I'll Be Home for Christmas... If Only in My Dreams

Well, Christmas has come and gone and for some of the folks who got stuck in Denver during the blizzard, it certainly made for a memorable Christmas. As I was churning out the calories on the elliptical machine at the gym this evening, I was watching the news and as usual, leave it to the media to put a spin on an already frustrating event. One of the big stories (besides the passing of President Ford) was how people were still struggling to get home after spending days in Denver. For many who were in transit or at the beginning of their journey, it was a no-win situation. Many people decided to stick it out in the airport and hope that the flights would resume soon. Suddenly it was like the Tom Hanks movie "The Terminal" only multiplied by about 4,700.

The spin that the media was choosing to put on the situation was that while the situation was handled as well as possible, the airport authority and the airlines in Denver didn't do all they could to accomodate the passengers stranded in the airport. As expected, the interviews with people at the airport were the usual story regarding how they were stranded and the airport didn't do anything. I have been stuck at an airport for 15 hours due to a weather related problem and so I know how these things affect passengers. While 15 hours is a small amount compared to several days, the same still holds true. Most major airlines have a fine system of CYA (cover your a$$), in this case, most major airlines will have a clause in their ticket agreements that state that barring acts of God, which in this case is a blizzard, they will have limited liability.

What this means is that they will provide as much support for you as they can but there's a limit to it. When my flight was delayed the 300 some passengers were provided lunch and dinner by the airline. The meals themselves were only the normal meals that happened to be served on regular China as opposed to the plastic trays but still, the airline took care of us. Contrast that with nearly 4,700 people. Sure the airlines can take it on the chin and say that we'll provide meals, but as I blogged about some time ago, economically speaking you're looking at a big time loss, and that's even without doing the math; and just in case you forgot, the airline industry isn't doing as well as it had been some years ago.

So what about the airports authority? Given the circumstances, I would tend to think that they did all they could to take care of the passengers stuck at the airport. They have the staff and the equipment to clear the snow and handle business, but what about getting the workers to and from the airport. Some would say that they could have stayed there. True, they could have stayed at the airport but don't forget that's another several thousand people all stuck there at the same time as the 4,700 people already stuck there. Simple logic says that that's a bad idea. Airports in regions like Denver are generally equiped to handle usual amounts of snow and bad weather. Storms such as the one that hit during Christmas were flukes and not all that common. To quote Mel Bakersfeld in "Airport", 'you don't purchase equipment that you may use once in ten years; you deal with the weather with what you've got.'

That response may be somewhat flippant or smart-alec but it's the truth. The fact remains that there are going to be rare occasions where people are going to be inconvenienced. An airport is not the most comfortable place to spend several days. My sympathies go out to those people who were stuck for so long (and may yet be stuck). But my sympathies also go out to the folks who work at the airport and airlines in Denver who undoubtedly caught Hell from people who blame them for the weather and subsequent delays. You can yell and scream all you want at the lady behind the ticket counter but it wasn't her fault that snow came and fell in Denver. One can hope that people remembered it's the holiday season and as such, it would be good to thank them for coming in and helping as best they could. After all, they could have curled up at home too.