Confusement at Newark Airport

Trip Start Jun 22, 2006
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Trip End Sep 07, 2006


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Flag of United States  , New Jersey,
Friday, June 23, 2006

(Thursday, June 22)--I arrived in the USA at Newark Liberty Airport in the late afternoon and waited around to catch my scheduled flight to Columbus, Ohio in the evening. We boarded an hour late and then taxied around the tarmac for 90 minutes before the flight crew took us back to the gate and dumped us out with no explanation except that there was "bad weather" at Columbus. The next morning I found out that weather wasn't the matter but that the crew was near the end of their shift and just fucked around out there on the runway until they could go home.

So I was to be stranded in Newark for the night, broke and exhausted, with only the hope of being able to get them to fly me to Columbus the next day. A desperate call for help to my people in Columbus, Peter Simon, was quickly returned with the news that my flight was confirmed and a room was waiting for me at a nearby inn. By now it was 1:00 a.m. (7:00 a.m. Amsterdam time) and I hobbled to the shuttle bus, checked in and fell into bed.

Traveling is tough enough on an old person when one can make all the scheduled connections, but it gets really rough when the airlines twist you around to fit their whims. Going to the airport in the United States provides a perfect point in proof of William Burroughs' prophecy of 50 years ago, that America would be about simplifying and degrading the consumer as well as the product. If you or I conducted our business like the airlines do, we'd be in prison for fraud. But it's like Lenny Bruce said, also 50 years ago now, about dealing with the telephone company: Whatta ya gonna do, use a dixie cup and a string?
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