National Airlines, we hardly knew ye


November 12, 2002

Imagine, if you will, that you are a hard-working Las Vegas journalist who has just finished working your patootie off doing election coverage. It's 11 p.m. the night after the election, and you are joyously packing to take a weekend trip to San Francisco for a much-needed break.

As you load socks and underwear into your carry-on bag, you listen to the talking heads with the overly poofy hair and fake emotions on the news. The lead story: Just hours ago, National Airlines has -- abruptly and without warning -- shut down.

Of course, your airplane ticket from Vegas to San Francisco is on National Airlines.

You are screwed. It sucks to be you.

This is exactly what happened to my co-worker, Dave. Long story short, he managed to get a ticket to San Francisco at the last minute on another airline, although he had to pay nearly 2 1/2 times what he paid for his National Ticket.

This is a major bummer.

I wasn't as unlucky as Dave was, but I, too, got unceremoniously boinked by National. I reserved my plane ticket to Reno for Thanksgiving with them; National had just launched service to Reno from Vegas in much-ballyhooed fashion, and they were offering special discounts. I paid $114.50 for my ticket, which was cheaper than what Southwest was offering at that point.

Interesting factoid: As I completed my reservation about a month ago, with the knowledge that National was in bankruptcy, I made this comment to a co-worker: "I just hope National is in business this time next month."

Damn, I HATE it when I am psychic like that.

In any case, National has been practically revered in the press for the "noble" way in which it ceased operations. They were praised for shutting down because they didn't want to screw over employees by not making payroll. Newspaper articles have pointed out how other carriers have nobly stepped in to accommodate National's customers.

To all this, I say: Thpppppppth.

First, while I understand that National had a lot of obstacles to overcome, I have a real big horking problem with applauding an airline for shutting down with no notice -- taking reservations and money up until the last minute -- and screwing over tens of thousands of people. National didn't give refunds, which means I -- along with everyone else -- am having to protest my charge with my credit card company, which means paperwork and hastle and the spending of postage.

Second, these other airlines -- which, by the way, are REQUIRED by law to try to help out passengers from suddenly deceased airlines -- did little to help out many customers.

Take me, for example. I was planning to fly on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the Sunday after -- which, by the way, are the busiest travel days of the year. I called Southwest to see what they could do, and the bitchy lady on the other end informed me that I could try to fly standby, with zero chance of getting on a plane before Labor Day. Or I could make reservations for a huge amount more than I paid for my National Airlines ticket.

Now, THAT's help.

I ended up making reservations to fly out on Southwest a day earlier for "only" $65 more than what I paid for my National ticket. But now I have to take a day off work, which sucks.

I don't mean to complain. OK, so I lie. I DO mean to complain. I realize that folks like Dave and I am much better off than the hundreds of National employees. I realize that National's management did everything they could to secure the necessary financing to stay alive.

But shutting things down with no warning, without giving refunds, thereby screwing over the passengers who took a chance on them (with the screwing continued by other airlines after the fact) -- well, that's just wrong.

Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan. His column appears here Tuesdays, and he can be reached via e-mail at jiboegle@stanfordalumni.org.

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