These Modern Times

This morning I dropped my friend from Mexico off at the airport and American was having a problem in DFW, thus he had to wait in line. American had decided to cancel flights to Dallas and so there was a very long line of people to get their reservations redone. DFW is a major hub for American and one of the most important destinations for travelers from Sacramento. Like Denver and Chicago for United - DFW is a key point for American flyers. Until we got through line the departure board simply said that the flight was delayed not cancelled - although the flight had been cancelled.

As we waited in line for more than an hour, about 20 times, a frustrated person would come up to the electronic checkin kiosk. They would insert their card and then go through a sequence of entering their confirmation number or some other thing to receive their information. What interested me is that in each instance the person would be forced to go through two or three steps and then receive a slip of paper and then get back into line. I wondered what was happening - each time a flyer would go up, go through the steps, then generate the slip, express frustration and return to line.

Finally, I got one of the slips. It simply said "We cannot help you on this system, take this information card to an agent for assistance." If I were trying to lower the level of frustration with American, I might put a note on the screen of the Kiosk which said something like check with your ticket agent. These slips were only making people madder.