Air Travel

[Warhammer]

This is starting to hack me off. Why can't the airlines level with you about travel options. I understand weather happens, but my flight, which I got here very early for, has now been delayed for 3 hours. The latest time is fictional since the connecting flight has not even left yet. Rather than giving an accurate delay, it gets pushed back in hour increments, when they know damn well it's not going to make that time.

This is unacceptable and is the reason I try to drive whenever possible. What recourse do customers have? Just having to vent a bit here.

[PilotMan]

I was just saying this morning to someone that this is the thing that pisses me off the most too. It's very frustrating to not be able to give an accurate time. Especially if it has to do with connecting aircraft or known weather delays.

Now I think that there are many misconceptions about air travel and in an effort to streamline this post I won't go into it a whole lot. But the main reason is that they don't want you to leave the gate area. If for some reason they swap planes and suddenly you have a plane and crew. If you don't make it back to the plane and it leaves without you it's on you, and they really don't want that to happen. Now imagine 150 people all going different directions. It would be like herding cats.

I had a scheduled switch a few years ago because one of the other pilots timed out. I sat with a broken plane, waiting on a part to come in from Cincy and the company was doing the same thing where they would just add an hour, then add another. That's effed up. It makes it nearly impossible for the gate or crew to fix it. All the times are decided in a far off place by someone else. We don't have any say over it.

Many delays, especially in aviation are last minute affairs. I was in Chicago yesterday and had already been delayed 2 hours at the gate because of weather in NY. We had no sooner boarded up when we got a message that our takeoff time had been moved from 20 minutes away to 3 hours away.

We rolled the dice that things might get worked out and left anyway. ATC looked at our time again and said it was only 40 minutes away. We went out sat and waited. I told the passengers we were just 5 minutes from takeoff and no sooner had I completed my PA then we were told our clearance was cancelled and another lengthy delay might happen. We shut down, but luckily it only turned out to be about 15 minutes, but it easily could have been 2 hours. I'm sure passengers were back there complaining about me and calling me a liar or that I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Just like the seat belt sign, the second it goes off we hit bumps. All you can do is the best that you can.

Suffice to say that it's not all known ahead, but those times it is, and the just string people along make me the most upset.