Sound Off

Hi Everyone,   

      Prepare yourselves for a lot of complaining because here it comes. DON'T EVER FLY WITH LIAT!!! OR AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS! I'm serious. They are by far the worst airline I have ever had the displeasure of employing. I say this because, at this very moment, I am writing this post from a $200 per night hotel room in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Now, I've had my problems with Liat before. At the beginning of last semester, they lost my luggage somewhere in the Caribbean and I was finally able to retrieve it 3 days later. Their planes are uncomfortably small and extremely hot. I've been on about 6 Liat flights now. Four out of those six didn't have functioning air conditioning. There was another time that our plane took off and then 10 minutes into the flight, they had to turn the plane around because of a malfunction with the left wing of the plane! I'm totally serious when I say that Liat is a disaster. BUT, today took the cake. Up until now, Liat's shortcomings, while annoying, never stood in my way of getting home. Today, Liat had all kinds of problems with a worker's strike in Antigua. This delayed all sorts of flights. When I reached Melville Hall Airport (in Dominica), there were people there that had slept the night because their plane never came for them due to the strike. I finally got on my plane at around 3:30 pm. Then, we arrived in Antigua where our plane was delayed even further. Oh! And then there was the stupid security lady that was convinced my Peach body splash from Bath and Body Works was an explosive. She was intently reading the "ingredients" and looking to see how many fluid ounces the bottle carried. At one point, she tells me that I need to throw that and my Ralph Lauren Romance perfume away. Now, I MAY consider throwing the $15 peach body splash away but there was no way in hell I was going to throw away my $70.00 perfume. I fought and fought with her until she finally gave up and let me get on the plane with my "dangerous" perfumes. HA! Anyway, so we finally board the plane in Antigua only to sit on the runway for about an hour and 10 minutes. Apparently, air traffic control was only letting planes take off every 20 minutes. Well, there were five planes scheduled to take off before us. So, we waited - in the heat. Because, of course, there was no air conditioning. At this point, I'm getting extremely nervous because I had an 8:40 pm San Juan to Miami flight scheduled and it was already 6:00 pm. THEN, the flight attendant informs us that we have to stop in Tortola before we go to San Juan. WHAT? WHY?!?! When I booked my flight, it was supposed to go from Dominica to Antigua to San Juan. There was no mention of Tortola ANYWHERE. And what is even MORE frustrating is that they had us stop in Tortola, get off the plane, go through security with the metal detectors and everything, come back to the plane, identify our luggage, and then get back on the plane. We only stopped in Tortola for a security check! Anyway, at this point, my San Juan flight is looking grim. It is 7:45 pm and it is a 30 minute flight to San Juan. So, we finally touch down in San Juan at 8:15 pm and my flight was leaving in 25 minutes. Perhaps I could make it? Sure enough, by the time everyone on the plane takes their sweet time to get off and by the time we get through customs and by the time I picked up my luggage ... my flight was gone. What's even more awesome is that that was the last flight of the day headed to Miami. So, it's 8:50 pm and my flight doesn't leave San Juan until 4:00 pm the next day. What do I do? What do I do? Do I do the hobo thing and sleep in the uncomfortable airport chairs? Surely I can't sleep on the cold tile in the middle of the airport. So, I wander over to the Best Western located in the airport. They want $200.00 for the night. I almost keeled over right there. I mean, do you know what I can do with $200.00??? I can buy clothes or I can buy a frickin' video IPod. (My Ipod Nano doesn't play video and I really want one that does.) Whatever. I'm stuck in a foreign city, all by myself, noticeably upset and pissed off, so I hand over the $200.00 and make my way to my room. And, that's where I am now. I bought some smoked salmon and cream cheese sushi in the Bistro down below and now I'm  using the hotel's "high speed internet" (yea, right) to vent to anyone who's willing to read this. I am soooo upset. I've been so mad today that I've actually caught myself being rude to the different airport employees. But, in my defense, they deserved it! I just want to go to sleep in my $200 a night bed and wake up tomorrow and go home. Then, I'll play the fun game of "who will pick me up from the airport?" Both of my parents are out of town. My mom is in North Carolina and my dad went to visit some family for the holidays. I'm all alone. Then, once I figure out a ride home tomorrow, guess where I'll be the following day? Right back at the airport! I have to fly up to North Carolina to catch up with the fam for a week of holiday fun. Surely, if ANYTHING goes wrong that day, it'll just kill me. I can't handle ONE more airport/airline fiasco. I just can't. I'll lose it. So, to try to keep some mental sanity, I've furiously typed out all of my frustrations. If you made it this far through my rant, you're a champ and a true fan. And since I always like to impart some wisdom with each post, take my word for it - DON'T FLY WITH LIAT!!!! EVER!