming other cities and asking, “But what about… London/Manchester/ Amsterdam/Paris  connections?”

Nothing.

Finally I said, “I know you’ve tried Edinburgh, right?”

Silence.

The agent (who I later learned was in Romania) said, “What country is that?” She was astonished to discover that Lufthansa flew there, and reluctantly agreed to waitlist us for a flight to Edinburgh that morning.

When we eventually made it home, I sent in a compensation request for the time we were abandoned at Frankfurt airport. Lufthansa sent back a letter saying basically they were super sorry and all but hey, they got us home on an alternate flight, so no harm/no foul and especially no compensation. They didn’t feel they owed us anything else, but they sure hoped we would fly Lufthansa loads in the future.

I refrained from pointing out that they had just ensured thousands of passengers would not only never fly them again, but I was pretty sure that poor cleaning lady was also scarred for life. A look at their recent stock performance backs up that view.

But it didn’t have to be that way. I remember one Christmas in the eighties when I was flying to California with three small children and our flight was stranded in Denver. The hotels were all full, so we had to remain in the airport. The airport and the airlines brought in hundreds of cots and blankets, as well as prepared meals. Then some of the pilots dressed as Santa and handed out presents to each child, while I became a United Airlines customer for life.

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So here’s my question for you, Carsten Spohr, CEO of Lufthansa. And for you, Marjan Rintel, President and Chief Executive Officer of KLM.

You don’t have to bring back the inflight piano bar (although I personally would welcome it.) You don’t even have to give me a meal, a seat with enough leg room for anyone larger than a hobbit, or a power outlet. But why do you insist on going out of your way to make your customer’s experience into something out of their worst nightmare? Wouldn’t it be easier in the long run to treat them like customers instead of cattle they happen to be herding?

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What’s your most horrible travel story? How has travel turned from adventure to living hell?

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