what a nightmare

So, there are a lot of airlines on my shitlist, but now LLody Aereo Boliviano definately tops it off. Apparently this is the second piolit stike in a month for the airline, the first one was becasue the pilots weren´t getting paid enough, so the company raised their wages. Now the pilots are striking against the fact that 15 pilots were fired recently after the company had to downsize to be able to pay the wages of the rest of the pilots. But the pilots don´t only want the 15 discharged pilots to get their jobs back, they want the government to step in and for the entire company to be nationalized. The president of the airline has tried to hold 3 meetings with the pilots to negotiate, but the pilots are refusing to even leave the picket line to go to the meetings. They say they won´t meet with the president of the company, they will only meet with representitives of the government because they are not going back to work until the company is nationalized. Evo Morales (the newly elected socialist president of Bolivia) hasn´t taken difinitive actions yet, but he´s released several statements leaning towards the approval of the nationalization of the company. So this should just be a grand old time, I will get to wait in Boliva until the enitre airline nationalizes itself, what a flippin nightmare. We went to the airport this morning on time for our flight just in case, but there was not a single representitive of the company there to talk to, so obvioulsy getting reinbursments for hotels and food while the company gets it shit together is out of the question. Even the information desk at the airport had no information and said they had not heard from anyone at the airline. On the bright side, I did get interviewed by a Bolivian news station and I got to bash the airline on national television and say that it was absolutely unaccpetable for all the company representives to go on vacation while the pilots went of strike. I said it was the worst costomer service I had ever recieved from an airline. So maybe I´ll get to at least see myself on the news in Spanish. That would be fun.

In a gimmer of hope, we are on the standby list for a flight with AeroSur tomorrow, but we´re numbers 12, 13, and 14 on the list, and that´s after the flight has been oversold by 48 people. We´re also on the standby list for that same flight the next day (Monday) and we are numbers 10, 11 and 12 on the list and the flight is not oversold. So that looks like our best bet, even though it would mean buying a completely new ticket. UGHHHH

Everyone made fun of me that I was flying on a Bolivian airline too...I mean, after all, this is the airline that asked me if i wanted my seat to be in smoking or non when I bought the ticket. I should have known better.