Wishing to escape by air? Welcome to fees, lies and flight delays

By SANDRA THOMPSON

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 1, 2000

It's Fourth of July weekend. You wish you were somewhere else. Take a pause. To get out of here -- that is, to get anyplace that has the remote possibility of being cool -- you have to take an airplane.

First, you have to call the airline. No matter what time it is, you're put on hold for 15 or 20 minutes, forced to listen to the theme from Chariots of Fire. Then you learn that the low fare you saw in the newspaper is sold out. This doesn't mean there are no seats on the plane; there are empty seats on the plane exactly like the sold-out seats, only they cost more. Imagine going into a shoe store, pointing to a pair of shoes and being told that they're $300, not the advertised price of $95, because the designated cheap pairs have already sold out.

Okay, you don't get the price you want or the departure time you want and maybe not the destination you want (Oakland instead of San Francisco; Baltimore instead of Washington, D.C.) but you book a flight. The airlines have no obligation to actually fly that flight. The airline can cancel a flight for any reason, even if it's just under-booked. (There is a secret rule that this is done only after you have left for the airport.)

Or the flight can leave late -- 15 minutes, six hours. Don't ask the ticket counter agent why your flight is late -- the answer may well be a lie; you could be told it's air traffic control when it's really weather, mechanical problems or shortage of crew. This was actually admitted in a report by the Department of Transportation.

Ask the more pertinent question: "Where is our plane, actually?" I did that, got a non-answer, as did the the tall, trim guy behind me wearing a spiffy uniform. "I don't know where the plane is," he said, "and I'm flying it."

You get on the plane, you survive carry-on bags the size of refrigerators being hurled into the overhead bins, you step over someone's knees to your seat. Suddenly you feel like you've taken an Alice pill and become bigger. Forget that empty middle seat -- planes are packed. And the food. On a New York-to-Tampa flight over the lunch hour, we got a bag of peanuts. On a trans-Atlantic flight dinner was a burrito. A year ago, Congress was poised to force the airlines to clean up their act, so of course they said they'd do it themselves. The results? Consumer complaints doubled.

It wasn't always so. Remember the times before deregulation in 1978? It's true, tickets cost a lot more, but you got service. Airline reservation agents would happily book rental cars and hotels, even reservations on another airline. Seats were comfy. One New York-to-Florida flight offered a choice of steak or lobster, even at lunch. All airline meals were true meals: entree, salad, dessert, roll and butter, neatly set on trays with cloth napkins and actual silverware. If there was any little discomfort -- say, the plane taking off a few minutes late -- free drinks for all.

And, get this, you could purchase airline tickets right up to minutes before take-off -- at the same price you'd have paid six months or three weeks ago. You could cancel them at any time -- and get a full refund.

No more. Spontaneity in air travel is long gone. "Hey, let's jump on a plane to Cancun!" Sure, if you've just won the Lottery. If you fly to Australia and can't stand the place, forget it. You can't come home early. You're booked for Las Vegas but undergo open heart surgery instead? No refund.

Oh, and here's another thing: Remember last summer's clogged skies and the resulting flight cancellations and delays? It'll be just as bad this year. That's coming from the Air Transport Association, the industry's own.

Think of Tampa the way New York City tried to sell itself before it was full up with tourists 365 days a year: It's a summer festival.

Sandra Thompson is a writer living in Tampa.

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