18 August—The good news today is that my son’s missing-in-action bicycle—er, bike—finally made it to Bradley and is on its way to Litchfield by special courier (doubtless along with lots more of American Airlines “delayed” luggage). Yet American maintains it has no record of the bicycle, even though it passed through the inept airline’s hub in Charlotte, North Carolina, before being routed to Hartford—and it was an American Airlines employee who phoned my son with the good news. And it’s only last Monday that my son got home.

You wonder how American has been able to maintain its position as the world’s largest airline in terms of passengers and daily flights while boasting the lousiest track record of mishandled luggage, ignominiously followed by British Airways, a co-conspirator in the bikenapping. According to data from 2021 to 2024, American has mishandled—lost, damaged, or delayed—the most items per 1,000 checked of any airline.

Artificial intelligence or natural stupidity?

For the record, in 2024 American Airlines CEO Robert Isom’s total compensation—on a base salary of only $1.3 million—was $15,610,843, while the median compensation for employees was $81,744. But in 2023 Isom had been compensated $31,438,162, while employees’ median was only $67,788.

Suffice to say, Delta Airlines CEO and employees have been doing better than American’s in reuneration. And Delta has been doing much better in handling—rather than mishandling—luggage.

In other hot news, then, TODAY’S OBITUARIES in the Hearst Republican-American reads:
LastName, FirstName, age, of thisArea.
LastName, FirstName, age, of thisArea.
LastName, FirstName, age, of thisArea.
LastName, FirstName, age, of thisArea.
LastName, FirstName, age, of thisArea.
OBITUARIES ON PAGE A8

And TODAY’S OBITUARIES on page A8 laments, THERE ARE NO OBITUARIES IN TODAY’S REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN, and goes on to tell lucky survivors and executors how to submit obituaries and in-memoriams. For whatever reason, although the email address for submitting obituaries and in-memoriams is the same, you can submit obituaries but not in-memoriams on Saturday and Sunday but you can phone in in-memoriams during the week, but you can’t phone in obituaries ever.

Obituaries bring excellent revenue to newspapers and the Hearst sales force is doing a stellar job selling them in the Waterbury rag. Since Hearst has been running the show, obits have increased impressively in number, size, and illustration. And one recent decedent has been remembered in quarter-page illustrated notices for a full week.

Hearst’s salespeople are also selling lots of display advertising that probably very few people bother to read. That includes ads for the Readers’ Choice awards, which have been a money-maker for the Waterbury rag since I can’t remember when and should be an embarrassment to all the professionals and other businesses “across more than 80 categories” that buy eighth-page (or bigger) ads begging people to vote them best and/or favorite whatever it may be.

Is it just a bit of fun or do the businesses take it seriously? Would you retain a lawyer who solicits popularity votes from the random populace?