Thursday, April 06, 2006

A Message From My Brother

My brother is currently in Chicago under his own recognizance attending a conference of dispatchers (I don't know why they didn't just have a phone conference ;) He sent me the following e-mail. I've edited it for his sake and so that my brother might be able to fly back home again in a couple of days. Please, enjoy...

For better or for worse, I am stuck in Chicago until Sunday morning and am trying to make the most of it.

They have a new feature on United Airlines. Let me segue for a moment: They don't feed you anymore - which is most definitely a good thing. Anywho, they have this new feature where for better or for worse you can now hear the Air Traffic Controllers talking to the pilots. As if I need a self-conscious pilot thinking about how he sounds on the radio and takes my (Since I am there and own seat 39J for the remainder of the flight we can consider this MY AIRPLANE!!!) 737 "HEAVY" and plows it into the back of that Korean Airlines flight where even though the pilot speaks English no one can understand him and they ask him over and over to repeat what he just said. Nothing like juggling 15 eggs and one moving chain saw at the same time is there buddy?

The best part of the whole experience is listening to this one Air Traffic Controller who keeps asking if he had "just spoken to some one" or if he had "all ready given instructions" to another plane? I am a professional dispatcher and in less than five minutes I knew every plane in that controllers air space and had figured out who was where and what their altitudes and headings were relative to all the other planes. This is the man’s job. Would somebody just piss test that guy and toss him out the front door of the TRACOM before he kills someone, like me. I would prefer to just have my mid-air collision and not know about it and be done with it in oblivion. Which as an American citizen I believe is one of my rights.

I was looking forward to the free carbonated beverage of my choice and a bag of stale over-salted peanuts, but no! United Airlines just f***ed me up again. Well, at least I hope this time that they did not charge my brother’s Credit Card again. Instead of my mine. If they did, Thanks for the free flight Will!

Oh! Did I mention that I really, really hate to fly?..A lot!!
Chicago Day 1..14:42 hours


My brother was referring to a little incident with United Airlines that will keep me from ever flying with them again. I don't tend to do business with people that steal money from me and then try and tell me its my fault and to prove that I didn't have anything to do with it and that even if I did prove it, they'd only give me half my money back. When I start my book tour, I'm only going to make one request - send me anywhere, but don't send me on United Airlines! For $180, they lost my business forever. And some day, when I'm on the Tonight Show, I'm going to tell my story to a national audience! Its amazing how cheap bad publicity is!

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