Friday, March 20, 2009

Airline with no heart

Our flight between Athens and JFK was on Olympic. I don't do a lot of flying, but it wasn't as nice as Lufthansa. Grumpy staff. Choice between a movie, cartoons and Frazier TV show. With tourism struggling, I think they could do more to be accomodating, pleasant (like smile), and we'll never know what made many of us sick--the water, the food or just a stomach bug we passed around, but some people have been extremely ill. Me? The works. There's a bathroom 5 ft. from my desk.

One woman in our group (but not on our flight) fell in the Cairo hotel and fractured bones in both legs. In other words, was totally disabled for a 31 hour trip and in horrible pain. Unfortunately, they apparently didn't get the medical flight insurance that one of our members had recommended (it's quite cheap). Anyway, although (I heard this 3rd hand) there were 6 empty seats in first class, they wouldn't let her and her husband sit there to have more room for her legs. So one in our group, who did have first class (and her husband was ill), moved to coach and let the injured woman have her seat. But the injured woman's husband and another man had to come from the coach section and carry her to the rest room. This happened on Delta.

Bad. Bad for business. We had a number of Greek Americans on our flight, but I don't think there were any on hers. On the other hand, other than complaining in Greek, I don't know what help they would have been. I don't know if there are any other airlines to take you to Athens.

P.S. The barf bags on Olympic are much more durable than Delta's. If you get sick, be sure to take a number with you as you exit the plane. We had about 10 between us and used them all.

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