Saturday, May 16, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.543
I purchased air tickets to California six months before departure when
they were on a limited-time discount sale. Two months before the flight,
I received an e-mail from the airline company. It said that the
schedules of my flight had been changed. The changes were whopping six
hours for both departure and arrival. I was very shocked. I had already
booked and bought tickets of connecting domestic flights because the
earlier I booked, the more discounted the tickets were. Six hours was
too big to adjust my existing reservations and I had to cancel them and
get new tickets for the altered flights. Six hours late for arrival
meant that I couldn’t catch the last bullet train to ride home after
flying domestically, and had to stay at a hotel near the airport to take
the domestic flight next day. Those new domestic flight tickets were
priced higher as the dates were closer. Added cancellation fees to them,
I paid $200 more to what I had originally paid. The hotel stay added
$150 to that. One e-mail cost me $350 in total. A month before the
flight, I received another e-mail from the airline. It said that the
flight schedules had returned to the original ones. I almost fainted.
All the fuss I had made was completely unnecessary and I had just thrown
money away. It nullified $350 and time I had spent a month before, and I
had to go back to my original plan of the connecting domestic flights. I
cancelled and booked all over again, with the higher cancellation fees
and the higher-priced tickets as the dates were even closer. The total
extra cost soared astronomically. I had flown overseas many times in my
life, but an outrageous thing like this had never happened before. My
partner who will accompany me on my trip to U.S. called the airline.
Their phone line was an information number that a caller needed to pay.
They made us pay even for complaint. After a long argument, the airline
reluctantly agreed to pay for half of what we had paid extra. But there
were neither apologies nor recompense for the trouble we had been
through and the time we had spent. They didn’t let my partner talk to
the manager for the reason that he or she could be reached by a fax. The
flight is only a few days away and I’ve been praying not to receive any
more e-mail from the airline about another schedule change. Since I
will fly across the Pacific by this ‘Air Shambles’ soon, so many worries
have mounted. Do they maintain their airplanes properly? Do they
examine their pilots’ mental states? Do they let their cargo handlers
nap inside the plane too? My overseas travel has officially begun before
the actual departure with exhaustion from arrangements and troubles.
And I know I will pile up mountainous absurdities and problems during
the trip, and will have a simper smile on my face as a result of excess
anger by the time of a return. It crossed my mind that I’d better cancel
the flights and the hotels and call off the whole trip. That would save
a lot of money and energy. But something in me constantly shouts I need
to go. Something tells me that if I got cozy in an easy Japanese life,
my brain would die and my life would be over here. The sense of taking
action and moving forward feels so good. That’s why I like to go abroad
despite all those difficulties…
Labels:
air tickets,
airline,
airport,
anger,
cancellation,
connecting flight,
fuss,
hotel,
information number,
international,
Japan,
overseas travel,
Pacific,
pilot,
plane,
problem,
reservation,
sale,
travel,
trip