Airline Safety at its Finest

So I'm perusing iGoogle yesterday evening for some blogfodder, and am gifted with this little tidbit about a woman getting shafted by United Express and their tag-team partner in this little gang-bang, the Transportation Safety Administration.

Sayeth the article:

The complaint outlines a series of delays that led up to McGuire falling asleep on the airplane. McGuire was originally scheduled to leave Detroit, Michigan, at 6 a.m.Monday with a brief layover in the Washington area before continuing to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She didn't leave Washington for Philadelphia until 11:40 p.m.

United Express Flight 8080 arrived in Philadelphia just before 12:30 a.m. Tuesday. McGuire was asleep when the plane landed and passengers and crew disembarked, the complaint said.

When a cleaning crew discovered McGuire four hours later, it alerted the Transportation Security Administration and McGuire was "wrongfully detained and interrogated," the complaint alleges.

So let me get this straight. The poor lady was shafted:

• First when her layover went from brief to around 14 hours
• Second when she was abandoned on the plane by passengers and crew
• Third when she woke up terrified on an empty, locked plane, and
• Fourth, when the cleaning crew found her and promptly turned her ass in to the TSA, where she was detained and interrogated.

And she's supposed to be alright with all that? Yeah, I'm thinking not. And, believe it or not, this isn't an anti-TSA rant in the making, either. I'd say the cleaning crew, having just discovered a person on what was supposed to be a locked plane, was right to think that finding a person on an "empty" aircraft Just Ain't Quite Right.

(I'll also say that I wouldn't be surprised if they did keep her well past the time it should have taken to verify her boarding pass and identification, but that's purely cynical speculative editorial.)

At least she's not going stark-raving mad. She's got a legitimate gripe, and she had good reason to be pissed already. They're lucky she's not going for a seven-figure payout. I'd say she's being a good sport, and the airline(s) would be smart to pony up the $75K and send this woman a few thousand frequent flyer miles with Northwest Airlines a nice fruit basket on her merry way.

And yes, I'm having fun with strikeout. I noes teh HTMLz. LOL!



tweaker