#2 Flying Whine - Reservations

#2     Reservations

If God had meant man to fly, 

He would have given us tickets.

Mel Brooks

Whine A: They always put me on hold. 

Why: When you try to make reservations with any airline, it is like navigating a minefield of modern technology—and the people who are there as a last resort to help you with it are even less customer-friendly. 

As soon as your call goes through, you are put on hold—and then your problems begin. Endlessly circling in a telephonic holding pattern, you wait so long that you forget where you are or where you want to go. The worst part is that you’ll never speak to a real person—and it’s just not fun complaining to a machine.

Whine B: I hate talking to a machine. 

Cure:  The “express easy check-in e-ticket” cure is a new innovation that has made flying almost bearable. It is quick, easy and enjoyable once you have gone through the initial learning curve; and though it isn’t quite instant and doesn’t exactly involve the human touch, it is far less time-consuming and alienating than booking airline reservations on the phone with disembodied, oddly cadenced voices that sound only vaguely like real people. 

With most airlines, you can even print out boarding passes 24 hours before your flight, thus circumventing all human interaction until you have to deal with those fine professionals at security, which is the subject of our next whine.

Excerpted: Thou Shalt Not Whine....The Eleventh Commandment by January Jones