Pursuit of Excellence..or the lack of

Has the pursuit of excellence died or did it take the last bus out of town? I'm guessing a bus trip because if it wanted to get out of town quickly, a trip on Delta, United or Pinnacle (a Northwest regional out of Memphis) would have it at the terminal still guessing when it would board.

After a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, I reluctantly caught a Northwest Airlines flight out of Baton Rouge and arrived 15 minutes late in Memphis. Exiting the plane, I checked the monitors and scrambled from the B terminal as quickly as I could, thinking I only had 10 minutes before boarding time at C1. Even though the monitors said the flight to Grand Rapids was at 6:40 PM, there was nothing on the monitor behind the desk that even mentioned Grand Rapids, so I waited in line until the old guy (my age) finally acknowledged me. "Grand Rapids?", I asked. "Yep, it's here", he remarked, not elaborating whether it was late or on time. The other guy behind the desk acted clueless about the GRR flight and Pops said to him, "I have two flights outta here". I took that as a positive so I backed off. Within a few minutes there were still no indicators on the board and wondered if I
was really at the correct gate so I walked down another 30 feet to gate C2 and asked the clerk if it was true that 5924 to GRR truly was flying out of C1. "Yes, that's correct", she said politely, so I sat down and waited. After the time had come and gone that I should be on the plane, I asked Pops again when boarding time would be. Pops turned his head, muttered something unintelligible and wandered off. Had I not thought I'd get arrested for causing a disturbance, I would have thrown a hissy-fit right there amongst them. Not believeing I couldn't get an answer, I picked up my carry-ons and walked up the terminal to the bank of monitors and saw that my flight had now been changed to 8:19 PM. When I returned to Gate C1, there was a female agent there and finally got an explanation out of her. Finally, an announcement over the system told us that there was a delay and they were waiting on a plane from Nashville to use on the Grand Rapids flight.

False hopes in hand, Pops' shift replacement had as bad of an attitude as he did and sat in one of the lounge seats overlooking the tarmac. He would get up and do something when the female agent seemed overwhelmed with passenger needs and complaints. At 9 PM, a group of passengers gathered at the gate desk to ask exactly when we would get an update. She made a call and explained that the departure time had come and gone with no call to board had been given. Finally, at 9:20 we boarded the plane and had sat there for another 30 minutes when the flight attendant announced we didn't have enough fuel and were in the process of refueling. Oh, and the lavatory isn't working so don't even think about needing it. Other passengers called on cell phones to friends and relatives who would be picking them up, while I tried to get through to the local desk at my car rental company. I tried unsuccessfully to talk with Benny in India but the accent barrier proved too challenging so I thanked him and called back to see if I could find an Indian that could stand toe to toe with me in vocabulary skills. On the third try, a lady Indian patched me through to someone in Grand Rapids who promised he would wait until my arrival before shutting his termial down.

At 10 PM we are pushed out to the runway and have and an ETA in Grand Rapids of 12:35 AM. I would be needing that lavatory by then.

One would think as much as I've flown, I would have taken all this in stride but somehow this time it was more than I was willing to accept in good nature. I don't know whose fault it is, whether it's Pinnacle flying for Northwest or Delta which shared the flight with them and Continental but almost every horror tale of delayed flights, missing luggage or completely missed connections had Delta or Pinnacle's name connected to it.

I believe Pops and his buddy must have scored a "D" on the Customer Relations exam.