You go to Mexico, thankful for the asteroid that extincted the dinosaurs (I love them too, just not to live with, and it wasn't really in my hands). Riviera Maya, and the only resort I'll be caught dead in, because it is next to a nature preserve.
You're coordinating three schedules, so of course, ticket booking is a little later than ideal. Prices are insane, and there are few direct flights. Up pop Frontier (swipe left), JetBlue, Spirit (eventually, swipe left). So, JetBlue it is. But is it?
First things first, list your mothereffing prices including tax. Don't BS me with $500 in fees I don't see till I get to your booking site.
A sidenote: don't book on third party sites. I booked a car on gotrentalcars.com, received a booking confirmation and then called the actual car provider, Thrifty. "Hi, I need a modified car." "Sorry, don't have that kind [you have to be fully crippled, because that is the only kind of modification they have]." "Ok, please cancel my booking," I said, and decided to look for trains. Imagine my flabbergasted face when I receive an email saying I was going to receive a refund, but only after gotrentalcars.com deducted $50.0 for canceling, AND another 70.0 by frikking Thrifty, as a penalty for canceling service. So, out of $318.0, I'm going to get back $198.0. Easy money if you can make it, fellas!
A bunch of phone calls and emails later, after about a week, they decided to act right. I would get into the structural (but ultimately legal) complexities and crappiness of the whole setup of these platforms and the services they provide, but I have another story to tell. So on with it.
Alright, JetBlue. We are not idiots, we can see that the final costs of the flight now include hundreds of dineros you did not advertise on kayak.com. Or maybe, some people have enough of a cognitive disconnect that they go, "ah, it's not them, it's the taxes and fees ["keep the government off my medicaid!"]." I can only shake my head. So, please, give me the whole ticket and do not treat me like a fool.
Beautiful week in Mexico, floated in the water for the first time after a long time, gorgeous sun, nice tan (yes, I do use sunscreen). Time to return.
Alright, JetBlue, I've recently learned about the rule that prevents technical staff (those who operate the vessel) from working a minute longer than a fixed time.
How did I learn?
Sidenote: From a bloody Amtrak journey that involved, in this order: a congestion delay, a delay while the train backed up to help another disabled train, a delay where we stopped in the middle of nowhere so new staff could come out of the forest and take over from staff that was not permitted to work any longer (the station was 7-10 minutes away but laws are laws), AND finally a further delay to hook up a new engine. I support that law, any law that protects workers, by the way.
Ok, so we are in Cancun. The flight is going to leave for JFK about 40 minutes late. No problem JetBlue, these things happen. I'm still happy it is a direct flight I bought and paid for, and a direct flight I will get. Or will I?
Three of us are separated, two of us get the "toilet seats," the ones that are right at the end of the plane and recline about 1 centimeter. As we finally begin to taxi, the fun begins. Ladies and gentlemen, due to a law that prevents the Pilot and Captain from working longer than 9 hours, this flight is Not Direct. We will be landing in Orlando, Florida.
I was in the toilet when I heard. I walked out and simply said, to no one in particular, "Make me believe that you did not know this when you sent this flight out from JFK, and make me believe you did not know this when you boarded us in Cancun."
A stewardess told me she had to move house in NYC tomorrow, and was hoping she could get back in time. We got talking, and she mentioned she was thinking about moving to another state, and how cheap property is in North Carolina compared to NYC. I suggested she might want to rent for a few months and see if she can get used to the pace of NC. From the look of surprise and her eyes lighting up, I think she meant it when she said she had not considered that it might be a better option than putting a mortgage down in a state you don't know you might like to live in. Made sense to me, I spent a lot of my life in Maximum City Mumbai, and one quote stuck with me from a Mumbaiker (someone from Mumbai), "I can't stand living in Bombay [this is what it was called by our Anglo colonial masters, till our nationalistic Indian masters renamed it to Mumbai], just hate it... thing is, I can't really live anywhere else, can't deal with the [slow] pace."
Let's leave aside for the moment the practicalities of moving within the city if you are planning a move to another state. The stewardess told me that the flight did not have enough catering to offer free snacks. Whoa. You were delayed in NYC, when weather prevented your takeoff from JFK. Did someone eat all the pitiful snacks? I mean, even if it had departed on time, surely you planned well enough to stock the plane with that plantain chips-biscoff-granola bar-one other that I forget now fare that you walk around offering the cattle? Surely the delay has nothing to do with the fact that you will only offer beverages?
It gets worse. Oh, it does. Stay with me folks.
Ok, so remember we are not going direct to JFK now, we are going to Orlando, FL. "We will have the replacement staff ready and waiting soon as we land in Orlando." Yes, but once we land, we needed to sit around for 25 odd minutes because there was no staff to guide us to the docking station where the plane can be embarked by the replacement staff. OR, Or, where the plane can be emptied of all passengers.
Wait, what? I thought you were just going to replace the staff, get a runway, and off we go to JFK? No, the dude was quite elegantly ambiguous about this point. So we wait, then taxi to the dock, and then the voice tells us, everyone please get off, go through customs, pick up your luggage from Carousel X, go back through security, and then check in again and check your bags. Merde.
So we did all that. And then, there was no display telling us what gate our flight is. We saw another JetBlue, going to JFK, assumed that was it, and ended up at C236. Unlucky for us, that was not the flight, but lucky for us the actual flight was leaving from C237. No announcement, no display, just lucky cattle, all of us, herded ourselves to the right location through sheer dumb luck.
"Let us know it is not going to New Jersey, there is a lot of water there... We are now with you for 5-6 hours, we are tired, and hungry." The man was not aggressive, simply articulately projecting so the staff 15 feet away could hear him, and of course the passengers, stoically waiting in line. One supervisor in a yellow fluorescent visor came over, talked to him inaudibly, and then walked off. Someone else was at the counter, "why isn't there a display telling us what flight to take?" The staff member gave what I thought was a good, disarming and pithy answer, "I'm not in control of that." Fair enough, I guess. Someone else in your company is in control of knowing that all this was going to happen—BEFORE THE FLIGHT LEFT JFK TO COME TO CANCUN—but let it happen anyway. Why treat the customers this way? As Chappelle said in the Copy Shop sketch in Chappelle Show, "Because f**k 'em, that's why."
The swarthy, light skinned gent continued to talk in measured tones, and now the yellow fluorescent visor gestured him out of the line. Dude was well trained, you couldn't hear a word he said. I stepped closer (I wasn't in line anyway; treat me like cattle, but I'll be the recalcitrant one, always boarding last, no matter what my "boarding group" is).
Apparently, this gent was being told that another customer is feeling threatened by his speech, and security might have to be called if he did not cease. In a nutshell, everything that is wrong with a society where you have to get a permit and a police escort before you can do a civil protest.
WHAT?! Wait, WHAT? Unlike me, this guy did not even talk with his hands (hand gestures, I mean)! He was slow, measured, slightly sardonic, but at no point did he say anything that would cause anyone, JetBlue staff (much less fellow suffering passengers) to feel threatened.
This bothered him, and the conversation became one about, wait, yes, you guessed it, about IMMIGRATION!
The man talked about being from Portugal, having moved to this country 31 years ago, following all the rules, going through all the steps, and now he is being silenced because some "prima donna" does not like him expressing—peacefully and only in words—his displeasure at the service he is receiving from those who were happy to take his custom (money) when he bought their service?
Not prima donna brother, cattle. Cattle. But unlike cattle, this herd has no unity, and some are so dulled out by their life and their screens that they can't even feel frustration, much less leave alone someone else feeling and expressing their frustration at what, quite clearly, was a situation botched by JetBlue from start to finish.
No snack service, because of the situation. Oh please! You did not have snacks before you took off to come get us! Don't blame the situation, announcing-on-the-mike-and-reading-out-instructions lady.
Someone was agitated enough to demand water. Some people in the front got coffee and water. We in the back were never offered this. However, one stewardess did bring out a shallow plastic bucket with Biscoff and plantain chips; "take whatever you want" I guess even they could not do all this with a straight face any longer.
Excuse me miss, my daughter and I are freezing because even though we have closed our individual vents, there is a cold and strong draft that is hitting us here. "Sorry, we have no blankets since we left from JFK." Another stewardess later gave me a word salad of obfuscation: "We've tried to shut it off, I'm talking to the Pilot, it's related to flight safety, all the blankets are sold out. Sorry!"
We landed. And then they lost one of our pieces of luggage. It was last scanned in CUN, MX.
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