Downgrade on the world's largest airlines

I am finally back in Dubai after being away for more than six months, which is nice, except that it took three tries for me to make it on the daily United flight from Dulles Airport to Dubai as a space available passenger. While my husband pays the list price for business class, I try to fly on a buddy pass as much as I can, which gives me flexibility and the chance to go back and forth from the USA more often than I could afford otherwise. My sister works for United, and she usually has more passes than she can use. It's a great deal when I can get a seat that way, but the key word is "when".

Now that United has merged with Continental to become the world's largest airlines, many things have changed in the United flying experience, including the buddy pass program. Flying on a pass from Dulles to Dubai is much more difficult, possibly due to increased demand since there's still just one flight per day and Continental passholders are part of the picture. Getting a seat in business class--one of the best features of the program--may never happen again since all upgrades go ahead of space available passengers. Getting a seat in coach is also a challenge, even when there appear to be seats available, due to mysterious weight and other factors that come up often at the last minute. Of course, if there is ever a problem with a flight, that will have ripple effects into the next day.

I make sure I have plenty of leeway when I try to travel space available so I will not go crazy when it doesn't work out, which is often the case. I wanted to fly with my sister to Dubai when she had a trip there in mid-September, but the flight was unexpectedly full and then some seats had to be given up at the last minute due to missing fire extinguishers in the crew cabin, so I didn't make it. Probably a good thing I did not fly that night as they encountered another problem with the smoke protection system in the passenger cabin and had to return to Dulles four hours after take off.

The flights between Pittsburgh and Dulles can be just as challenging. The schedule is very limited, and the planes are small. When you add in flight delays, it suddenly seems much easier to just rent a car and drive the five hours to Dulles airport from Pittsburgh.

None of this tends to bother me very much, since you get what you pay for and I am not paying very much. The one thing that riles me most at the moment is the increasingly lousy food offered in coach. I remember the days when an international flight of any kind brought with it a printed menu and tablecloth service. Now you are lucky if you get served anything edible. There might be two options, vegetarian and non-vegetarian, and they are both bad. The flight attendants are not to blame. They are very busy and do what they can. I imagine that they even feel a bit ashamed at the unappetizing offerings. But a tasteless tricolored mush with bits of corn the only identifiable ingredient and a frozen roll was more than I could bear the last time I flew. The only edible food over 13 hours was yogurt and a cookie. I hear the coffee has even been downgraded since the big merger. I had my own Snickers bar and cookies that I brought along in case of emergency but never touched them having lost all appetite.

I feel bad for my husband as a Global Services-level elite passenger, who suffers from the stress of unhappy travel experiences a lot more than I do, having to reschedule meetings and deal with staff from afar. While the food he gets in business class is much more acceptable, the "elite" service leaves much to be desired. He was not notified, as he should have been, when his connecting flight from Pittsburgh to Dulles was delayed, causing him to miss the flight to Dubai later that day. A simple phone call or email would have made it possible to get on an earlier flight in time for the Dubai flight. He is paying top dollar and deserves better.

I hope these are temporary problems, perhaps due to the big merger. Emirates is one airlines that will not hesitate to eat the US airlines for lunch if they find an opening, and it will cost us all a lot more in the long run.

A newly minted American

I wrote an article for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about my friend Hanna Besterman, a native of Poland who recently became a U.S. citizen. I was honored that they chose to run it today alongside the many 9/11 commemorative pieces.

I wrote a longer version, which I am including below. The picture shows Tom, Hanna, and me with our friends Linda, Patty and Nancy. While the article has nothing to do with Dubai, I am sure everyone can identify with being a stranger in a strange land.

A Newly Minted American

When I was invited to attend the U.S. naturalization ceremony on July 15, I didn’t know what to expect. My friend Hanna Besterman was becoming a U.S. citizen. I was meeting her and her husband and other friends at the Pittsburgh Field Office of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, located on the South Side. Hanna had passed the citizenship test there a few weeks earlier.

The giant logo of American Eagle Outfitters seemed to show me the way as I drove across the Hot Metal Bridge. Hanna and her husband were wearing red, white and blue and carrying little American flags, and we took pictures waiting for the doors to open. But Hanna forgot her identification, having changed purses to go with her outfit. It looked like we might have to come back another time, but then they said Hanna could participate and bring her ID later. We all breathed a sigh of relief, thanking the wise person upstairs who thoughtfully made an exception.

The ceremony room was full, with standing room only for the last arriving guests. Field Office Director Michael Klinger conducted the ceremony, welcoming Hanna and 24 others from 17 different countries, calling out each country by name. I watched Hanna and the others as they took the oath of allegiance and were pronounced citizens, many with tears filling their eyes. Mr. Klinger then offered the podium to any persons who wanted to share their story.

The first person to speak was a woman who had been a missionary in Haiti. A little Haitian girl needed new parents, and she and her husband were hesitant at first, having just lost a granddaughter about the same age, but then they decided to adopt her. Of course, the little girl won their hearts as she became a part of their family. They had to leave Haiti after the earthquake struck in January 2010. Her daughter Valerie was adjusting well to life in West Virginia and became the youngest new U.S. citizen that morning.

Hanna was the second to speak. I was curious to hear what she had to say because she has a remarkable story, but I knew it would be hard for her to keep it short since she loves to talk. She spoke of her excitement when she first came to Pittsburgh from her native Poland in 1992 with her husband and two small sons, 3 and 9 years old. Westinghouse invited her husband to work as guest engineer for a three-year contract. It was a big deal for them to get this chance to come to America, because at this time it was very hard to get a visa from Poland. Hanna said it was like a dream come true. She looked forward to the adventure of living in the U.S. and the opportunity for her kids to learn English and explore new things. She also hoped it would help her marriage.

Despite not knowing a word of English, Hanna made friends, found an apartment and enrolled her sons in school. Her kids did great, learning English easily, making friends and playing soccer and baseball. Hanna also learned English and finally found a job in her field, working with people with disabilities, after being underemployed in various temporary jobs to help support the family.

Hanna and her husband were not getting along. The three years in America convinced her that she needed to get out of the marriage. When the contract with Westinghouse ended, her husband went back to Poland ahead of her. But Hanna didn’t go back. She got a new work visa and moved to an apartment in Aspinwall to be closer to her job. Her husband showed up one day and wouldn’t leave until he convinced her to go back to Poland. She quickly realized her mistake, as life under the same roof was a living hell.

With lots of help, Hanna managed to escape to Pittsburgh with her children. Fortunately, she still had a year left on her work visa. She got her job back and found another apartment in Aspinwall. She felt like she and the boys were coming home. She also found a new green card sponsor, having been turned down the first time she applied.

Hanna’s story, of a wife stuck in a bad marriage and a mother fighting for her kids to have a normal life, struggling to get legal work status and make a new home in the U.S., had a happy ending. She got a divorce and green cards for herself and her sons. She married her new husband Tom in a red, white and blue ceremony in PNC Park. Her two young sons grew up in America into well-educated, compassionate young men.

The older son, Jakub, has a love of sports that he embraced growing up in Pittsburgh, graduating from Slippery Rock with a degree in sports management. He married an American girl and works for the Phoenix Coyotes. Marcin is a senior at Juniata, majoring in peacemaking and environmental studies, having won a scholarship for his work with a Presbyterian youth group raising money for Invisible Children in Uganda and doing mission work in Rwanda, Haiti and Costa Rica.

Hanna was fortunate to be able to solve her immigration problems, spending thousands of dollars to obtain legal status, which took her several years to pay off. As Hanna put it, “only the ones who are desperate end up here.” Things aren’t perfect, but she is forever grateful for her second chance at life. America has been her home for a long time now, so becoming a U.S. citizen for Hanna was the culmination of many years of effort, like a hard-earned prize. She declared it one of the happiest and most profound moments of her life.

Several others told their stories that morning, and it was obvious that they shared the same emotions and gratitude for their new home country. A research scientist from Morocco said coming to America was the best thing she’s done in her life, because everything has been good for her in America, and it has been wonderful to have kids here and see them bloom with all the opportunities they have. A young mother from Mexico with a newborn infant told her story about falling in love with her husband, an American Marine, and being so happy to be able to live with him here, start a family, and find a job. Hanna sat next to a young woman who was a Bosnian refugee granted asylum in the U.S. She worked at BNY Mellon and was joined by her sister who became a citizen before her. Each one had a story, different in the details but similar in parts, most having traveled a long, hard road to U.S. citizenship. They all shared the common theme of love for America and feeling like America was their home long before they received the right to call themselves Americans.

Most natural born Americans take their citizenship for granted and have no idea how hard the process is for immigrants to obtain work visas, green cards, and citizenship. Many Americans can’t even pass the citizenship test that Hanna took—in fact, 38% failed when Newsweek gave 1,000 people the test earlier this year. If more Americans could hear Hanna’s story and those of other immigrants granted citizenship, maybe they would be more sympathetic to immigrants and appreciate the hardships they endure as they navigate the complicated maze of U.S. immigration law.

I was surprised to find out that the Pittsburgh Field Office conducts naturalization ceremonies every two weeks, swearing in 200 new citizens each month. As Mr. Klinger said, it’s the stories that make these days special, but we don’t often hear about them unless we have a personal connection like I have with my friend Hanna.

Diane O’Toole, the Immigration Services Officer who handled Hanna’s application for citizenship, was one of many who came up to Hanna afterwards to thank her for sharing her story. It was also a special day for Director Klinger, whose grandparents were immigrants, because it was his last oath ceremony in Pittsburgh before moving back to his Detroit hometown.

Seeing the faces of these newly minted Americans, I find it hard to understand the anti-immigrant sentiment voiced by some in this country. After all, this country was started and built by immigrants. In the words of Michael Klinger, “we all have an immigrant story, whether we were born here or somewhere else.”

P.S. Here's a link to the version that appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11253/1173399-109-0.stm. Hanna and I are working on a book version of her story, so stay tuned!