Tony Deyal
IT IS bad enough that Montserrat is catching its ash from
its resident volcano, but for me to catch my ash in Puerto Rico because of ash
from Montserrat is not just adding insult to injury, but also mayhem and other
ashenine assaults and batteries.
I feel really sorry for my Caribbean neighbours who have been dislocated and dispossessed and yet have handled the traumatic circumstances with such calm. I know that in their place I would be so deeply affected that if I'm buying ice cream and the clerk asks, "Cone or cup?", I would shout, "Cup, for goodness sake, cup! No cone for me!"
We are a resilient people and when things are at their worst, we are at our humorous best. One transplanted Montserratian was telling me that animals have a way of sensing these events before they happen. The night before the first big eruption occurred, his dogs took the car keys, drove all the way to the port and hijacked a boat to Antigua. The goldfish tried but they couldn't find Nemo.
I had travelled by American Airlines (AA) to San Juan, Puerto Rico, and was booked to fly to Antigua by American Eagle last Sunday afternoon when a series of unfortunate incidents unravelled like a cheap Chinese sweater at a speed that would make Lemony Snicket so bitter that he would change his name to Limey. The Eagle turned out to be an ostrich that buried its head in its own ash.
BAD WEATHER GROUNDED US
There were about 10 scheduled flights to various Caribbean destinations that evening. We were shuttled to board the flight to Antigua and we were sent back to the gate once more because of the ash. We were told that bad weather had grounded us. The bad weather was caused by ash clouds. However, the problem was not the weather, but the ash which causes the airplanes to corrode. There, in a confined and crowded area with the over 600 passengers from the cancelled flights milling about and wondering what to do, I could not help thinking rudely that the whole thing was a total mess and that the association between the words 'volcanic ash' and 'lavatory' could not be coincidental. All those highly educated and experienced pilots and not one had graduated magma cum laude.
What caused me to erupt and move from sufferer to Soufriere was that AA refused to provide us with accommodations or make any changes to its schedule to assist the passengers who were affected. They said that we were victims of an act of God and He, not they, was to blame for our problems. However, since He could not pay for our meals, taxi fares and hotel bills, we had to look after those ourselves. It is interesting that the God of insurance agencies and airlines is such a vengeful, arbitrary, autocratic and unrepentant deity.
While I am more broadminded about God and see Him as being with me in good times and bad, punishing my sins of omission and commission but also rewarding me for my good deeds, caring for the black sheep and the prodigal son as much as for the white sheep and the sons who stay at home with their dear old dad, not so the airlines and the bank and non-bank financial institutions. Their God is an eye for no eye, two eyes for one eye, and no teeth for anything since orthodontists are not covered in their health plans. Their eyes gleam when they contemplate their God and His acts. Me, my eyes would gleam if I had just one axe that I could apply to their bottom lines.
GOT WORSE
It got worse as the night wore on. Thousands of pieces of luggage piled up and there was total chaos. The same harried agents were calling names one by one and trying to cope with the increasingly frustrated travellers. The one area where they said we should collect our luggage was crammed with people, but not with luggage. I was told that I was not on the list and they could not tell me when I would get a flight, certainly not Monday or Tuesday. God again.
He had singled me out or He was trying to save the people of Antigua from the effects of my presence. I did not and could not blame Him. I blame AA. Here is an organisation that says it is world-class, that knew the volcano problems in Montserrat had increased since May 26, and yet had not put in place any contingency, crisis or emergency plans to deal with a situation like the one that happened on Sunday. Surely, it is a scenario that could have been easily predicted.
The reason is twofold. The first is that in spite of its much ballyhooed Frequent Flier programme, AA does not care about passengers. A headline in USA Today (May 21, 2006) states, 'Airlines using frequent-flier plans more for profit than to win loyalty'. One industry expert, Rolfe Shellenberger, says that the airlines "got greedy" and "their purpose now is to generate more revenue" in the short term than build customer loyalty that will financially benefit the company over the long term. He maintains, "These programmes are just about the only antidote to lousy airline service in general. Yet they are being slowly devalued."
The other reason is that AA is showing symptoms that I associate with Pan Am just before its collapse - lack of customer concern, overcentralisation, no empowerment of staff, nickel-and-diming passengers to death with all kinds of new costs, poor on-time performance, and lousy crisis management procedures. What I am going to do, and am advising everyone else to do, is to cash in all my AA frequent-flier miles as quickly as possible. Some people may call it "pushing the panic button". I call it the American Way.
Tony Deyal was last seen asking, "What's the difference between a lawyer and a
vulture?" The lawyer gets
frequent-flyer miles.
