Stranded by ice and snow . . .

. . . luckily, it was in sunny Manhattan Beach, California. I was supposed to fly out Saturday night from LAX, but was only able to get out last night, and to Boston rather than Providence.

I'm not one to blame the airlines for the weather. Nonetheless, American Airlines could have done a lot better in keeping customers informed. After a friend came back from the airport after his afternoon flight was cancelled, I did everything I could to find out if my redeye might, against all odds, still be leaving. Telephone access to American Airlines was essentially cut off: calling the public number, you got a recording telling you to call back later and were then disconnected. The Platinum access line was still accepting calls, but 30-40 minutes on hold wasn't enough to get through.

What was really unforgivable, however, was American's failure to make proper use of its website, and to notify passengers who had signed up for SMS notification. I got no less than four text messages telling me about minor delays and gate changes for the LAX to O'Hare leg of my trip, but no mention of the cancellation of all continuing flight to Providence for the next two days -- which I had to stand in line at the airport to find out, wasting two taxi fares from and back to my hotel as well.

Another major failure was the FAA flight delays website, which showed problems only at Milwaukee -- even long after hundreds of flights through O'Hare had already been cancelled. I'd relied on the FAA WAP site for the past few years when traveling, but at this point I'm about to delete the bookmark.

The one good thing I gleaned from this trip was the belated discovery of how easy and inexpensive it is to get from Logan to Providence by taking the Silver Line bus ($2) to South Station, and MBTA commuter rail ($7.75) from there. The rail connections are much fewer on weekends, and would be uncomfortably crowded during rush hour. Nonetheless, when available it is an excellent alternative to the hole-filled schedule of the Peter Pen/Bonanza bus -- especially now that the bus is no longer direct, which makes for a much longer (1:45) ride.

Posted by David on February 27, 2007 11:53 AM