Three flights per day from Bangalore

More problems with airlines!  My husband sent me this yesterday:

"Delta Air Lines is considering charging customers a fee that would give them the option of specifically talking to reservations agents based in the USA instead of going to call centers in India."

Let me get this straight:  They are asking us to choose between receiving service for a product they are trying to sell and not receiving service?

This is like admitting that talking to foreigners for your flight reservation, who are neither familiar with the language nor with the airports they are booking for, does not work, but saying that you will have to pay extra for something that does!

"One customer said an outsourced call went to an agent who didn't understand that there were three airports serving the New York City area, checking only flights to JFK that involved multiple layovers."

That's not service. That's not going to sell your product.

My guess? If Delta Airlines decides to implement this, they will be declaring chapter 11 within a year.

BOB is BOB spelled backwards...

Today's topic of choice? BOB.

I don't want to talk about BOB. But I am angry.  My countrymen have let me down again.

Now, what's the first thing you think of when you see those 3 letters?  The name of a distant cousin? Perhaps. Something you do when you're floating in the water? Maybe.....

"Oh my God, there's a Bomb On Board....we're all gonna die...turn the plane around!"  No. Nope. Not. Uhuh.

But apparently to the passengers and crew of United Flight 840 which departed Sydney last night, but was diverted back to Australia 90 minutes into the flight due to someone writing a man's name on an airsick bag, the letters BOB mean we're all gonna die!

I say this on the heels of two yearly consecutive trips to the good(?) ole USofA, my (former) home sweet(?) home. Wow, there are a surprising number of parentheses and question marks in there...more than I thought there would be when typing that!

Back in late 2002, after a pleasure cruise to see the glaciers in Alaska, we were "tagged" for security checks.  You can't shake these security checks once they start, you are marked for life, like a criminal out on parole.  Instead of flying through Anchorage to our next destination, we had to get OFF the plane we were on, identify our luggage, check back in, have our shoes x-rayed 5 times in the space of about 3 metres and get back on the plane. (By some 14 year old kid they wisely hired to do this job...I nearly got myself arrested for throwing my shoes at him, but that's another story altogether).

Of course.  A blonde American and her Australian husband on a pleasure cruise in Alaska.  Right. We would definitely be the kind of people who would have shoe bombs because a) That's never been done before, so what a clever idea, b) Obviously we are here on the business of terrorism and are determined to blow up the Anchorage Airport...it's such a strategic target and c) X-raying us once and saving the other 4 for other potential terrorists like the guy next to us with the turban and big scraggly beard would be both redundant and racial targetting...so let's annoy the whities instead, because they won't get upset.  Right.

Then in Vancouver this year.  First question?  "You were in Vancouver last year.  Why have you come back?"  Um. OK. Let me think carefully about this one. I wouldn't want to give the wrong answer...I guess, "Because I'm running drugs" or the ever-popular "I thought I'd bring a few bombs into Canada so we can launch a terrorist threat on the CN tower" would not be appropriate answers.

Um...maybe because I THOUGHT I liked the place...all you friendly Canadians and everything, eh?  Maybe not?  So the husband and I stood there giggling and thinking, "Good point...why DID we come back here.  We could be in Italy right now, where they treat you like you're human beings having a good holiday in a great land."

By the time we got to the 4th security guard in a 3 metre square space we were giggling so much that he actually got embarrassed and let us pass through.

I know I've always seemed a bit sneaky, but is there something about me that screams "terrorist third world drug-runner?"

No, of course not. These lovely welcomes that we experienced were all part of North America's grand plan to "look" safe and in the process make everyone not from the place not want to ever come there again.

I don't think Americans, and their poorer, ass-kissing cousins, the Canadians, realize what they are doing to themselves.

I do, however, know that finding an airsick bag with the name BOB on it is definitely not a reason to dump thousands of tons of fuel into the Pacific Ocean and inconvenience hundreds of people. 

Yet here they are, this lovely media of ours again, saying things like, "They did the right thing. They've proven they'll be prepared when something really DOES happen."  Actually, I personally promise you that the next time something DOES happen, it will come as a complete surprise, and not from where you were expecting...like maybe a bra bomb (I'd like to see them x-ray for those!)

OK. Let's just review a few things here...firstly, if you want to get peoples' attention by pretending there's a bomb, don't you leave a very blatant message to make people sit up and take note?  And if you want to blow up a plane, then you get down to business and do it...at takeoff...so lots of people see it, but nobody can do anything about it.  That way you cause a spectacle, much like the one those extremists pulled off in Manhattan all those months...sorry YEARS...ago.

But I'm pretty sure that writing BOB on an airsick bag and leaving it in the airplane toilet isn't the way you get either message across.  And I'm 100% positive that, had I been the person who found that airsick bag, my first thought on seeing it would've been, "Someone must need to contact their mate Bob when they get to their destination." rather than, "Oh my God, there's a bomb on board!"

It nearly makes me cry, the lack of confidence...no...the utter fear that Americans display.  It's like they would sacrifice their first born just to live a few years longer....like they're terrified of dying.  That's pretty unfortunate, considering that we're all going to die some day!  They're in for a rude awakening when they wake up one morning with pancreatic cancer and get to experience the joys of several months of pain while watching themselves slowly waste away.  On the other hand, I can guarantee you, if  that bomb explodes on that plane, you won't have time to feel a thing!  Which sounds better to you?

So please, North Americans, TRY...REALLY HARD...to have a bit of a spine, or at least some common sense.  We're all going to die someday, and chances are, it will be in that really bad car crash caused by some idiotic driver, not that shoe bomb in the plane you were flying to Hawaii on.  Trust me.  I moved to a different country in time and still have some brain cells. I know what I'm talking about.

Oh, and by the way, on my two yearly security experiences, I was carrying a sewing kit in my luggage with 5 needles and a pair of scissors...enough to do at least as much damage as those table knives they traded for plastic awhile back.  In all their security checks, not once was this sewing kit found.