Dear Airline Industry,
I’m writing this missive from dreary Seattle rather than sunny South Florida, and you only have yourselves to blame.
For years now, Presidents Day weekend has been the time of year I’ve taken my daughter to visit her grandma and pop-pop near West Palm Beach, a welcome respite from the height of our rainy season, and conveniently coordinated with her school’s mid-winter break. But after months of hesitation on your various reservation websites, I just couldn’t pull the trigger.
Part of the problem is that the Mercer Island district where my daughter now attends middle school only offers a four-day weekend off, but that didn’t stop us the last two years. Combine a red-eye with perhaps an extra day off school, and we could enjoy at least four full days in the sun.
The bigger problem is, the last couple years I’ve come home more in need of a vacation than when I left.
Flying has grown increasingly miserable over the past decade, and to be honest, it just isn’t worth it anymore. You airlines expect me to show up at the gate on time, or else forfeit the value of my ticket, but if your airplane isn’t at the gate to greet me, well, fuck me. Or if we do take off some time that day, but you fail to get me to my connecting flight, fuck me again. Perhaps, you tell me, you’ll get me out on a later flight, or the next day, or the day after that, but in the meanwhile I’m left to fend for myself in Charlotte or Atlanta or Dallas or Chicago or Phoenix or some godforsaken hub airport like that. Snow in Boston, you tell me, means delays in Houston, so you don’t owe me a thing but the promise to get me home sometime, you know, if a seat is available.
And while delays like this have always been a part of air travel, your increasingly hostile attitude has not. There once was a time when you treated us like valued customers, but over time we’ve just become those annoying, fragile things you store above the cargo hold. And as your customer service has declined you’ve increasingly resorted to pulling the post-9/11 security card to keep disgruntled passengers in line.
I know. You’ve done it to me. And fuck if I’m going to pay you for the public humiliation.
So this is probably the third or fourth flight I’ve elected not to take over the past couple years, not because your service isn’t inexpensive, but because it’s cheap. Based on personal experience, I just don’t trust you to get me and my luggage to my destination on time, safely, and in a reasonable amount of comfort. And I simply don’t trust your employees to treat me as anything more than just another potential terrorist.
$400 to fly roundtrip from Seattle to Florida is a good deal, but it’s still $400, and so I kinda expect the people I’m forking it over to not to consistently treat me like shit. You don’t even pretend to care about my business anymore, and that makes me feel like a chump every time I give to you.
So in conclusion, fuck you. Fuck your crappy service, your hostile demeanor and your poorly maintained planes. Fuck paying $7 extra for a pillow, $20 to reserve two seats next to each other and $25 for the privilege of having my valuables stolen out of my checked luggage (even sun screen for chrisakes… they’ve stolen fucking sunscreen). And fuck an industry whose standards have fallen so low that passengers now view themselves lucky to end their flight standing hip dip in water on the wing of a plane in the middle of the Hudson River.
Happy Presidents Day,
Goldy
We are just cargo that talks back, that is all.
I would pay more to fly if it meant better, more reliable service and fairer pay for airline workers, including pilots.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....69512.html
I have very different experiences, without a lot of hostility… but I shop for airlines that have better attitudes, like Alaska and Virgin America. I’ve also never believed in checked luggage, so I avoid a certain amount of nuisance fee, and generally don’t fly to the East Coast (and thus don’t get hit by weather as much).
I’ve enjoyed taking the train down to Portland many times now. It is much more enjoyable than driving and flying.
Taking the train to Florida wouldn’t, but for closer hops, it’s great.
Is airline deregulation the problem? In the race to the bottom line, everything has to be cut.
If tickets cost 5x as much, but you had your services back and well paid staff back, would that be worth it, if it was forced on everyone?
@3: Have to agree on Alaska as a great airline. I recently tried the new Delta, an improvement over Northwest, but the old Northwest syndicate’s rot and stink hangs heavily over their old routes and hubs.
@5: Maybe not, but it’s like with putting Republican tax cuts and budget increases together: how much can you crap on people (staff, safety, and service) before the system breaks down completely?
Oh really? You know this for a fact?
It’s hardly appropriate for you to whine and complain about the airline industry when Mommy dearest flips the bill for your travels there Goldy. Beggars can’t be choosers and all that shit….
Blue John @5,
I’ve written about this before, and no, I wouldn’t suggest we go back to the pre-deregulation tariffs. But I still think there must be a compromise between what we had then and what we have now.
For example, I’d love to see some kind of forced cooperation between airlines on rebooking passengers from canceled/delayed flights and missed connections. Airlines should be forced to offer rebookings on other airlines, and should be forced to accept rebookings at some pre-negotiated formula for that segment. That way, US Airways might not be so eager to book you on a connection that has only a 60% success rate, if they knew they’d have to buy you seat on another airline 40% of the time.
Too bad you don’t get to see your family but, y’know, Disneyland is only 2.5 hours away as the corvid flys. And if you don’t like Disneyland, there’s plenty of other places in California.
WtF are we going to do when the airlines fail a second time?
Goldy, it sounds like you should be having a beer with Kevin Smith today. Try to talk him out of ordering nachos…
“I’ve also never believed in checked luggage, so I avoid a certain amount of nuisance fee”
Dunno if you’ve noticed, but several airlines (Alaska included, as I recall) have reduced the number of pieces you’re allowed to carry on board.
As far as I’m concerned, that’s just as well. When I used to travel a lot for business, I lost count of how many flights I was on that left late because people were struggling to stuff big bags in the overhead.
Goldy,
Then hop into your polution packing ’68 VW Hippie Van and drive your ass down to Florida.
…I somehow get the sense that some people will always seem to attract negative attention to themselves..in airports for example….
just a hunch….
@11…kevin smith trying to do his best imitation of fat fuck micheal moore….
I haven’t flown in years and don’t miss it a bit.
Amtrak to Portland rocks and makes for a great 3 day weekend.
I wonder if TSA would let you take Rough Skinned Newts on board a plane?
@14 Or Pervert Piggie Limbaugh…
As to Mr. Moore, one personal benefit he reaped from making Sicko was that he was inspired to change his diet, get some exercise and lose a considerable amount of bulk.
I’m having a bit of a flashback on Richard Nixon, speaking from the Oval Office with his fresh tan from a week of fun and frolic in Florida with Bebe Rebozo, trying not to snicker as he told us all that we might “just have to stay home a little more”.
As bad as airlines are, private helicopters are worse.
Goldy, you wouldn’t need sunscreen if you grew some decent fur.
Anyone pining for the high-service, high-cost days of regulated air travel are welcome to shell out for First Class at any time.
Roger Rabbit Investment Tip
Don’t buy airline stocks. The industry has lost more money than it’s made. And it’s losing market share.
http://www.martinfrost.ws/html.....amish2.jpg
@10 “WtF are we going to do when the airlines fail a second time?”
Recapitalize them again, with money from another generation of suckers, what else?
@14 Michael Moore is richer than you, neener neener …
Michael Moore lost weight?
Was that the lard on his ASS or the bricks in his cranial orifice?
@20 The last time I tried to buy a first-class ticket, the agent wouldn’t sell it to me, because he said the service was just as rotten as coach.
@10,22
This time around there’s nothing left to recapitalize them with.
Yeah Moore is one of those oppressive rich white
Republican… oops… Dummocrapts. Cheap Labor Dummocrapt that is.Puddy placed this on HA Libtardos before. Ask “we ylb arschloch” for the link…
“Michael Moore, champion of the working class, used non-union stagehands to film “Capitalism: A Love Story.” The porcine provocateur is promoting his anti-Wall Street jeremiad by giving free tickets to unions, but the American Federation of Teachers has turned them down because Moore didn’t hire any members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. “Michael Moore and one of our sister unions, IATSE, are in discussions about concerns the union has,” the AFT told ABC News. “The AFT has decided against accepting tickets until those issues are resolved.” Moore’s agent, Ari Emanuel, seems to blame the IATSE for treating documentarians as “second-class filmmakers.””
Ari Emanuel… Rahmbo The Chicago Thug Emanuel’s brother.
@23..ummmm, so what if he is?
and my dick is bigger than yours(and it still gets hard, unlike your shriveled little smokey)
so whats your point?
Martin @20,
Um, domestic First Class is a shadow of its former self, but that misses the point entirely.
I’m not so large that I don’t fit into a coach seat, and my skinny little daughter and I are comfortable enough side by side with the arm rest lifted. So it’s not a matter of roominess or the free food and liquor.
The problem is, they treat you like shit at the airport, they treat you like shit in the departure lounge and they treat you like shit on the plane… but worst of all, they have little concern or incentive to get you where you’re going roughly in the time frame contracted.
I could buy first class (or theoretically, upgrade with the many miles I’ve accumulated, but which are now impossible to use), but I’m still on the same plane as everybody else, missing the connections, and once I’m stuck overnight in Charlotte or Phoenix, I’m in the same boat as everybody else, being treated just as rudely.
@27…you mean MM is another progressive hypocrite? say it aint so!
“And fuck if I’m going to pay you for the public humiliation.”
I’ll bet money his mom and dad pay for his airline tickets.
Flying does suck. There are certain airlines I refuse to fly any longer. American never again. US Air, nope. United, uhm no. Alaska is okay. Southwest is okay except for the A,B,C boarding pass thing.
Alaska? You gotta be kidding. If you knew how they maintain their planes you wouldn’t even let your laundry get on them.
@28 “my dick is bigger than yours”
How would you know? Have you been peeping in my window after dark?
Buy yer own plane a$$hole.
@29 That’s nothing compared to flying on a C-130 without seats and getting shot at in the landing pattern.
@32 And Hawaiian is (comparatively) pretty good…if you happen to be going to Hawaii.
Alaska used to be really good. Now, not so much, compared to so many others that truly suck. And they’re all getting worse.
goldstein, who taught you to be so vuldar?
pop pop?
@33 Probably goes for all of ’em, nowadays. If they’re so conspicuously cutting corners where you can see it, imagine what they’re neglecting where you can’t. No doubt the professional ranks of the FAA and CAB were as thoroughly gutted by the Bush administration as were the Justice Department and FEMA, so don’t expect those who are supposedly looking after our safety are doing much other than whitewashing stuff and schmoozing for an opportunity to work as a “consultant” for some carrier or other.
The only reason there aren’t a lot of us riding the “Big Splat Express” is that the planes were built by engineering-driven companies that took pride in their work and designed an extra margin into their planes to tolerate mistreatment and neglect.
Maybe airline travel should be more of a luxury service than something everyone can afford. Less people actually traveling on airliners means less congestion, less traffic delays and (hopefully) better service from the carriers who are facing bankruptcy if they don’t turn their acts around.
Maybe the airlines need to make a $400 round-trip ticket now cost $1,200. Gradually committing business suicide by charging fares that don’t cover operating costs just results in poor public relations, poor service and lots and lots of hard feelings from the general public.
You think domestic flying sucks? After I arrived in Vietnam and processed in, it took four days to reach my unit. During those four days, I had nothing to eat, and the only place to sleep was on concrete floors. On the worst leg of the trip, I sat for several hours on steel pallet rollers in a seatless C-130. The wreckage of crashed planes was a common sight at the airstrips, and at a couple of them, firefights were raging on the perimeter. Worst flying trip I ever took.
@35 Tom Stewart did and look what it got him.
@39 “The only reason there aren’t a lot of us riding the “Big Splat Express” is that the planes were built by engineering-driven companies that took pride in their work and designed an extra margin into their planes to tolerate mistreatment and neglect.”
That’ll go down the tubes, too, under the intense pressures to shave weight and cost off the planes.
It seems to be a common theme.
We can have high plane flight costs and lots of services and safe planes and well trained crews, but only the rich can fly a lot and it’s a rare luxury for everyone else.
We can have high taxes and lots of services and safe roads and food and well trained teachers and foster care workers but taxes are high and progressively higher on the rich.
Or….
We can have low plane flight costs and few services and unsafe planes and badly trained crews, but more can fly a lot and it’s more common for everyone.
We can have low taxes and few of services and unsafe roads and tainted food and badly trained teachers and no foster care workers but taxes are low and progressively lower on the rich.
You get what you pay for. Do you want the 1960s or Somalia? You decide.
Looks like FartyArt gets his data from DUmmys…
Airplane etiquette ………………..
What to do on a flight when you have a really annoying passenger sitting next to you:
1. Remove your laptop from your briefcase
2. Open the laptop slowly and carefully
3. Turn it on as well as the sound
4. Make sure that the passenger next to you is looking
5. Access the Internet
6. Close your eyes for a few moments, open again and look up to heaven
7. Take a deep breath and open this site
8. Observe the facial expression of the passenger seated next to you.
Puddy expects some comments on this. Puddy did it on purpose…
A young brunette goes into the doctor’s office and says that her body hurts wherever she touches it.
“Impossible,” says the doctor. “Show me.”
She takes her finger and pushes her elbow and screams in agony. She pushes her knee and screams, pushes her ankle and screams and so on it goes.
The doctor says, “You’re not really a brunette are you?” She says, “No, I’m really a blonde.”
“I thought so,” he says. “Your finger is broken.”
I will take a 12 hour layover in Miami or Atlanta before I will ever set foot on a Delta or Southwest airplane.
I won’t take more than twenty pounds in carry on.
They sell stuff wherever I am flying to. I buy the cheapest cane on the market before I fly because they will just seize it when I try to get on the plane.
My carry on always has snacks in it. I buy a fly weight blanket that doesn’t weigh more than a pound.
Liquids they get me for, other than that I have stripped it down so I only pay extra for liquids.
I can usually beat them on that because I hate flying and I have enough heavy duty sleep meds that I usually get on, get seated and ask the person next to me to wake me up when we reach our destination.
My main problem is perfume or deodorant or mens “fragrances.” Highly allergic and there is always one person who substitutes one or the other for bathing. No one who soaks themselves in perfume should ever be allowed to fly.
“standing hip dip in water on the wing of a plane in the middle of the Hudson River.”
That’s how it’s supposed to work….good crew coordination in the face of an emergency. What we seem to be getting is that Bombardier -400 crew (Buffalo) that in the face of an aircraft approaching stall fucked up and ultimately stalled the plane losing control in the process. You can do so much with a plane …put in a stick shaker to warn of impending stall, put in a stick pusher to encourage the pilot not to stall the plane and ultimately demonstrate that the airplane is conrollable in a stall. After that one has to rely on crew training. This is what you get for poor training.
@45 I sure as hell don’t get it from you, pal.
@46
Hehehe… Good one…
But, if you tried that sitting next to me when you opened your eyes you’d find yourself in a chokehold*, being pulled out of your seat and thrown on the ground.
Back in the day, some of my clients were autistic-schizophrenics that had violent outbursts. It’s been years since I’ve been in a tussle, but bet under the right conditions I could remember all those restraint and take down skills real quick.
*We learned chokeholds so that we could practice escaping from them, we didn’t use them “on the job.”
@48
Yes!!! I’m allergic to a lot of that stuff too. As well as being 6’2″ and not being able to equalize the pressure in my sinuses and ears very well. Like I said above, it’s been years since I flown. Flying is pure hell for me.
And while we’re on the subject of pure hell, Florida??? Ick! I went there once and once was plenty enough for me.
When I retired 9, or was it 10 years ago, I said to myself, if I don’t absolutely have to fly anywhere, I am not flying! And I have been lucky, I have not had to fly. So I have not had to endure the searches, the more crowded seats, the higher costs, the picky things they charge for, and all the other stuff that has been foisted upon the traveler. And may I say that I am very thankful.
The “deregulation” of the airlines shows the fallacies of the free market.
Free markets foster competition, however they also foster elimination of competition. One reason Larry’s Markets lost in Seattle was that QFC anbd Safeway bought up the properties Larry’s needed to expand to Cap Hill.
Look at what is happening to hardware stortes and lumber yards. Just try finding a real competitor to Home Depot .. Lowes and Fred Meyer are weak competitors.
Radio Shack outcompeted Lafayette so nto Laf no longer exists.
Look at how the airlines rig their world. On many flights you have no real competition. What that eaves is cattel cars .. the airline that does not have to compete for passengers has no incentive to compete on frills.
I’ve had mostly a good experience on Alaska/Horizon, Continental, JetBlue, and Southwest. I’ve had issues with each but nothing compared to dealing with other domestic carriers. I’m told AirTran, Hawaiian, and Virgin America are good but I haven’t flown any of them. Delta and American are tolerable but I’ll avoid them in favor of one of the first four airlines if I can. Northwest really sucked and I’d fly them only if there was no other choice or they had a cheap ticket. I have no idea how things are since the Delta merger as I’ve not flown either airline since before the merger was announced. I’ll walk or swim before I fly US Airways or United.
@55
Larry’s also failed to adapt as other stores copied the things that made them popular. The financial mismanagement didn’t help either.
True they really couldn’t find to many spots to expand to inside Seattle, but they were able to find enough locations in the region to overextend themselves.
For that matter Metropolitan Market, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, PCC, Central Co-Op, and several Asian markets have all managed to open new locations in Seattle during the past 10-15 years.
If you don’t want to shop at Home Depot there are still decent local hardware stores like Hardwick’s or Tweedy Pop. Dunn Lumber and McLendon’s are still around if you need to build a shed or a house. As for Lowe’s they’ve decided to target a slightly different part of the market than Home Depot and Fred Meyer never was trying to be a full service hardware store or lumber yard.
For almost any flight I’ve needed to take there has been more than one choice. True there was often only one carrier offering a direct flight or a reasonable connection that didn’t require flying way out of the way, but the ticket prices weren’t that different.
Goldy, you nailed it. Every time I complete a trip without being completely traumatized, I consider it a success. Fuck you, airlines, and Thank you, Goldy.
@44 Wingnuts want Somalia.
Romney Assaulted On Plane
Mitt Romney was physically attacked aboard a flight from Vancouver to Los Angeles yesterday by a passenger sitting in front of Romney’s wife became irate when Romney asked him to move his seat upright for takeoff, according to news sources.
The plane returned to the gate, where the other passenger was arrested. Romney and his wife had been attending the Olympic Games. The airline was not identified in news reports.
America is falling apart. Our society has become uncivil to the point of disintegration. Our government is on the brink of mob rule. Every week brings new shootings and mass murders. The rest of the world must be thinking we can’t handle freedom.
And the Republican “solution” is to make us even more like Somalia.
@61….and we have people like you to thank for this….
@61 Look in the mirror, pal … it isn’t liberals who’ve been packing guns to the legislature, presidential speeches, and political rallies.
A few more details from AOL News about the attack on Mitt Romney …
The Romneys were traveling in economy class. (Why? Can’t they afford first class?)
They were on an AirCanada plane.
The incident occurred in Vancouver.
The unruly passenger was arrested by Mounties and will face charges in Canada.
No information yet on what nationality the attacker was, or whether he was drunk, or why he got upset because Romney asked him to raise his seat upright, which is something every flight crew on every flight routinely instructs passengers to do before takeoff.
Puddy bets the attacker was another Dumb Bunny thinking the world owed him something.
Verrrry interesting. So let’s cast stones, aspersions, and blame:
1978. Jimmy Carter. And, if memory serves, Senator Edward Moore Kennedy, Democrat, MA, took credit for pushing it through to Carter’s signature.
Goldy;
One of the problems is that in the current de-regulated environment, airlines are free to schedule flights anytime they want (as long as the departing and receiving airports are open). This means if their researchs hows that there are a large number of passengers who want to depart New York to Washington D.C. at 7:00 a.m., every airline serving that route can schedule multiple flights at 7:00 a.m., as long as they have gates to service the flights.
That’s why you can have twenty flights scheduled to depart JFK within ten minutes of a particular time, even though there is no way the runways and ATC can handle that traffic. But the airlines still advertise the time slot, even though they know there will be at least a thirty-minute delay 90% of the time.
In such an overburdened system (under the best of circumstances), throw in a little weather anywhere in the country, and everything goes to hell in a handbasket.
In contrast, Japan regulates landing and takeoff slots. If an airline misses it’s slot, it causes some very big problems for the airline – they have to find an empty slot somewhere, either by shuffling other flights or by buying the slot from another carrier. But it creates such a big problem for the airline, they really go out of their way to make sure the flight departs within the allowed window.
Put the government in charge of air travel. Nationalize all the airlines. And watch things really go to pot.
@69 I don’t hear complaints about the air travel system run by the military for moving their personnel all over the globe.
@66 My bet is on a Republican-voting redneck asshole who has no social skills except his fists.
ONCE AGAIN Herr Goebbels Himmler Dumb Bunny displays his ignorance of other peeps. The Romney’s are humble peeps fool. Riding in coach class with their stature is being humble ya stupid moron, unlike Herr Goebbels Himmler Dumb Bunny who, if he had Romney’s money, would be in First Class making incessant demands of the flight attendants or like Chucky Schumer, not turning off his cell phone when asked by flight attendants.
Butt this difference is lost on Herr Goebbels Himmler Dumb Bunny because he’s becoming more stupid every day.