the skies just aren’t as friendly as they used to be

So, we made it out here to California. We almost didn’t get here last night. Phoebe actually did phenomenally well. For example, as we stood in line for an hour an a half at the U.S. Airways check-in counter, she was a trooper. She was amazing. Played games with John’s hat. Looked around at what was going on. Even smiled at other people standing in line.

Did I mention that we had to stand in line for an hour and a freakin’ half?? Before we could even check in? Not to mention going through security. But don’t worry! We didn’t miss our flight. Because it was delayed. So much so that we wouldn’t be able to make our connection in Pittsburgh. The last flight of the day going from Pittsburg to San Francisco on U.S. Airways.

Anyhow, we did make it. By way of getting bumped to another airline. Which was good. Because it seems that there was a good reason we got such a good deal on the tickets with U.S. Airways: they pretty much suck. It wasn’t so much just the slowness and the delays, which were apparently caused by a new computer system. The bigger problem was the lack of organization. The lack of courtesy to the people standing in line.

I was reflecting on some of the perky, cheerful slogans airlines used to have, remembering some from my childhood. United Airlines had “Fly the friendly skies” and Delta had “We love to fly and it shows.” American was “Something special in the air.” Such relics of another time. Airlines just don’t have such cheerful slogans these days.

Maybe the U.S. Airways slogan should be “Shut up and fly.”

I found a list of airline slogans. And can I just share that when I read two of TWA’s slogans, “Up, up, and away.” and “One mission. Yours,” I momentarily read the first word of the first slogan and the last word of the second. Which would make another good slogan for an airline of today.

Here are a few more potential airline slogans: