Wow. All I can say is: wow. This is one of the most embarassing articles I've ever read. I hope and pray that anyone reading Slate in Brazil realize that you do not even speak for a fraction of Americans. 200 people die in one of the worst ways imaginable, and your response is to feel smugly vindicated for thinking that your single (rather convoluted) experience traveling on an airline in a developing country is not as smooth as you think it would be on a major U.S. or European one? Really? That's your takeaway from one of the worst air disasters of the last decade?

I'm not sure how much actual travel you've experienced, but I suspect that your idea of a real adventure is to leave your eye make-up at home. Then there's your beau, who's experienced landing on airfields that consisted mostly of grass. Grass! And I thought Navy SEALs were tough! They got nuthin' on your Adventure Boy. Do you realize that there are twice as many unpaved runways as paved ones right here in the United States? I'm a pilot myself, and more than half the landings in my logbook are on grass, dirt, gravel or some combination of the three.

And seriously, have you flown in the United States lately? Ever tried to make a red-eye connection in Detroit when the (infallible) U.S. airline forgets to assign a plane to the route? Have you been to LAX lately, which looks increasingly the way Beijing International did before they tore it down and started over?

I would love to live in your world, just for a day, where a tragedy like this one is nothing more than another source of self-satisfaction.

Perhaps you're being a bit harsh. I thought the article was well written. The writer was not directly comparing the airlines with those of the United States, nor was she stating that her and her boyfriend were the most traveled folks in the world who had seen every type of runway in existence, nor was she dismissing the tragedy of the crash. Instead, she was stating her opinion on some of the serious problems that face that airline and that country.

hahaha, fantastic reply.

As a human being, and more importantly, as a Brazilian, I'm extremely greatful for your response to the absurdity stated in that article. Unbelievable how she had the capacity of writing such a bias paper, someone who can only look at 200+ casualties for "self-satisfaction"

I applaud this article. In March 2006, I flew from JFK to Sao Paolo en route to a vacation in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Rather than pay $200 more to fly direct on American or United, I elected to fly Varig, then Brazil's largest native carrier. Rushing to JFK for my evening flight, I arrived to discover that it had been "delayed" 12 hours, meaning that it would instead be leaving at 7am the next morning: effectively burning the first entire day of my trip. after waiting in line for two hours to see about alternative booking options from the two agents they made available, I, by some incredible stroke of good fortune, happened to arrive at the table just as they were learning that one final seat (in business class!) has become available on American's flight to Sao Paolo. I would then catch my Varig connection to Bs As.

Great, right? Wrong. Upon arrival in Sao Paolo, I learned that my flight was delayed for an unknown amount of time. I'd have gone to the gate for more information, but my flight wasn't even listed on the status monitor. Eventually it was, but there was no indication of delay, even though it was two hours beyond the scheduled flight time. Five hours later we boarded a hot, cramped aircraft. I will not complain about the conditions, because I'm 6'4", and other airlines I've flown (like the now-defunct LAPA or Iberia) simply aren't built for people my size. At least they served complimentary Campari.

A week later, it was time to return to New York, and I arrived at the Buenos Aires airport three hours early, despite the fact that my favorite college basketball team was playing for a spot in the Sweet Sixteen that afternoon. Friends of mine with a later scheduled flight went to watch the game while I went to the airport. Not-so-incredibly enough, I arrived at Varig's gate to learn that my flight to Sao Paolo was delayed. Fortunately, it was minor this time, and we boarded about an hour late.

But that couldn't be the end. Once again I found myself in the middle seat of three as the temperature got continually hotter. Worse, there was this annoying, disconcerting, and persistent noise that sounded like an ignition trying to turn over. After 30 minutes sitting in our seats, without having moved from the gate, they told us: there was an electrical problem they were trying to fix, and we should be patient while they went to work. Another hour went by, as everyone started to sweat. No news, until the pilot again came on and explained: we would be de-planing, the problem could not be fixed.

But they refused to cancel the flight, and continued the attempts at repair. Eventually they announced that the flight would make it out, and that re-boarding would take place within 20 minutes. But I had a new problem: it was looking highly doubtful that I'd make my connection, in which case I'd be stuck in Sao Paolo overnight, without a Brazilian visa, which is required of Americans to enter the country. Rumors existed of temporary one-night passes given by Sao Paolo customs for stranded passengers, but I was not about to rely on those. So I begged. I pleaded. I implored. Was there anything else they could do? Could I skip their flight and be placed on something else? Finally, a female employee took pity on me. She agreed that I should not board the flight to Sao Paolo, and promised to look into alternatives.

(By this time of course, my friends had seen our team pull off a tournament upset and advance, and they laughed to find me still in the international terminal.) An hour after my flight had left, i was rebooked (mercifully) on a United flight direct from Buenos Aires to Washington Dulles, with a connection there to New York. So should have ended the saga.

But it didn't. Varig had never bothered to take my bag off the plane, so it went to Sao Paolo without me. Worse, it never got placed on any of the other flights to New York that day. Instead, I spent the week calling various Varig numbers that were either disconnected or met with an answering machine. Only when I turned to United did they find my suitcase: sitting in a back room in Sao Paolo, to be returned to me a week after my trip.

I love Brazil: a fantastic country with wonderful people. I will visit again. But I will never, ever fly a Brazilian airline, and I will do whatever I can to avoid the Sao Paolo airport.

The readers response what not hard at all but it does make me wonder what it is exactly you read.

Who cares about your travel woes? What is wrong with the world today where all you focus on is YOU? You join the ranks of the very minute Spiers fans. People died and all you care about like her is the inconveniences experienced. Depraved souls you both are.