I just hate flying. It isn’t a fear of flying. It is a dislike of being abused. The airlines are the worst of all the businesses I can think of. Buying a car is a pleasure compared to buying an airline ticket.
Fortunately, I don’t fly much. In October my wife and I went to Hawaii for a short business and pleasure trip. Alaska Airlines now owns Hawaiian Airlines, so there are plenty of flights from Seattle to Hawaii. We traveled to Honolulu. I haven’t spent much time on Oahu in many years, and we decided to stay right on Waikiki for the whole five days.
I made my reservations a month in advance. The last few times I’ve flown I’ve experienced the airlines’ favorite scam. After buying our plane tickets, I have to buy seats. Well, the plane tickets included a few optional middle seats with no chance of sitting next to my wife. For an extra $52 per seat one-way, we could sit together.
A few days before the flight, I’m sent an exciting opportunity to “upgrade” my seats. The process is an auction! In an effort to wring the last bit of money out of each and every customer, they auction the very choicest seats! I was astonished by the gall of Hawaiian Airlines and their parent company, Alaska Airlines. It really felt like I was caught in an abusive relationship.
It gets worse. After going through this shakedown for the round-trip tickets, the day before we are to leave, I got an email telling me in a matter-of-fact way, our flight is cancelled! I’m entitled to a full refund. Imagine my relief! I don’t want a refund; I want and need to get home!
I found another flight. It was with Alaska rather than Hawaiian. It was two hours later and more expensive. The flight was more expensive and the seats were $120 each. Of course, that’s because I bought my tickets at the last minute.
Did Hawaiian cancel the flight so that the parent company could fill up their plane with desperate travelers? I don’t know. Alaska used to do that daily on flights up and down the West Coast. In this case, they weren’t guaranteed I would end up on the parent company’s plane when the subsidiary cancelled our flight, but there were pretty good odds considering the dearth of options.
We finally got home, three hours later than we anticipated. Exhausted, I found myself looking at an offer from Atmos, the frequent flyer club for both Alaska and Hawaiian. For getting and using their proprietary Visa card, I could get 85,000 miles! Then I could used this mileage to fly more and expose myself to more of this abuse.
I’m thinking about doing it. I think I’ve got Stockholm Syndrome towards Alaska Airlines.
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