Why Do I Have to Go to the Counter When My Flight is Delayed?

This past Tuesday evening around 4:00 PM, I was sitting in the bar at Logan trying to put off a trip down to C32 to board my flight to San Jose. I was not particularly eager to make the trip, not only because I had a large beer in front of me but also on account of the fact that I was having an enjoyable conversation with a salesmen from the North Shore whose house may or may not have been damaged by large hail and a very nice teacher who worked with urban and occasionally violent San Francisco kids and had just completed a month helping care for her best friends new baby. I had to go, however, because a quick check of the gate information just outside the bar indicated that my flight was still on time. I knew that I was more likely to be struck by a meteorite than be in the air on time because it was 4 PM that looked more like 10, not to mention the occasional lightning punctuation marks.

Trudging down to the gate, I noticed that electronic sign behind the counter was claiming that the flight remained on time. Approaching the counter, I ask the gate attendants politely if we’re leaving on time. Regretfully, they shake their heads that no, we will not be leaving on time. Do I have time to get another beer, I ask? Sure, one replies. And another one for me. A half hour later I return, and just as the gate indicator belatedly screams that our flight is delayed, and promises a six o’clock departure time, I learn that our plane has not even taken off from the Portland airport yet.

So here’s my question: what gives? Why are airlines so horrendously bad at parcelling out information on your flight? The gate attendents know it, but as David says they usually tell you nothing leaving as your only recourse a trip to the counter. There has to be a reason for it, because they can’t like answering the same question thirty times.

I’m not asking, necessarily, for estimated departure times because I can see how that might get the airline in trouble (they say we’re not leaving for three hours, someone banks on that, leaves the airport and then they find an alternate plane). Nor do I blame airlines for having these delays in the first place; it always drives me crazy when self-important business people vent their frustrations on gate attendants as if they were personally responsible for the thunderstorms circling the airport.

But as I discussed with Wired’s Michael Calore today, the mashup I most want to see is one that gives me real time information on where the actual plane I’m flying out is. They can provide it for the passengers on the plane in each individual seatmap, so why not for those waiting to depart.

Just give me a little information, and I promise to leave the people at the counter alone. I’ll be too busy hanging out in the bar.