Yesterday I finally made an attempt to return from Ottawa, in the great white north known as Canada, upon my airline of choice for most international travel: American. American hasn’t really done me wrong lately, and so I feel loathe to criticize them directly, however I will say that when you use the lowest bidder, you get what you pay for.

That, you see, is the problem with American’s ticketing and gate operations in Ottawa. Up until this year, Air Canada handled those services; check-in, boarding, stuff like that. The things that have the most direct exposure to American’s clients. This is good; Air Canada simply processes people with the same expected courtesy and efficiency that they process their own passengers, they have good working knowledge of the airport, and could interchange “their” personnel with the “American” personnel with likely a minimum of cross-training.

However (and this is where I’m unclear) whether Air Canada did not offer to renew their service contract or American decided it was too expensive, which I’m guessing is the case, they’ve ended up with a level of incompetence in their operations that even the flight and cabin crew was amazed and unhappy with.

My day started at 4:45. I’ve attempted to keep myself on central time, so in reality, it started at 3:45. A.M. That’s ante meridiem, and for you slower people, that’s about two and a half hours before the sun peaks over the horizon at that latitude, this time of year. Also, for my friend, who so kindly was chauffeuring me from my temporary residence in Ottawa to the airport, this meant getting up early as well.

I was in line, waiting for my ticket, at 5:20am, my flight was at 6:55am – more than enough time to get checked in, through customs, stop by the Tim Hortons booth in the U.S. departures area, get a coffee (large, double/double if you must know) and a bagel, and wait for my flight. My ire, however, began at 5:35, when the first person in line still wasn’t checked in. It grew, and grew, and grew as the gate agent (wearing nothing to identify he was working for American, mind you, the only clue being that he sat under the American sign) who was on the phone still hadn’t checked anyone in at 5:45, then 6:05, then finally at 7:08 (as noted on my phone) I got checked in.

So what was the problem? Well at first, since the ticketing agents were volunteering no information, someone found out that “the computers were down” – which wasn’t exactly true. It’s what the gate agents said. What turned out to be the problem – after a bit of prying and finagling the ticketing agent and getting confirmation from our flight attendant, was that the ticketing agent had accidentally selected the wrong printer on the computer, and didn’t know how to switch it back.

So how was it fixed, you might ask? Well, one of the lovely ticketing agents at the U.S. Air ticketing desk came over and picked the right printer.

Now all this would be okay; I had a two hour layover for a reason. So when they boarded us at 7:25, I was fine with it. But then we sat, and sat, and sat. Why this time you might ask? Well first after boarding was complete, we waited nearly 25 minutes for the first version of the manifest to show up. When it did finally show up, it was wrong, showing that more people had boarded than were on board. The flight attendant counted, then counted again, then sent the manifest back (I’m not sure if there’s more to the flight paperwork than that, but it is what seemed to be the hold-up). The paperwork came back with the same problem. The flight attendant recounted again, and then so did the co-pilot. They figured out which seat was supposed to be filled and was not, asked for the person to indicate if he was there, and waited. No indication. But the gate crew (the same two fellas who could not select the printer at the ticketing counter) could not seem to figure out how they had boarded the invisible man.

Our flight finally pushed back at 8:35am eastern, with nearly half our flight missing their connections in Chicago, and several more having to run for it.

In a way, I feel bad for American; their choice of an inept vendor to handle their customer-facing operations has lost them a fair number of Canadian customers. I heard the following statements “I knew I should have flown Air Canada,” “My sister warned me about flying American,” “I’m never flying American again,” and “They can’t fix this.”

The damage is probably done; the entire plane was frustrated with the operation at Ottawa, and while knowing that the contractors are the ones to blame allows some amount insight in to where the problem is, American really needed to take ownership of the situation. When I called the AAdvantage desk and they had absolutely no clue as to what was going on – because the contractors had not informed them that there was a problem. I would almost bet that if there’s an after-action report, that this is covered up as a computer malfunction – or at least described as such by the vendor to American, when I know for a fact that it was just simple incompetence.

So as I sat typing this at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, with my luggage on its way to Phoenix as I wait for my flight to Dallas (I was rebooked you see, but my luggage was not, and I’m thoroughly reminded of Southwest’s “Why do they hate your bags?” commercial) I feel a sense of pity for American for once again having alienated potential future customers.

I’m glad that it was purchased by Delta, but even then I’m excessively concerned with the 30 year old, dilapidated DC-9s still bussing people around the airways. It’s even worse because every experience I’ve had with them in, oh four flights in the past five years (I’m sorry, American and Southwest… I was a little drunk and crazy, I didn’t mean to cheat on you guys!) has been a rather poor experience.

I’ve long forgiven the world for going so PC that we no longer have flight attendants in hotpants, and despite my long-standing hot but rocky relationship with American Airlines, they have got nothing on Northwest.

Northwest has the allure of that girl, across the hotel bar at 12:30 in the morning, when you’re single, there on business, and have been drinking on the company’s dime for four hours. Oh sure, there’s a bit of flirting after you walk over, and she seems interesting, but you’re too lit up to know otherwise. When they close the place down and kick everyone out, there may be a poor decision or eight involved. You have no idea until the next day what a rotten idea it was, and by then your sole concern is to do damage control and try and keep yourself from making that mistake again.

Sitting at the Northwest gate at DFW terminal E is like the doubts you have while following the girl back to her room and having a slightly sober moment going “oh no, what the hell am I doing?” I only mention this because when you can smell the booze on the small bolder of a man across from you, and the trailer trash woman with two front teeth missing has just told her child “Baby, can you please get mama’s hair pick out of her bag?” that you truly understand something may be wrong. The true kicker, though, is the cold disdain with which the flight crew treats you.

I have had some bad flight crews. I had one on a flight to and from London some years back that made break up with American Airlines for nearly six months before we got back together (but boy, did Southwest and I have some crazy times in there! Remember that time in Denver, Southwest? You so crazy!) The level of uncaring with which I have dealt with on Northwest is exceptional, though. From refusal to check for more water when they ran out on a beverage cart, to a passenger being told to “do the math” when asked how much longer the flight was, to being told “whatever” when I thanked the pilots for delivering me to my destination, Northwest has some of the worst service I’ve had to deal with on a flight – ever.

It wouldn’t be so bad, really, if it were a one-off experience, like my trip to London on American, but honestly, when every Northwest flight is the same, it makes me very glad that Delta bought them out and will phase them out of existence. Hopefully Delta will be able to eliminate the sheer apathy of the flight crews as well.

So as much as I stray from my aeronautical relationships from time to time, even with my frequent flyer dalliances, every time I do, I am reminded why I come back. And every now and then, I remember that I loathe flying Northwest.

It may be relevant that I get worked up about travel industry news, especially when I feel that it is something that would be beneficial to me, and certainly I’m excited about this. First off, Frontier operates direct flights out of DFW. The thought of being able to book codeshare flights on southwest would be amazing, along with the fact that the number of two-leg flights would go up, instead of the fair few flights that southwest offers as three legs right now. Second, consolidating Rapid Rewards and EarlyReturns would be great for customers – and me. Third, and this is the most personal: it would make getting to Denver when booking through Southwest, as it’s already a straight shot on Frontier.

What does this really mean? Well, it means that in a way, Southwest is pre-empting JetBlue out of the Dallas market. If the acquisition goes through, then Southwest will be operating out of Love Field, as always, but also have a presence in the form of Frontier at DFW – and those people connecting through Denver would have a choice of departure points. Finally, it could give Frontier customers much broader, easier access to the east coast.

All of this is just speculation, and I’m sure there’s a mergers and acquisitions team at Southwest that has studied the business implications of this bid up, down, and sideways – but I’m all for supporting the home teams, especially when it comes to making my travel arrangements easier.

So pardon me while I go do up a baseball pennant with the Southwest logo on it, set up my lawn chair and my sippy-hat and cheer for Mr. Kelly to hit one out of the park.