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Two weeks ago, I arrived here in the Wasatch Valley of northern Utah. The trip here was convoluted. From Bangor to Newark, I was to travel on the first ever flight of a certain airline. When I arrived in the gate area for the flight, there was a party going on in celebration of this “momentous” occasion. Television cameras were fixated on glowing airport and airline officials, gleaming with pride that the Bangor area had grown substantially enough to be serviced by yet another airline.
Unfortunately, their celebration was for only the idea of the flight, not for the actual physical movement of the aircraft and its paying passengers. No, they somehow forgot that part of the equation. Not only was the plane late arriving to Bangor, but also the officials had not determined how they would get us, the passengers, from the airport into the plane. Supposedly, the jet way was not functional with this specific aircraft. After this problem was solved, another problem arose. We couldn’t take off because there was too much traffic moving through the Newark airport.
But after the corporate types and airport officials had congratulated themselves on a job well done for contracting the flight, the television cameras disappeared and so did the airline’s attention to its customers.
I have seen this often in the recent past: people celebrating something that has not yet even occurred, something that will take work to achieve. Lately, it seems that we are headed towards a culture of inspirational talk, but no action. Inspiration is worth little if no success transpires. You can invite all the media that you want, cater the party and all, and announce your well thought out plans in an inspiring speech, but if you don’t get out there and follow through with your plan, that party was a waste of money and time.
The flight was three hours late arriving into Newark, and therefore, I missed by connecting flight to Salt Lake City. There were no more flights that day or night. I have spent two nights in Newark, New Jersey, on two separate occasions – one of them Christmas Eve two years ago – because of “traffic” in Newark, so that option really did not appeal to me.
With the woman at the customer service desk, I begged her to send me to Minneapolis, so that at least I could spend the night at my parents’ house, rather than in some slum motel in Newark. After twenty minutes of watching her curl her hair around her pencil, endlessly type on the keyboard, and in breaks, munch on snacks, she finally responded that I could fly to Minnesota.
This flight was also delayed, but thankfully, not cancelled, so at about midnight, I arrived in Minnesota unexpectedly after five months of not seeing my parents. It was only nine hours with them, eight of them sleeping, but certainly a welcome surprise. The next day, I flew onward to Houston and then Salt Lake City, arriving about a day late. Of course, because my detour to Minnesota made someone happy, the airline had to respond by losing my baggage for two days. Expect neither happiness nor timeliness when you travel by air these days.
In the end, everything turned out fine. My baggage arrived soon enough that the next day I was able to go skiing for the first time in six weeks on the plentiful snow in the mountains.
Peace,
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