Hilltop,
You'll get used to it! Hahahahah.
Seriously, get over it because its the way that most of them are run in this post deregulated, priceline.com, cheap-tix world.
Pesky employees and their benefits, training, phones, computers, call centers etc all cost money. Even those in India. The airline is designed to run with minimal slop on clear blue bird days. Its a very cheaply built huge hydraulic system without an accumulator. All the connectors, pumps and gaskets were made from the cheapest junk they could find in China. They are all very brittle and stressed to near their breaking point.
Add some snow and some glycol.....oh wait, we can't add glycol because we don't have enough people to load and unload bags, do push-backs, marshall planes, get strollers, etc AND de-ice airplanes at the same time so forget about the snow! Why, those rampies make too much money! As a result, there aren't even enough of them to park one lousy jet when it shows up late. You know, the one that left the west coast five hours ago. The one that automatically updated its ETA every 30 seconds as it crossed the country. The one with a dozen gazillion milers who all have tight connections to Europe. Who knew it was coming??? Who knew that someone would have to drive the jet bridge? And if too much money is spent on rampies and CSR's, the stock will go down and so will the benefits for the top 25 people in the corporation. Think of how the multi-million dollar bonus disbursement will suffer if some of those millions were spent on the operation. Oh no, that won't do.
Add some new Federal Regulations that enact SWEEPING change to every widget with an ATP...oh wait, three years isn't enough time to determine all the manifest ways that this will impact the REGULAR operation let alone the leaky RONCO Hydraulic Flimtronic in a snow storm. so.....let us get back to ya' on those regs!
Add in a new crew tracking system. Add it at the last minute. Keep it under wraps because its a surprise to 60% of the peeps who get to use it. I love surprises! Lots of unknowns. Lots of phones. No one to answer them.
Sorry I am such a cynic, but nothing has changed since I started. In fact, its only gotten worse. Until excess capacity is built into the system, and intelligent ops people (as opposed to bean counters with stopwatches, ties and clipboards) are allowed to run the airlines this crap will be the norm. When there's a hiccup the Ronco blows a line and the whole thing shuts down. It takes all the Kings horses and all the Kings men several days to get it running again.
You get paid by the minute. Learn to go with the flow rather than against it. When the flow stops, so do you. And this isn't about babies and strollers, let your conscience be your guide there. But for the rest of the creaky operation, let it go. Your heart, wife, kids and dogs will thank you for it.
