After Spring Break, I was at a loss on what to write about for the first of my last few Buffalo Bunks. I wanted to incorporate Spring Break, but I didn’t want to just go on and on about my experiences (I’ll save that for my memoirs). So, during this time of thought, it hit me to review something that Pulse has, to the best of my knowledge, never reviewed or even thought to review: a major American airline. In this case, just that: American Airlines.

Now, this seems to be a monumental task, seeing that the last time that I flew before Spring Break was three years ago for Spring Break ’02, and that was just to New York City. Needless to say, flying to France and back is a bit different experience flight wise. Also, before I go into my review in a sentence or two, it must be noted that I do not care for flying, I am quite afraid of it actually, something about false ground and crashing, it all makes me shudder. With that, let’s look at American Airlines.

American Airlines had its start way back in the ‘90s, began servicing flights to Japan and Europe in the mid-1980s and, according to www.airsafe.com, has had the most fatal crashes of any airline operating in the United States today, with 13 fatal crashes (United Airlines came in second with 11, US Airways in third with nine), the most recent in 2004. With all this information in the back of my mind, I set out with my girlfriend (who also does not care to fly but has done so more than I) for France for Spring Break.

First, let me touch on what everyone first thinks of when airplanes come into their mind: the food. Ah yes, airline food is often not something to be placed in a review, but more placed in a laboratory for constant studying as to see what exactly that meat is. On the two short flights we took, all that was offered was a beverage service and a cheap immatation Chex Mix. What ever happened to peanuts on airplanes? JetBlue does its quirky little blue potato chips, and I’ll let that slide, but everyone else should have peanuts. However, kudos to the airline for having both Pepsi and Coke, yet, points off for no Root Beer. The food on the trans-Atlantic flights left something up to the imagination though: i.e. is this food. Both times I ordered the beef, out of fear of E-Coli from the chicken (something, I must note that has not happened on an airline, but I’m just being safe). Now, the food…oh the food. The beef was chewy, the salad partially rotten, and the bread? Astronauts have moister food than this. And, if you think that you can cool yourself down with a little booze, think again, it’s five bucks a drink. I know, I know: damn!

The flight attendants don’t do a whole lot to help this horrid food situation either. In economy class (coach), the attendants are for the most part rude as a 9-to-5 drone at the start of Monday. They don’t seem to understand that people don’t like to be stuck in a metal box for eight hours with really crappy movies to watch (Wimbeldon? First Daughter? Come on! Oh, and Flight of the Phoenix, a movie about a plane crash, as a possible option? Jesum-crow!). The most memorable moment was on the flight from Paris to Chicago when there was water pouring out of the bulk head and the wall in front of our seats, to which the flight attendant said: “We’ll let them know when we get to Chicago, but don’t worry, that’s nothing. You should see some of the things that happen on these flights.” Yeah, lady, real great thing to say before take-off.

Yet, there was one good attendant on the flight from NYC to Paris, who, after a very bad bout of turbulence, reassured me that yes, that was some really, really bad turbulence and the sudden vertical drops aren’t too normal.

Which leads me to the pilots. Aren’t these guys supposed to be trained to avoid turbulence? I would gladly deal with an extra 15 minutes of flying to avoid, say, a snowstorm like the one we went through between Chicago and Buffalo! Oh, the horrid part when the entire plane did a huge bounce on takeoff could possibly be excused because of wind, but the snowstorm and the brief nosedive? No way. I don’t like seeing the front of the plane go down in front of me, even for five seconds. Getting cancer didn’t scare me as much as that.

So a note to pilots and flight attendants: sure you may not dig your job, but don’t let the passengers see that. We are all people and no one likes to have a bad flight. But, I suppose that’s the American Airlines way, who, just to mention, last year had to pay $2.5 million due to allegedly operating airplanes with safety violations, according to the Washington Post. So, American Airlines, you don’t really get my thumbs up. Next time, I’ll take the boat.