If at first class you don't succeed…

Soon, the holiday travel season will start. What a depressing thought. I remember reading a story a few years ago about an airline that lost a woman’s cat in transit. They looked for that cat for 12 days before it finally turned up — alive and well, but hungry. That was probably 11 1/2 days longer than they would have looked for a missing passenger.

Sometimes I wonder what is worse, the airlines or the passengers. On almost every flight I’ve taken the last few holidays, some couple will show up at the very last minute and have to be ushered on board with special airline people hustling through...