Why do I love the airline industry again?

Story 1: DFW has been insanely stormy this spring...it seems like every other day we're under severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings. Along with storms comes flight delays. I was flying to Houston for my old roommate, Deborah's wedding on Wednesday and there was a huge storm that morning so everything was delayed. Luckily, I am platinum on American so the gate agents were quick to find me an earlier flight (AKA a flight that should have left already but was still there because of the delays so actually left at the time I was supposed to leave) but there were people who had been stuck at the airport since that morning (it was 4:00pm). The exact same thing happened on the way home and I was able to actually get home earlier than I was supposed to.

I wish I could say I felt bad about using my privileges to get a confirmed seat on a flight with a 25 person standby list, but I really don't! :) But seriously, why do I love an industry that constantly disappoints customers over things that can't be controlled like the weather?

Story 2: Next Friday, I leave for Stockholm, Sweden to speak at a conference. Yesterday, I got an email from one of our sales directors in Europe saying that we had gotten to the second round on a proposal we submitted to an airline in Norway and wanted to know if I could leave two days earlier to take a meeting in person. I called our corporate travel department and it would cost $2000 to change my ticket to leave two days early. $2000! The original plane ticket only cost $1500! You'd think that working with airlines we'd be able to get some sort of break, but no. (Needless to say, I am not traveling to Norway on Wednesday!)

Why do I love an industry that charges one customer $100 for a ticket and the person sitting right next to them $500 for the exact same product? No other industry could get away with that! (Of course, my company is the one enabling to them to do that, so I guess I can't talk too badly about it! Ha!)

Sometimes I really think I'm crazy to love the airlines as much as I do, but right now I can't imagine working in any other industry. I must just be a glutton for punishment. :)