Just returned from a trip to Detroit. It was a good trip for my nephew's wedding and seeing my family. The return back to LA area was not pleasant, however. The flight out of Detroit was supposed to be 9:45 p.m. At around 7:30 there was an announcement that the pilot was not going to make it on time and the flight had been pushed back to 10:30. Around 8, the gate agent brought a cart full of snacks and drinks for us. I told my wife that it is never a good sign when they are offering snacks at the gate. Sure enough, it was followed by announcement that the pilot had just been cleared to take off from New York. The flight will be delayed until 11:30. I didn't have a good feeling about that since it is not known how long the pilot had been stranded in New York and if he is in shape to fly to LA when his plane lands in Detroit. Sure enough, just around 10:45 it was announced that the pilot does not feel he is in shape to fly to LA when he lands in Detroit. So the flight was canceled and rescheduled to 7 a.m. next morning.
We had then stand in line to get vouchers for hotel and food. We were among the first in line but still took 15 minutes to get the vouchers. We then had to make reservation for the hotel and find the shuttle to that hotel. Since the hotel did not anticipate a sudden surge in business, it had to get the shuttle out to the airport and that took about 20 minutes. When we got to the hotel, there was one clerk who had to work the system of vouchers. It took another 20 minutes to get our room. So it was well past midnight when we got to bed. We had to get up at 4:30 to catch the plane. Thankfully we made it and the plane took off as scheduled.
When we got to LAX, we had to get an Uber or Lyft. We were jammed into a bus to take us from the arrival area to the rideshare parking lot. The bus was jammed with people. The drive to the parking lot took 20 minutes even though the lot is less than a mile from LAX! The parking lot was jammed with buses. People were wandering off the bus to find where Uber, Lyft and taxis were located. Massive amount of people from buses with luggage. We looked like bunch of refugees. Once getting in our ride, it was an hour and half through LA traffic to get home.
So for someone who hates to travel, it was not a fun experience. I am sure a lot of people had experienced much worse than this. But that is my point. The airlines had no back up plans. The airports are horrible, although DTW is a lot better than LAX. Traffic everywhere and no good public transportation. LAX has been under renovation for years and I doubt it will improve much after renovation is completed. And it will still have no train going in and out of the airport then!
I also want to rant about the gas prices here in California. It is again over $6. The official word is that Saudi Arabia raised the price of oil to the U.S. and that there are several refineries in California undergoing maintenance and are offline. Well, the refineries were being maintained a few months ago when the price surged. Do we have such ancient refineries that we have to maintain them every few months? The price of gas jumped almost a dollar in the one week I left LA. The price of a barrel of oil from Saudi Arabia went up 20 cents. Since a barrel of oil can produce about 20 gallons of gasoline, that means each gallon should only go up a penny! Someone need to explain the math to me here!
Sorry to hear about your travel luck! I hope you had a great time at your nephew's wedding. I'm not sure what is going on with LAX but you would think that such a large airport would be more user friendly since there are so many flights coming in and out. Plus, there should be a train that goes in and out of it to various points. It would make sense especially from an environmental standpoint.
ReplyDeleteGas has gone up here too. We can be sure that refineries will have maintenance and accidents and leaks every year around this time. Is it on purpose? I have a feeling it is. Now, I understand that we have hurricanes that happen, so I guess that can't be helped. But what about the maintenance? Do they do that because it's the best time of year to do them? As always, I don't trust the gas companies. Maybe these price jumps are timed for the elections as well. What do you think?
-LBOAYM
Well, it does not serve the Biden administration to have price increase just before the elections. So I would not say that the government has anything to do with it. But you are right that you can't trust the gas companies. The whole history of the oil and gas industry is not something we can be proud of. I don't want to write pages of this history but I am sure you can find out a lot by googling it. Lets just say that the big oil companies pursuit of profit led us into propping governments with our military power and help make Islamic extremism possible. Why do think that most of the 9/11 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia? Why do you think Biden had to back down against the killing of the journalist by the Saudis? Given all that, the OPEC countries nationalized their oil fields because they claim that the oil companies who had control of them before were crooks! It maybe a case of the pot calling the pan black but you get the idea of what people think of the oil companies.
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