doodledee

Yesterday was my first business trip since the NWA mechanics went on strike and the NWA management went on bankruptcy. I bought my ticket a few weeks ago - well before the Chapter 11 filing - and at the time I actually tried to show some solidarity with the workers and book my flight on a different airline. Before I shopped, I did enough soul searching to determine that my level of solidarity would tolerate maybe a 45-minute flight time differential. (The NWA flight to KC is around 1:15, so I'd be willing to go up to 2hrs.) The closest I found was a 4 hours route through Chicago. Forget that. My apologies to the overpaid airplane vacuum jockeys walking the picket lines, but I've got work to do.

The airport seemed to be operating at DEFCON Business As Usual: the place was packed, the security lines were long, everyone looked pissed and/or disinterested and most people were carrying a laptop and a latte. I didn't see any picket line, though to be fair I walked in from long-term parking and crossed the skyway into the terminal and I'm thinking the mechanics aren't allowed to enter into the actual airport. Then again, it was like 06:15 when I got there, so maybe the strikers weren't up yet.

Listening around, I heard zero talk of the strike. People just don't care. And I think it's because at the end of the day, everyone just hates the airport. Seriously, what's to like? The slow moving lines? The expensive parking? The way they pack you into coach like a bunch of Dockers clad sardines? The part where they give you a 4oz cup of coffee and offer to charge you $1 for "breakfast trail mix"? The fact that all the stewardesses are old and bitchy instead of young and hot like they're supposed to be? The part about how the plane you're flying on dates to the ORIGINAL oil crisis and if you sit in the last 5 rows the roar of the engine is so loud that even if you scream "CREAM AND SUGAR" at the drink lady she'll still gives you black. Nutshell: there's nothing to like, duh.

So you take all that nonsense and dump it on to a town full of noise biggots (like me) who will never forgive the early 90's state and airline leadership for not moving the airport, choosing instead to continue bombarding the communities they "serve" with window rattling jet noise. And who cares if the "workers" aren't the same "jackasses" who "run the company", as far as I'm concerned it's one big lame enterprise. Blech.

Anyhoo.

Couple of other things worth noting:

• Number of times I had to show my ID before I boarded the plane: big fat zero. I had it out, ready to go. Nobody wanted to see it. And I wasn't the exception, either. I was so flabbergasted when I got into the 'secure' area without showing it that I stood there and watched the people behind me. None of them had to show ID, either. Guess we're focusing on hurricanes now.
• The dude behind me on the plane had a whole row to himself. Even before takeoff he's already stretched across his seats, sleeping like a baby. We take off, reach cruising altitude, descend, land, the whole routine, and this dude just KEEPS SLEEPING. Nobody ever tells him to sit up, put on a seatbelt, pay $1 for breakfast gorp, nothing. You can do that?
• There is no number 3.