Lack Of Information

I suffered from a severe scarcity of information on my flight from Boston to Memphis this morning. It started like any other Monday, except that when I got to the airport to check in, I was presented with my first economic choice. The airline offered to send me to Northwest Arkansas via Minneapolis because the flight was overbooked. I decided to say no, and forgo the airline coupon, because I wasn’t sure what time the next flight to XNA was if I missed the planned connection. That happens a lot!

Once I was on the plane, they announced that the flight was overweight and that five passengers needed to leave, otherwise the flight would be canceled. They also announced that passengers flying to Northwest Arkansas could have an alternate flight that got in at 4 PM (a delay of 5 hours!). So my second economic choice was whether or not I should get off the flight for the collective good or try to stick it out and see if other people took the (unknown) bait. I have no idea what the reward might have been if I had gotten off the flight at that point. Two people finally left and apparently that was sufficient to allow the flight to depart.

Lastly, before landing it was announced that they would be coming in with a lot of speed and that there would be ambulances and emergency vehicles near the runway. Needless to say, I had a few questions at this point, but no other information was provided. Once we landed, we were told that the flaps on the plane did not work. That was the first informative datum the airline had provided me the entire flight.

Today’s flight was my first brush with an air disaster, atleast to my knowledge.