By cutting back on maintenance of course.
As more than 200 Denver- bound United Airlines passengers waited to board Flight 909 from Chicago on Monday, it became apparent that something was wrong.
The Boeing 777, parked at the gate at O’Hare International Airport, was extremely hot. As in 115 degrees. The plane’s auxiliary power unit, which generates electricity when engines are shut down at the gate, was broken. That killed the air conditioning and triggered a five-hour ordeal for passengers and crew.
All other flights to Denver were booked. United tried to find a replacement plane, but none was available.
United officials had a dilemma: Figure out how to cool the plane in near 100-degree heat, then board the passengers and send them to Denver; or buy them hotel rooms in Chicago.
They chose the first option.
As the knight said in the third Indiana Jones movie, they chose poorly.
Now, this incident alone might make you think United Airlines was just a bunch of cold-hearted bastards looking to make q uick buck off of the suckers unlucky enough to have Priceline put their asses in United seats, but the truth is that every airline is running a passenger torture promotion of one sort of another:
- Southwest Airlines has implemented a new policy, replacing beverage service with a punch in the face. Alcoholic beverages will be available for a slight fee, but they come with two punches in the face.
- Delta Airlines runs a lottery on flights 2 hours or longer where the winner is stuffed into a bathroom with 100 live rats.
- Olympic Airlines makes you sit next to a smelly Greek. (Oh, wait… they’ve always done that.)
- American Airlines has ordered all pilots to scream nonstop during bad weather conditions. When they’re drunk, they take turns playing the Arab with the boxcutter.
- JetBlue has cut back unionized staff, using prisoners as cabin attendants. But don’t worry… prisoners can’t fashion deadly weapons from ordinary objects, can they?
- You don’t want the Kosher meals from Northwest. Trust me on this.
- Continental still provides pillows and blankets. Of course, what’s to stop them from smothering you with them in your sleep?
- TWA hasn’t actually resumed operations, but they will occasionally roll a plane up to a gate, take on passengers, and then run up and down the aisle with a baseball bat taking swings at anyone asking to deplane.
- El Al’s Complaints Department responds with “Without us, you’d be riding in boxcars to your deaths! Be grateful all we did was lose your luggage!”