Okay, I’ve just about had it up to here (author indicates a plane which passes through a point somewhere on his spacious forehead) with airlines, their silly neo-caste system of frequent-flyer reward levels, their overbooking of flights, and their attitude in general. I’m completely finished with one particular airline, and I don’t mind mentioning the name at all: US Airways. That’s right. US Airways, US Airways, US Airways. Got that, Google? Good.

Yesterday, work required me to fly from Atlanta to Washington, DC and back. A week in advance of this, I’d bought the ticket on the web site of US Airways. Beginning the day the flight was booked, I tried to assign myself a seat, as the wonderfully sophisticated airline web sites now allow a passenger to do. It wouldn’t let me. In retrospect, this should have been a sign of huge troubles looming ahead, but this had happened once before with the triangle-shaped airline and there’d been no problem; they’d had a decent seat for me. The Lincoln sedan airline, the together airline, and even the 180 degrees from northeast airline had managed to treat me decently when it came to seating, so I didn’t worry. And yes, since this is a very negative story, I’m consciously avoiding mentioning any airline I don’t intend to take to task. Google sees all.

When I arrived at the US Airways kiosk to check in, the machine refused once again to allow me to assign a seat. Unwilling to gamble at the gate, I waited 15 minutes at the ticket counter to speak with a human agent. The agent looked up my ticket, verified for me that I was a paid, confirmed passenger on the flight, and none too politely refused to assign me a seat. She instead referred me to the gate agent who would apparently just love to seat me.

When I arrived at the gate, I was greeted by US Airways gate agent “Lynn B.,” who brusquely brushed me aside, telling me she’d be “releasing seats” in just a few moments. Boarding was to begin in thirty minutes.

Twenty-five minutes later, Lynn B. announced that the flight was oversold. That is to say that they had sold a number of tickets larger than the number of physical seats on the airplane, something that would be damned illegal if they weren’t an airline. After all, I’m not allowed to sell things I don’t have, and if I tried to, it would be called fraud or worse. If you’re an airline, though, you actually have the law of the United States behind you, permitting you to sell as many nonexistent seats as you want! This allows the airlines’ rich executives to command their well-paid pilots to fly their usuriously expensive flights without so much as a single empty seat, even if several people cancel their tickets. Everyone knows that if an airliner flies with even one seat empty, the US economy collapses, civilization ceases to exist, and life as we know it is forever lost. Or, perhaps some wealthy US Airways executive has one less pair of $400 shoes. Either way, it’s bad.

Anyway, after she announced that the flight was oversold, she asked for one volunteer with flexible travel plans who wouldn’t mind being squeezed like a sardine onto the next US Airways flight to Washington rather than this one. A young lady with long, curly brown hair bounded up to the desk and practically salivated all over the free round-trip ticket she would get as a reward for her cooperation in keeping the airline solvent and civilization safe (or the big man stylishly shod.) The airline now had exactly as many bodies as seats, and the crisis was averted, I thought.

I walked over and stood near (but not at) the gate desk again, anticipating being called. Lynn B. regarded me with an icy stare and dismissively said, “I’ll have a seat for you in JUST a few minutes, sir.” I thanked her (boy, talk about conversational conventions!) and continued to wait (somewhat less patiently) while the boarding agent began allowing the first-class passengers to board the US Airways flight.

Lynn then set about a number of important tasks. US Airways boarding passes just collected needed to be carefully shuffled and re-shuffled, then put into a bin. A phone call needed to be made to secure a wheelchair for a passenger boarding a flight departing the same gate two hours from now. A man needed to know what other Washington flights were available that day. More boarding cards needed to be shuffled and stacked several times, since most of the passengers were now aboard.

Many minutes later, I found myself standing more or less alone, except for Lynn B., her boarding agent, and a few passengers waiting for later flights in the US Airways gate lounge. I cast a questioning look in Lynn B.’s direction, and she pointedly ignored me. Finally, I simply walked up to the desk and stood there until she eventually acknowledged me. The boarding agent was tallying the head count and closing the door when I was finally handed a boarding pass, and I thanked Lynn B. very little (but by name) and rushed down the jetway. Before my posterior parts met the flatulence-impregnated cushion of seat 10C, the aircraft door was closed.

I fumed for most of the 1 hour and 47 minutes of the flight. I had paid a substantial amount of money for a ticket on that flight, and I had been a confirmed passenger. US Airways had treated me like a damned STANDBY, and had made no apology for doing so. It’s just the way they do business, it seems. It definitely seems to be the way Lynn B. does business, and I only wish I knew her full name so that I could repeat it several times as well. She’d never see it, of course. She’s VERY busy.

Triangle-shaped airline, US Airways has won back a customer for you. See you soon.