ORD to Las Vegas - That Old Delta Magic Returns!

I was afraid I was going to fill this blog with routine posts which might make you think that legacy airlines have it together.

Well, today, out at ORD, it all came crashing down.

Involuntary downgrade to coach - This is always fun for a high mileage guy. When my boarding pass rolled out of the printer at home this morning I saw the coded abbreviation you don't want to see if you have a first class upgrade; the term EQP. This is airline jargon for "we could not fly the route with the type of aircraft that we sold it as." And typically, that means substituting a single cabin airplane. And that is exactly what happened. To their credit, the people at the Crown Room wanted to give me drink coupons. I have too much of a head cold to drink it away. They knew I was upset.

What gets me is that I would have never booked this flight on DL if I knew a single cabin was gonna make up the trip. Why? Because coach at SWA is certainly nicer that being sqeezed into any kind of Canadair regional jet. I have heard that the CRJ concept stemmed from a design for a business jet. I know Bombardier makes business jets and I'm sure they are nice, but they day they started masquerading as airplanes for commercial use, well. . .

So, a total of 10 of us got this downgrade. The lady beside me, was less composed than I was. It is this kind of bush league nonsesne that makes me look at third parties carriers (in this case Skywest) as simply unprofessional.

Weight and balance issue causes delay - At least the captain was honest. After the door was closed and the jetway pulled back, we just sat. Here we go again. I see the door open and the strairs come down and the American captain who was seated in the jumpseat glumly leaving. And the captain grabs the mic and unceremoniously says "OK, if you are a non-rev, I'm throwing you off". Nice tact?

Now we have to wait for the ramp guys to find all these bags and off load them. It seems the weight and balance issued was caused by the equipment change. It makes you wonder if they can't figure this stuff out before you close the door.

So, on that high note, I'm in Las Vegas for the next 5 days. Southwest out of here back to MDW, so no chaos/EQP/balance issues.