Use your Illusion I: Airlines, Apps & the Big Fib

 

Technology is great, isn’t it?  Where has this been more true than with airline apps?  Now, we have real-time access to everything that’s happening with flights – and I mean everything.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that anyone told the agents at United Airlines…

So while the agent was on the phone, telling me my flight departed on time and had left me at the airport, I was able to tell him that my flight was delayed and sitting on the tarmac.  When the agent promised that my connector wouldn’t leave without me, I could see that it had already departed – six minutes early, no less.

Don’t even ask me about the poor woman nearby, who was able to see available flights on her tablet at the same moment the agent was telling her the flights didn’t exist.  I can’t repeat the words she used on a family blog (“FRAUD!!!”).

This is like that satisfying moment in Annie Hall, when Woody Allen pulls Marshall McLuhan out of thin air.  Well, mildly satisfying; I caught the big fib, but it didn’t get me on another flight – until the next morning, anyway.

Bottom line:  It’s difficult for a 6’4″ individual to sleep at an airport…in dress pants (no, I didn’t pack my jammies); maybe United could concentrate on that, first…