Missoula News

Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)

Does Booking Online Lead To Alcoholism?

By Bob Wire, 3-30-11

"Oh, you want us to deploy the landing gear when we land? That's an extra $75.00."

After a long bout of serious online mano a mano, I finally got the flights booked. It only took two hours, three phone calls to Delta, and a half a bottle of wine. One of those gigantic bottles.

Booking airline flights online for a family of four is a major tightrope act with Delta, because they have a crack team of IT professionals in a kudzu-covered bunker somewhere outside Atlanta, feverishly changing the prices of their flights every three or four seconds. If you take too long to enter, say, the interior dimensions of your daughter’s Dora the Explorer backpack, your session will expire and you’ll have to start over. And the price will be higher than it was two glasses of wine ago.

Anyone who flies out of Missoula knows it takes three planes to go anywhere, even East Missoula. Long layovers are hard to avoid, and it takes a deft hand and a quick mind to put all the puzzle pieces together quickly in a way that will keep family sniveling to a minimum. The Wires are heading down South for a family reunion this summer, and we’d like to fly out from a different city than where we’re flying in. Call me crazy. I knew it would be a complicated process, so I had a fully charged laptop, said bottle of cheap merlot, a jar of ibuprofen and a list of frequent flier numbers. All except for my daughter’s. She was apparently persona non grata with Delta, so that necessitated phone call number one.

I punched in the toll-free number listed on the Delta website, and began to machete my way through the Amazon jungle of their help menu. “Welcome to the Delta help center!” said the peppy female computer. She sounded reasonable enough. “Would you like to proceed?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm. It sounded like you said ‘no.’ Do you want to check on a flight, lost luggage, or your SkyMiles account?”

“SkyMiles account,” I said, as clearly as if I were uttering the very first phrase heard by an unfrozen caveman.

“I’m sorry. It sounded like you said ‘Gomer Pyle can’t count.’” She repeated my options. I repeated the phrase.

“I’m sorry. It sounded like you said, ‘Freestyle elephant mount.’ Would you like to speak to a representative?”

“Lady, what I’d like to do is crawl through the phone line right now and TEACH YOU THE MEANING OF THE WORD RESPECT!”

“Great. A representative will be with you shortly.”

To complicate matters, I wanted to use the vouchers we’d received when we got cruelly bumped from our flight home on our last family trip. Another glass of wine, another set of hoops to jump through. My fingers flew over the keyboard with the speed and determination of small Vietnamese children making Nike sneakers, and I managed to plug in the new information before my session expired. I was ready to click “purchase,” when I realized I hadn’t chosen our seats. At that point, I didn’t care if we had to ride in a U-Haul trailer being pulled by the aircraft. I clicked. The tickets were mine.

Even with all that, booking directly through Delta is as easy as falling off a log cabin when compared with booking a flight on one of the airborne cattle cars run by Allegiant. Their online process is smoother, but by the time you’ve clicked through to the payment window, you’re looking at a bottom line that’s three times what you started with.

Naturally, there’s an exorbitant fee for each bag you check. Airlines are making billions off this relatively new concept. Oh, and did you want to choose your seat? Surcharge. Oh, did you not want to be the very last person on the plane, thereby guaranteeing that the overhead bins will be stuffed and you’ll have to check your bag anyway? Gouge. Oh, did you not want to sit over the wing or in an emergency row or in the way back or in the very front, or on an aisle or next to a window? Cha-ching. And please, your carry-on can be no bigger than a box of Wheat Thins.

Somebody’s got to pay for rising fuel costs, and with the airlines already sneaking in four price hikes in less than a year, you’ll get your pockets hoovered in more and more insidious ways. Last time I flew Allegiant, the flight attendant came down the aisle pushing her big silver cart of drinks and snacks. This being a flight to Las Vegas, most of the passengers were sucking down small forests of tiny vodka bottles at 9:30 in the morning. The waitress in the sky was also charging for soda, juice, coffee, everything but water. No free peanuts, no free pretzels. I asked her for a cup of water. “No charge,” she said cheerfully, setting a small plastic cup on my tray table. “But it’s three dollars for the napkin.”

It’s only going to get worse. With the price of oil shooting past $100 a barrel and crack-brained dictators setting fire to oil wells and refineries in the middle east, airlines will have no choice but to continue raising their ticket prices and finding new ways to nickel and dime their passengers. Five dollars to cover the extra weight of a pair of eyeglasses? You bet. Ten dollars if you’re wearing a wig. The only carry-on allowed will be a cell phone. The only in-flight service will be a wet sponge. Cleaning crews will be cut, so the planes will smell like the bedroom of a 13-year-old boy. Passengers will be issued one square of toilet paper each, and it will be the same gossamer no-ply bum wad found in Forest Service pit toilets.

Where will it end? And, more importantly, where did I put that corkscrew?

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