Back to South Africa - No Thanks to Delta

Oh, Delta Airline – is there no way you won’t abuse and screw over your passengers? The Atlanta to Joburg flight last night was delayed multiple times totaling nearly six hours. Throughout the communication was dubious, but once we finally we prepared to get off the ground Delta officials insisted that we would all be taken care of upon arrival, an important factor since just about anyone with a connecting flight was certain to miss it.

Fast forward to a few hours ago. We land at a quiet O.R. Tambo Airport at nearly midnight. Now keep in mind that every element of the delay has to do with issues in the United States and not in South Africa, yet the South African staff was left to deal with dozens of customers who had been made promises. Instead, we find out that only those with connect owns booked directly through Delta would be addressed. And given that Delta has almost no partnerships with South African carriers, that effectively took them off the hook in their mind not only for addressing those connections but for providing lodging. Keep in mind also that many of those stranded in Joburg are not especially familiar with either e country or the city and yet are essentially being told that on their own they have to book a room on their own aft midnight in a strange (and sprawling) city.

I advocated for Delta at least minimally helping people arrange for hotels that we would have to pay for on our own and an understanding agent did do that after 1:00 this morning. I got into a guest house in Edendale at nearly 2 and of course am now having trouble sleeping. And I have no idea what to expect when I get to South African Airways tomorrow to ask them to rebook me for my missed flight to Durban tonight. I expect that there will be a few headaches. But (and take note, Delta) ultimately SAA is aware that you don’t abuse your customer base and I suspect that at some point tomorrow I’ll be in Durban, enjoying far more temperate climes than those here in Joburg. I’ll arrive at the South African Historical Society conference really late, but better late than never.

(Cross posted at the FPA Africa Blog)

Airport Security and Privilege

Can someone please explain to me why there is a special security line for first-class passengers in (at least some) airports? I can understand why airlines provide special perks, including devoted lines, for their monied customers. But the process of security, which is operated by the United States government, is not supposed to be eased by privilege. Paying more to fly in better seats on American Airlines should literally have nothing to do with the treatment one gets in passing through TSA's gantlet.

This is yet another example of how the whole security apparatus is largely theater. After all, Osama bin Laden could afford to fly first class. Affluence is hardly indicative of virtue and flying coach is not a sign of jihadism.

Back in Texas: In Search of Plan B

More than 70 hours of plane travel later and a five-plus hour drive to get me home I'm finally back from my great World Cup adventure. I hope you'll appreciate some scarce posting while I readjust to life back in the States and make sense of it all. But two quick points/anecdotes:

First, are there any sweeter words on the planet when you are about to board a 22+ hour flight than "Sir, we're going to need to upgrade you first class."? I'd say the answer to that is: No. No there are not. It was delightful, although I suspect that the Ethiopian Airways stewardesses were trying to fatten me up Hansel and Gretel style, because the food just kept coming. Bonus points for the option of actual Ethiopian food (or to Ethiopians: "food") on top of the regular meal service.

Second: I have heard roughly six years and especially five weeks of westerners wringing their hands over whether or not South Africa (or simply "Africa") could handle hosting the World Cup. So perhaps some comparison is in order.

Upon arrival at Dulles (hardly an obscure, small, or disadvantaged airport) all went smoothly as I went from passport control to baggage claim to customs. But because I had booked the domestic legs of my long journey separately, I had to go through check in all over again. I must note that I took at least ten round trip flights in the last six weeks outside of the US and never was a charged for luggage. Never. Get to the US and immediately I spend $60 just to get my bags home, and that required me to push the limit with my two carry-ons. Apparently what is essential to American Airways' survival is not essential to that of Botswana Airways, South African Airways, Kulula, British Airways, or Ethiopian Airlines. I guess the Africans just have a better business model. In any case, then I get to security. At Dulles these days there are at least 15 possible security lines with the full complement of machines and scanners and inexplicably smug workers. We arrived on a weekday morning at a little after 8:00, meaning that I was going through security at about 9:30 in the morning on a weekday in Washington, DC. The Nation's Capital. People might just be traveling at that time. And yet they had two lines open of the fifteen or so, with at least ten people just standing around while the queue just got longer and longer. They were checking the boarding passes and id's of people and then yelling at them for thinking it was ok to move to one of the two open security lines (again, of fifteen). It took 45 minutes to get through a line that should have taken five. And it was all due to poor planning, lousy service, terrible communication, general incompetence, and not a little idiocy.

But finally I get up to my gate. It had been six weeks or so since I had gotten Starbucks, and I wanted to grab a handful of US newspapers -- the Times, the Post, and the good old USA Today. So I find a news agent that also has a Starbucks in it. Score! But the first sign of trouble is that the two are in the same space, yet one cannot buy the newspapers and the Starbucks at the same place. So that's two transactions, and I have not yet gotten cash yet. I trudge off to an ATM. Grab my papers to do that transaction first, and . . . the computers freeze. For both Starbucks and the shop. In a month in South Africa I dealt with one power outage, and that was the result of some work being done at the University of Pretoria (during the Q&A of my paper) and not of Eskom service delivery issues.

Perhaps, then, FIFA should think twice about considering the United States for hosting duties for the 2018 or 2022 World Cups. America has put its hat in the ring for both, but can a country with such clear service issues, infrastructural problems, delivery issues, and of course such high crime rates possibly host such a significant global event? But at least if we take a chance on the Americans and their myriad problems we know that South Africa can serve as a really good Plan B.


[Crossposted at the FPA Africa Blog.]

Link Linkity Link Link

Just a few links that sparked my interest:

Kelefa Sanneh recently had an interesting essay on the idea of whiteness in The New Yorker. Oddly Sanneh has one important gap, the World War II era, which is why you should all be reading (and thus buying) this.

Independent historian Ed Sebesta has put together this site on the Citizens' Councils, which includes access to copies of the Councils' newspaper. This will prove invaluable to my work on a number of projects, so for that I am very thankful. The Citizens' Councils were all kinds of crazy, but no less important for being so.

Finally, since I will be traveling tomorrow (for this, remember) I would like to second the idea of the airlines that have taken so very much from us being asked to give something back, or at least to stop seeing those of us who fly as wallets with legs.

Reactionary Security Policy

Patrick Smith at Jetlagged, a New York Times travel blog, eviscerates our absurd airport security system. Anyone who flies regularly knows just how reactionary our response to the threat of terrorism has been. And anyone who cares to remember knows how the airlines lined up to suckle at the teat of government largesse while the debris was still settling at Ground Zero and the Pentagon, despite the fact that those same airlines were both responsible for the lax security that prevailed and that they had always aggressively resisted encroachment on their ability to conduct their own security as they saw fit. The airlines and the attendant airport apparatus failed. So naturally they wanted to get paid for what they lost as the result of their own malfeasance when air traffic was shut down. I am always astounded by how this little pas de deux got buried amidst everything surrounding 9/11.