Hot Little Hands

In my hot little hands, I currently hold a boarding pass for tonight's Hawaiian Air flight. If this experience has taught me anything, it's that I can't take anything at face value. Still, I can't surpress a slightly giddy feeling: things look promising.

By the Numbers

50: Number of people by which Friday's flight was overbooked.
115: Minimum number of people who held valid tickets on previously cancelled flights who were placed on stand-by for Friday's flight
165: Sum of previous two statistics; maximum number of people who held valid tickets but not boarding passes for Friday's flight
15: Maximum number of those people who were eventually given boarding passes
80: Minimum number of additional ticketed passengers necessary for Hawaiian Airlines corporate office to send a second plane
2: Minimum number of people arrested for assaulting Hawaiian Airlines representatives
2: Hours by which the closing of the gate was delayed by long lines to check-in

Worst Case Scenario Repeats Itself

Three planeloads of passengers attempted to check themselves in for the Pago Pago-Honolulu flight this evening. Among those were people like me who were booked on the Sunday or Monday flights, which were cancelled, but still have not been told how (if?) they will be accomodated. Check in started at six-thirty; people began lining up at three. The line stretched forever: those who showed up at six-thirty were finally met at the counter at eleven-thirty for a flight scheduled to leave at 11:20. People began boarding the flight at around ten-thirty, but it did not leave until two. Sound familiar to anyone? It would if you'd tried to check in for their Wednesday flight when the exact same thing occured.

So call Hawaiian Air and berate them senseless. (Their number is 1-800-367-5320; let them know exactly what you think of their reprehensible treatment of the people of American Samoa. Go!) Visit their offices and tease them endlessly. Stop by the airport, stand in their lines and bite their passengers. There are no innocents anymore.

Desperate Logic

The defining characteristic of postmodern capitalism, i.e. multinational consumerism if you will, is its ever-increasing interconnectedness and density of networks. As borders become permeable, corporations become multinational. Monopoly still refers to exclusively providing services within a given geographical boundary, even though horizontal and vertical integration can now occur on a global scale. Some experts have suggested we see this not as corporations become bigger and more powerful, but smaller and consolidating. The middle class disappears as the fat cats become fatter and fewer. Underlings multiply as there are now less positions in which to move up. This increase in bureaucracy parallels fascism in an eerily sobering way, and it makes it that much harder to kick the teeth in of the person who's screwing you over.

Hawaiian Airheads

Rumors circulating include: there would be an extra flight except that two planes are currently stuck in Portland; they're allowing people from all three overbooked flight to check-in for tonight's to show headquarters just how many passengers they're forced to turn away; they've had to postpone flights to Seattle and Portland so those routes get priority for planes; they are fifty seats overbooked on tonight's flight; there is no such thing as a "priority waiting list;" and the Portland planes are bogus.

Riot likely impending.

If you happen to know the home phone numbers of any of the upper management of Hawaiian Airlines, now is the time to make that call.

Gasping for Hawaiian Air

I am told that I currently on the Priority Waiting List for tonight's flight, which is customer-service-speak for, "Fuck you, leave us alone."

Who knew I was a revolutionary?

Participatory media, I like that.

Dispatch from the Homefront

There’s nothing quite like a natural disaster to make you feel just how petty and inconsequential your life really is:

“The Tutors’ Club. This is V---- speaking, how can I help you?”
“Hi, is Mark there?”
“I’m sorry, he’s in a meeting at the moment. Could I take a message?”
“Sure, could you let him know that due to tropical cyclone Heta, I won’t be returning to work this week, but I will let him know as soon I can schedule a flight out of here.”
“A tropical cyclone?” he asks, in his wannabe-movie-star, Southern Californian accent. “Su-u-ure thing!”

And that’s it. No one really misses you.

Dispatch from the Homefront

I thought Samoa was dull over the the two weeks leading up to today. At least, then, we had electricity. I hadn't realized I had it so lucky.