Burned and Bumped

They say you get what you pay for. Nowhere is that truer than the airline industry.

My special $28 one-way flights on airTran got me a burned hand/lap over Stamford, CT and a bumped return flight in Philly. It should be noted that airTran is my favorite low-fare carrier - I think it's because of the lower case "a" in their logo. I like airlines who believe in humilty. However, getting burned and bumped does the test limit of your love.

The Burn. Now, I'm no waiter, but single fisting a hot coffee and a hot tea in 6 ounce styrofoam cups seems like poor technique. As I reached up for my tea - unsure how to enter the 45 degree angled cup hovering over me, the flight attendant assumed we had a clear exchange. For the second half of the leg to Philly, I nursed soaking warm short pants and a burned forearm.

Without knowing customer service policy on hot drinks ending up in a passenger's lap, I would think it goes something like:

1. Apologize and give passenger wad of napkins
2. Offer Icepack
3. Apologize again and say, "Let me know if there is anything else I can do."

Done. You've saved face and defused a potentially irritable passenger. Let's check my flight attendant's response against this three-point plan:

1. Says sorry; gives me five napkins (Okay. Fine.)

2. Offers four ice cubes in a cup. (Friend, unless you plan on pouring me complimentary scotch over the rocks, I don't see how this will numb the pain.)

3. Does not follow-up with a second sorry. (Technically, the first doesn't even count because it's instinctual. Whole civilizations have fallen because of the lapse of the second, more genuine apology); to add insult to injury, the attendant says "Ba-Bye" to me as I exit. (How many drinks did you spill on this flight anyway?)

After ending a 28 year stint of never having a hot beverage end up in my lap, my return flight to Boston ended another lifetime streak - 40 consecutive flights without getting bumped.

The Bump. After being told the flight was overbooked by the ticket desk agent, I walk up to Gate D15 and explain to the agent, Marquis, that I need to be assigned a seat. He says, "Okay, Sir, I'll call your name during the boarding process and we'll get you on."

My grandfather would call that kind of advance promise the kiss of death. During the boarding process, I check-in with Marquis and he sings me the refrain about needing to wait until all passengers board to get a sense of seating. Strangely, the call for volunteers to give up their seats in exchange for a roundtrip ticket has not yet come. For the next 15 minutes I wait as Marquis darts back and forth between the on-ramp and the agent desk.

What tipped it for me that I wasn't making it on the plane was when I saw the plane begin taxiing onto the runway. No apology. No calls for volunteers. I am the volunteer. I'm the volunteer? I feel like Marquis was trying to do to me what I do to Finance Department of a non-profit - incur an expense and then request a P.O. Of course, I got a free roundtrip ticket out of the confusion, but as I told Marquis - "The apology on behalf of airTran is more important than the compensation." It's funny, after I mentioned that to him, he went into back pedal mode rambling about how he was going to apologize, but then he never actually apologized.

Saying I'm Sorry might mean admitting a mistake, and what's so bad about that?