On (Not) Travelling on Delta Airlines between Xmas and NY

Here's a true story befalling some 200 travellers on a Delta Airlines flight from Syracuse to Atlanta on December 22. We were scheduled to depart Syracuse at 6:40 am, accordingly many travellers booked the night before into hotels in close proximity to the airport. We pretty much showed up on time, checked diligently in, even boarded the plane in a timely fashion for our 6:40 am departure. The simple reason for this was that we needed the plane to depart in a timely fashion for most of us to catch our connecting flights to our vacation destinations (or home) in Atlanta. In my case the plan was to head to Fort Lauderdale where hotel and rental car were waiting (and had to be paid regardless of whether I would make it there or not).

Well, it turned out that Delta staff had no problems letting passengers board a plane they knew full well wasn't roadworthy so to speak, given that it arrived with a broken generator the night before. So the charade began. We were stuck for about 2 ours, some fiddling with the engine, the generator, the ice and whatnot. Eventually we were kicked off the plane (could have slept a few hours longer I thought at the time). Well, an hour or two later we were herded back on to the plane only for the crew to discover further mechanical and electrical problems. an hour or so later we were again kicked off the plane.

Meanwhile Delta had ordered a bunch of junkfood items for us, muffins, bagels and tons of the cheapest pizzas available. I understand that by US airline standards that was a kind gesture, and to be fair to Delta, the food outlets at the airport in Syracuse do simply not sell healthy food items (short of overpriced fruit salads).

We waited and waited and waited, only to be eventually told that Delta was trying to get a replacement jet and crew to Syracuse. This, of course, should have happened over night, and not in a haphazard activity late afternoon on December 22. Pretty much everyone on the plane had by then missed their connecting flights, many had in fact decided to return home and forget about their holidays altogether.

Eventually, at around 5:30 pm or so the replacement plane arrived. Delta staff quickly dumped another load of pizza on us, lest it would have to provide us with cash vouchers to purchase proper dinner in Atlanta where virtually everyone was stuck for the night. We eventually departed - irony of ironies - at 6:40 pm, a full 12 hours after our scheduled departure time to Atlanta.

Some people on the plane were stuck in their quest to reach their holiday destination for up to three days in Atlanta - it goes without saying that they were not dressed for winter, yet Delta thought nothing of it to book them into airport hotels instead of nicer downtown Atlanta hotels. So there they were over the Xmas holidays, in airport hotels in Atlanta. Why? Because of Delta's incompetence. The airline knew full-well for a full night that their plane wouldn't be able to take off, yet it chose not to act on this information when it should have (namely over night). Its own ground staff in Syracuse was flabbergasted about the airline's decision not to replace the broken-down plane over night when it could and should have.

200 passengers were severely hit by this airline misconduct during their holidays. We had significant additional costs that were caused entirely by Delta's mistakes. Just to be clear, this cannot be an argument for taking out travel insurance to cover those extra costs, because the fault for these extra costs was Delta's. Why should travellers have to insure themselves against costs incurred due to airline incompetence? Delta offered a voucher of 100$ toward future flights. It goes without saying that that voucher didn't cover the actual additional expenses incurred.

Well, we arrived eventually in Atlanta and ended up receiving a voucher for a truly terrible airport hotel (the restaurant closed early - thanks Sheraton Atlanta airport hotel - despite a large queue of passengers checking in, all of whom hungry for real food after a day's worth of Delta's junk food). True to form the hotel voucher included no meals and no internet access. We continued our trip the next morning, being among the lucky ones able to continue their journey after losing only one full day of their vacation courtesy of Delta Airlines.

This has been a shocking experience, mostly because it became clear to everyone of the 200 passengers on said flight that this all would have been avoidable if Delta had acted on the problem when it should have. Delta clearly chose the course of action it thought would be cheaper, even though this would come at significant cost to about 200 of its passengers. Eventually it saved nothing at all, a replacement jet had to be send after a day's worth of fiddling with the broken equipment in Syracuse, plus there were 200 irate passengers realizing that their all-important vacation plans meant nothing to this airline, a large number of hotel rooms booked, the list goes on.

The lesson out of this all: Delta is probably not much better or worse than any other US airline, so passengers will have to accept such misconduct until these companies are better regulated. The real lesson to me: If Xmas/NY travel is avoidable at all, don't travel during that time of the year. I had two out of two trips during that time of the year stuffed up during the last 4 years. So, it's not only that airlines charge you a lot, they also often don't deliver. A pretty miserable record.

Delta's Twitter guy or girl #DeltaAssist suggested I complain with Delta's 'not my problem', aka its complaints folks. I mentioned that that likely would mean throwing good money after bad, knowing that US airlines could not care less about customer experiences. Against my better judgment I tried anyway. I  received precisely the response that you'd expect from such an outfit:

'I understand the frustration you experienced when your plans were
disrupted due to the delay of our flight for mechanical reasons causing
you to miss your connecting flight.  I can only imagine how dissatisfied
you must have been to have your travel plans disrupted at the last
minute.

Additionally, I am truly sorry you were unhappy with the Electronic
Transportation Credit Voucher (eTCV) and hotel voucher provided.  The
gesture extended was not meant to place a value on your experience;
rather it was an attempt to make amends for your disappointment with our
service.  Respectfully, additional consideration would not be due.  I
apologize, as I understand this is not the answer you were hoping to
receive.'

My truly favorite line is this, 

'I want to thank you, again, for writing regarding flight

irregularity.  We appreciate your interest in our company and look
towards your future travel with us.'

UNICEF - latest money scandal at UN

Hey, anyone monitoring closely the UN's latest frolics in terms of money wastage, corruption and incompetence will be pleased to see that the international organisation remains true to its historical form. It's been discovered that the German arm of UNICEF diverted about 20% of all donations (roughly 20 mio of 100 mio Euros) to pay its staff nicely exorbitant salaries, make plenty of external consultants happy etc. It could well be that this year, possibly for the first time, UNESCO might have to give up the mantle of most corrupt (and arguably most pointless) or most inefficiently run outfit in the UN bureaucracy, and might have to pass it on to UNICEF. No doubt UNESCO will fight hard, and, according to well-informed insiders, will almost certainly be able to claim the title back in 2009. Still, for 2008 it seems a remarkably close race. The only bit that's really funny about this are serial resignation of UNICEF 'ambassadors' (invariably actors, sports people, and the like, trying to do good by the world's children without wanting to think too much about it). It's as if it had never before occurred to them that any money poured into a UN outfit or a UN affiliated outfit is like attempting to fill a bottom-less pit.

This, of course, goes very much to the heart of the international do-good industry. Many such organisations these days have sufficient cash at hand, and are prepared to pay salaries sufficiently high to advertise in eg. THE ECONOMIST, a magazine in which a half-page advertisement costs probably about 15000 GBP. The question one has to ask in this context is whether poverty fighting organisations really need to pay many of their staff more in terms of salaries than most of their donors take home in a good year.

Air Canada - your incompetent airline

I thought KLM is one of the worst outfits gracing our skies (well, I am excluding US airlines, of course), but I have since discovered that AIR CANADA is by far the worst outfit disgracing our skies. It is basically a state subsidized organization run very much incompetently, and with no concern for its customers. Its customer complaints people churn out message after message generating platitudes explaining why its failings are 'acts of god', 'bad weather', 'name your preferred excuse of the day'.
I failed a few weeks back to get to Hong Kong because 'weather' supposedly prevented my flight to Hong Kong from leaving. It goes without saying, plenty of flights left my airport, despite the 'weather', but hey, AIR CANADA's excuse generating software is routinely up for some unintelligible explanation or other. According to its excuse generating software (presumably sent from an overseas based excuse generating computer) 'bad weather' permitted flights to leave at 6 am, and at 8 am, but the very same bad weather prevented the 7 am flight from leaving. It goes without saying that this is utter bollocks (utter bollocks is a short for 'AIR CANADA customer disservice department's unintelligible explanation').
A friend tried to leave on AIR CANADA for an overseas trip yesterday. The weather was actually really bad, and one would have expected the flight to be canceled. AIR CANADA operates another dysfunctional 'service', one in theory at least informing people (NOT) about flight cancellations. So, he calls em up and asks whether his flight is still scheduled to fly out that day. Dutifully AIR CANADA 'informs' him that his flight is on time and that he should go to the airport. Upon arrival there he's told that there were NO flights that day, due to the bad weather. So, he had to scramble last minute to catch a train to Toronto's airport to fly from there. Reimbursement for the flight not operated? Reimbursement for unnecessary taxi fares to the aiport based on AIR CANADA's advice (ie we are flying)? Of course not. The only thing AIR CANADA is truly good at is a prompt response saying 'weather related' or 'act of god' (the airline's standard response should, of course, be: 'due to our incompetence'). So, my friend got an 'act of god' response in lieu of an explanation for why the airline dragged him to the airport when it hadn't operated a single flight from that airport on that day.
One can only hope that the Canadian government will stop sinking tax payers' money in what is obviously a dysfunctional national carrier (it doesn't seem to carry too many passengers to their booked destinations anyway...).
My advice, avoid booking AIR CANADA at all cost. I won't be boarding its planes again. My idea about boycotting particularly bad airlines is to boycott them for a period of, say, five years, hoping that either they'll be bankrupt by then and out of business, or replaced by a more competently run operator, or that they'd have improved their operations to such an extent that they'd be given another chance. So, AIR CANADA, come January 01, 2012 I might reconsider you. Hopefully though, there is an alternative carrier available to me by then.

Bioethics @ UNESCO - the farce continues

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have been scathing (that's an understatement) about pretty much most activities of UNESCO in the field of bioethics. The organization's bioethics committees churn out Declarations clearly aiming to beat each other to the title of being the most inept guidance document in the field (and there's plenty of contestants out there). Its Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights requires its member states, among other things, not to discriminate against people on any grounds. Tell that to current day South Africans trying to rectify the former apartheids state's injustices by means of affirmative action, or explain that to investigators excluding particular people from a given clinical trial on prudent scientific grounds. The same document also exhorts clinical researchers to maximize the trial participants' benefits. This is pretty much impossible and would in fact render most clinical research impossible. There's much more nonsense that forms the core mantras of this Declaration, and, understandably so, the document is by and large ignored by folks in developed countries. This is not so in developing countries, and this is what we as Editors of Developing World Bioethics warned in an Editorial about. We suggested that people not overly familiar with modes of bioethical reasoning might just fall for this sort of waffle and as a result the Declaration rather than being consigned to the traditional dustbin of UNESCO text production activities, might actually have negative impacts on policies or training programs established in developing countries.
It seems that we were correct. Today a Kenyan newspaper reports that a UNESCO bioethics center (and accompanying professorial chair) has been established at Egerton University in Kenya. I'm sure nobody in the field of bioethics has ever heard of Egerton University's research and teaching excellence in bioethics. Indeed, the new bioethics professor, sorry, the new UNESCO bioethics professor at that university, a professor Jude Mutuku Mathooko, has - according to a quick google scholar search that I undertook just now - not published a single peer reviewed paper (in a bioethics or other reputable journal) on a bioethical subject matter. Not a big surprise then that our new professorial bioethics colleague, undoubtedly after an extensive UNESCO in-house peer review process found competent to research and teach bioethics, also happens to be chairperson of one of UNESCO's bioethics committees. How he got there... don't ask. It's UNESCO after all. I'm sure this bloke is a nice chap, but surely even he should realize that it takes more to be a bioethics professor then access to UNESCO's rolodex and frequent visits to Paris.
Anyway, there is some bright spot in all of this. According to the Kenyan news report, 'The centre will perform functions in line with Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights and other declarations.' Yes, the university promises that its new UNESCO bioethics center will operate and indoctrinate in line with the above criticized Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. This possibly explains why long-established serious bioethics research and teaching institutions in developing countries such as South Africa, Mexico or the Philippines were shunned in favor of a Kenyan institution that happens to be the employer of UNESCOs bioethics committee's Kenyan chairperson.

Some bad news from the Royal Bank of Scotland

I am currently in California. Haven't been to San Francisco for a very long time. I love this town.

Well, on to the Royal Bank of Scotland. Guess what, my credit card was declined just yesterday. This happened after I went out of my way to call the bank prior to going here so they'd not use unusual transactions overseas as a reason to shut down the card. Its call centre staff thanked me for being so considerate. I also transferred extra cash from my cheque into my credit card account to ensure I don't run out of money while in the USA. Well, yesterday my card didn't buy me a five quid brunch in the hotel bar. I sort of have to concede that I cursed (quietly) what I thought were incompetent hotel staffers. I tried then to ring my bank to find out why my card was declined. Goes without saying that I had to call at 4:30 am local time so as to catch someone working in the UK based call centre. Of course, the hotel had since cut my outside phone line, seeing that my card wasn't valid. So, the toll free call to my bank had to be made from my mobile and cost me probably a small fortune. After spending probably 5 minutes in a (likely) expensive (for me) queue I got thru to a call centre operator. It quickly became clear what happened. I am a victim of a suitably incompetent call centre agent. When I called to top up my credit card balance (with a transfer from my cheque account) the call centre staffer decided instead to move a large chunk of money from my credit card into my cheque account. The result is that I travelled to the USA with a carefuly drained (and, in fact, overdrawn) credit card account. I'm sure the bank has since busily levied charges for my overdrawn credit card... guess it's a typical case of let the buyer beware.

The bank is currently trying to fix the problem (at least on the phone its staffer acknowledged straightaway that it's their fault), but it could be a couple of days till my card would be back in credit.

Begging is fairly common in this country, so if you see me today on the corner of Powell and Market street, spare me a dime while I wait for the Royal Bank of Scotland to fix its mistake. One has to eat after all ...

Sack Manto - What a Brilliant Idea

What a brilliant idea! South Africa'sMinister for Health (Prevention), Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, has finally got her own fan club, a website calling for her to be sacked ASAP. Tshabalala-Msimang, dutifully carrying out the painfully idiotic views of her boss, the country's President, Thabo Mbeki (who thinks HIV is not the cause of AIDS, and that there is no AIDS epidemic in his country), should have been sacked a long time ago, along with Thabo Mbeki.
So, make sure to leave your vote and support the campaign to get Tshabalala-Msimang sacked.