Seriously..... How hard can it be....

I have just aged 10 years in the space of 9 hours. Not something that is easy to do, but let me tell you my story.

I arrived at Mexico City airport 4 hours before my flight so I could make sure I would get on the flight, as American Airlines (AA) now have a habit of overselling their arcraft. No probs, there nice and early and will have a nice bit of time to check out the airport and get some crappy mexico-esque stuff.

So I stood in the AA queue and had a lovely chat to the guy behind me about world politics as the AA line crawled painfully slowly. No probs, I have 4 hours.

I got to the checkin counters and give the guy a big friendly welcome and tell him I am off to Santiago via miami as per my ticket, all normal stuff. He looks at my ticket and tells me that the plane is running late, and will not make my connection to Miami and he could not help me, sorry.

My World collapsed in on me. I tried asking him about my other options and he refused to even look on the computer, just told me that I had to wait until tomorrow for the next flight out. I lost it. I told him exactly what I though of him at about 150 decibels. Loud enough that the manager came over to see what the problem was. Excellent, progress.

The manager understood the problem and managed to get me onto a LAN flight direct to Santiago, and wait for it..... in Business Class. WOOHOO. Still not believing my luck I asked him to make sure it was a proper ticket, not standby, he confirmed, and gave me the ticket and told me to head to LAN, Terminal 2, on the train. I now had 6 hours till the new flight. Sweet!

So I stuffed around till 3 hours before the flight when checkin opened and I was the 3rd to check in. When I got there, presented the ticket, the lady told me that the ticket was a standby ticket and the plane was full. I would not be able to travel and the next day was also full. I am sorry, you cant be fuc&*ng serious! She was serious. There was also apparently 5 other who were in the same boat, booked by AA on LAN but with no chance of riding.

I LOST it again. Robyn was on a plane heading to Santiago already and I was not going to arrive for 3 days by which time we were supposed to be in Patagonia on tours. I have never been so angry in my life. She told me to take it up with AA. They took my bags and told me to come back at 8 to check if anyone had cancelled. Its making me angry again just typing this........

So dart back to the train and head the other way back to AA. Get there and the counters are closed!!!! no-one there. Went and found the AA office, closed!! Went back down to the counters to find a junior guy just finishing some paperwork. I absolutely gave it to him. He was nice enough but could not help me, he called the manager but he was busy and unavailable. If I could have climbed the counter I would have decked him.

Then to my suprise 2 other people turned up, thy were from the other 5 missing seats, a mum with 2 kids under 6, and a husband and wife. So there was now three of us going crazy at this guy, and he spoke to the manager again who agreed to come out and see us.

Turns out it was the same cockhead who checked me in. Once he realised this, we made a little progress. They spoke to Mexicana who spoke to LAN who spoke to AA who spoke to Mexicna who spoke to LAN. you get the idea. After abusing this guy non-stop (3 of us remember) we seemed to have breakthrough and he agreed to send the junior guy with us to get things done at LAN.

So back to terminal 2 on the train. Find the LAN office and then have another heated argument with LAN and AA. The manager then took us down to the counter and spent 1 hour trying to get us on the plane.

The plane was meant to be leaving at 9pm. at 8:55 we did not have seats. We were screwed.

I was wondering how long I would b detained for for punching out an airline employee, when we got waved up and issued with tickets at 8:59pm. Business class still! But we had to bolt to make the plane. I have never run so hard in my life.

I then got to security and they wouldnt let me in as the boarding pass was not the proper one. When she saw me turning red and about to explode, and with 5 others just catching me in the same predicament she decided to let us through before she was hammered.

Bags through screening and at this point, at 9:05 the security guard pulls out miniNICK to investigate. He spoke only spanish. I smiled a srained (you are a fuckwit, give me back the penguin now) smile, pulled ut the cam,waved it to him and he miracusoly understood. I then bolted to the plane and was the very last to board, they had been waiting for me.

I collapsed into the seat, and the guy next to me said "left it a bit late huh...." I shot him a look that said "say anything else and you die" and he didn^t say anything else until the end of the trip. I hooked into the champagne, toasted my fellow coconspirators, who were also in business class, and let the steam die out from my ears.

American Airlines, you suck.