4 Airport Officials Who Went Out of Their Way to Be A-Holes
You'd think airlines would do a little more to make the whole experience of catapulting through the sky in a metal tube at screaming velocities a little less nerve wracking. Sadly, this is not the case.
Take these four airlines, which recently decided to go the distance in the incompetence race with the unbelievable audacity of a dog who looks you in the eye while pissing on your baby. And if you think that analogy is over the top, you're not ready for the following stories ...
Airline Loses Someone's Dog, Emails the Press About How Little They Care
Everyone has a lost-luggage story, but for most of us that luggage wasn't a living, breathing thing like Larry, an Italian greyhound that made a leash break at San Francisco International.
"I see how they're handling the luggage. Fuck this."
It's a terrible mistake that could happen anywhere, so when asked for a statement by local TV, all Air Canada really had to do was make some kind of attempt at basic human empathy for little Larry's owners. Or ... they could write a dismissive email instructing employees to ignore the media's interest and accidentally send it to the same TV station. Either way!
"Hey, forget the email. Just smear some dog shit on a letterhead and send that."
Yeah, they went with door number two on this one, accidentally answering a media query with a snarky response about how the media has better things to do than cover some lost dog -- "Their entire government is shut down and about to default and this is how the U.S. media spends its time" -- thereby giving the media a way better thing to cover than just some lost dog. Air Canada has now issued an apology insisting that the email doesn't "reflect their standards or professionalism," which is a lot like saying a burned steak doesn't reflect a chef's standards of steak burning.
Airline Makes Overweight Man Buy Two Seats, Doesn't Put Them Together
Airlines are constantly finding new and exciting ways to make flying suck for the overweight -- one of these ideas being the requirement that anyone weighing over a certain amount must pay for an extra seat so as to fit their overdeveloped ass on board. This policy was misconstrued by one airline in Ireland that, after making a 500-pound man pay for two seats, booked those seats in two completely different rows.
"In case of emergency, does your left ass cheek feel capable of directing other passengers to the proper exit?"
This wasn't a computer error or anything like that, as none of the airline employees could even figure out why someone would have two tickets to begin with. In fact, for the entire round-trip experience consisting of four bought seats, no two seats were at any point booked next to each other. At best, two were in the same row one seat apart -- meaning that some poor bastard was technically booked an airline seat in the middle of a fat man's butt cheeks.
As we've demonstrated with this POV Photoshop.
Boston Airport Runs an Elaborate Fire Drill ... on 9/11
If there was ever a day to not make it look like something was blowing up, that day would be 9/11. Additionally, if there was ever a place to not make it look like something was blowing up, that place would probably have to be one of the airports that 9/11's planes took off from. The Massachusetts Port Authority apparently needed to be given that information.
"9- what? Sorry, I was on vacation that day."
Seriously. On the same day that Logan International Airport was issuing moments of silence and wreath-hanging memorials, the fire department decided to conduct a training exercise on the freaking airfield that -- along with all that comes with a squad of firemen -- involved actual smoke.
"You need to rip off my shirt and give me some chest compressions and a lot of mouth to mouth. Get in there hard; you want this to look as real as possible."
The incident kind of pissed people off, to which Massport quickly apologized, but reminded everyone that safety and security is still their top priority -- something that apparently doesn't include smoke-induced mass panic. Of course, they did totally warn people first ... on Twitter. So people are just babies.
US Airways Makes Woman Check Her Husband's Ashes, Loses Them
At an airport, patience is the last line of defense between getting to your destination and being put in a choke hold by an air marshal. Angeline O'Grady has fucktons of patience, and we know this because she's only just resorting to filing a lawsuit against US Airways, which two years ago lost her husband's ashes before completely ignoring any and all requests to find out what happened.
"Sorry, but 'ashes' don't even rank 'dog' on level of fucks we don't give."
It all began in 2011 when airline officials made O'Grady check the urn because the contents "were not a solid substance." Obliging, O'Grady was then forced to buy a $500 business class ticket after the airline gave away her seat because she took too long checking the bag that they made her check. With us so far? Once she got to her destination, she discovered that the urn had flat-out vanished -- from inside her luggage.
"I see how they're handling the luggage. Fuck this."
And so, after years of hoping that someone might muster up the strength to give enough of a shit to respond, O'Grady got herself a lawyer and an official response from the airline that amounted to a written shrug and the promise that they would fight her lawsuit. With any luck, Mr. O'Grady is prepping some kind of The Grudge-style haunt, because his wife sure as shit isn't getting any justice.
