Thread on Airline & Travel experiences
 

I've traveled quite a bit since the late 90's, primarily with Delta and its partners. I know the airline industry has been very competitive and high fuel prices really hurt.

In general, I do feel like cattle when I am travelling domestically. I stand a fair chance of getting upgrade to comfort/business and feel for those in economy (especially for the 5+ hour coast-to-coast flights).

I'm glad to see the bad press airlines are getting now. It'll force them to provide better services.

The ‘Incredible Shrinking Airline Seat’ Gets a U.S. Court Rebuke - Bloomberg

How Airline Ticket Prices Fell 50% in 30 Years (and Why Nobody Noticed) - The Atlantic

[/thread]

Why would airlines provide better service when they already operate at a loss and always have?

Is "always have" accurate?

Airlines have an incentive to maximize profits. They cut "services" so they can lower their fares. I think in theory, an airline with bad services won't survive but in today's domestic airline, it seems most/all major airlines have equivalent poor-mediocre domestic service so there is no incentive to get better.

So publicizing stuff and having government intervene seems to be the options to apply pressure to all airlines. The best successes I can think of from a passenger pov is the 3 hour (?) tarmac rule and of course, the now "we'll do better when we bump you off a flight"

Overall service is not consistent which leads me to believe its who they hire, how they are trained, union/how they are treated by the airline etc.

My observations just off the top of my head, I'm sure there are others. All Delta for the first section ...

(1) Sky lounge staff is really pretty good
(2) Pilots are pretty good. The only quibble is once in a while, the pilot does not do a good job keeping us informed when we are delayed after boarding or on the tarmac
(3) International flight attendants tend to be much better than domestic
(4) Domestic flight attendants are hit and miss
(5) Check-in is pretty good but may be because the only time I use it is when I am travelling internationally and have to check in a bag
(6) Gate agents are also hit and miss. There are some that are pretty good and some that are just plain awful (and I'm not talking about during a system wide failure due to storms etc. when everyone is stressed out)
(7) Phone support is pretty good (except for system wide failures)

And not Delta specific

(8) Lost luggage is just plain awful However, this is likely due to inability to scale and quickly help the inevitable long queues. To be fair, I've not experienced this recently but when I have lost luggage its been bad
(9) TSA customer service is pretty bad. I'm not sure what their true efficacy is but I'm not commenting on that


Some possible remediation approaches

(a) I think there is a lack of feedback - the ability to capture it and airlines acting on it. Add a feedback mechanism on the TV screen (hey, you can play games so there's got to be a relatively easy way) or on my mobile Delta app. Show the face and names of all pilots and flight attendants and give the ability to rate and provide a comment ala Uber; same with gate agents

(b) If not already, airlines should have anonymous QA staff playing the role of the passenger and documenting their passenger experience

(c) Do a better job of screening who you hire, make sure they have the client facing skills. Beef up training and awareness programs, and certainly transition out those without good client facing skills to backoffice

My observation and I'm sure I'm biased somehow -- younger flight attendants have a friendly, customer centric approach than older ones. They smile more and look & fit better in the uniforms which lends to a more professional approach.

(d) Allow international carriers to fly domestic routes, I think Air Emirates was interested in doing this? I've heard arguments that it would be unfair competition as international carriers are subsidized by their government. If there was a way to do this equitably, I am believe customer service (especially re: flight attendants) will rise considerably

(e) TSA just needs to be more professional. The ones checking ID and tickets are the best of the lot. The others doing bags, x-rays and screenings mostly pretty sad. I'm sure some are the same staff that gets rotated so its a matter of discipline and focus. Get rid of the ones that yell instructions and have patronizing attitude

To be fair, I think Atlanta is the worse I've seen. Smaller airports are much better

Read this in today's paper so had to look it up, first 20 seconds is best. Kinda cute but I stand by my statement

Delta flight attendants fight back against Qatar CEO's 'crap' service remarks | Delta News Hub

Name one other industry where you are exposed to customer service longer than the airlines?

It's going to be exposed, by someone just by the sheer numbers of people that work through the system. On a 13 hour flight, with 300 people on it, it only takes 1 person to have a bad exchange. From the ticket counter, to security, to boarding, to the plane ride, to baggage claim, it's a non-stop service encounter. Except that along the way safety comes before service, and sometimes you can't get what you want, or something doesn't go the way it should.

The sheer scale and mathematics make it nearly impossible for everyone to be happy all the time. That doesn't mean that it can't be better, but I think that all this is lost in the expectations and not thought much about.

But that has nothing to do with shrinking seats, decline of leg room, overbooking nightmares and trying to nickle and dime the customers to death.

See post #2 for those answers.

Had this issue with American recently.

Flight from Philly to Buffalo on a Monday morning. First a delay and two gate changes (no big thing). But then we are told they are bringing a plane from the hangar to use. They get us a plane and we are on board and take off.

Right around the time that the pilot usually could come on to tell us that we are about to be landing in Buffalo we are instead told that we are landing in Harrisburg due to a mechanical issue.

That led to a bit of an "oh ****" moment but also brings up the question of why we were up there for that long only to get to Harrisburg. We could have been landing in Buffalo with as long as we were flying.

We land in Buffalo with no issue. No emergency vehicles waiting, no rush to the plane, nothing. This tells me that there wasn't a mechanical emergency as they would have had something prepared for an unscheduled "emergency" landing at a different airport.

When we inquired what the problem was they would not tell us anything. Just a "probably better not to ask" response. If it was "better not to ask" that would mean it was a serious emergency and they would have been prepared for that where we landed.

Our bet is that they took a plane that wasn't cleared for that flight and they could probably hide their mistake by landing in Harrisburg (a 20 some minute flight instead of an hour and 20 something).

We sit in Harrisburg and then get put on a plane and flown back to Philly. Don't even get me started on the "pass them off to another gate" approach of getting people re-booked. First they tell us to see the gate agent where we landed to be re-booked. Then that agent tells us another gate to go to, after the line has grown and 15 minutes passes. We get to that gate and wait and are told another gate to go to. That happens again and we are told to go to customer service, where there is one overwhelmed person working.

Awful customer service, negligence and lies.

All this talk of the airlines losing money...

This was from December of 2016 prior to the final end of the year numbers.

I might be barking up the wrong tree here, but I feel like the best thing that could happen to the airline industry in the US is a legitimate, modern high speed rail system or other ground transit like hyperloop. Anything that takes shorter flights to big metros out of the equation will likely help.

Philly to Buffalo is about 280 miles. Bullet trains do 185-200 mph for the most part. There's really no necessary stopping point between those two cities. Philly to Denver or LA makes sense by plane. Philly to Buffalo, NYC, Pittsburgh, etc really doesn't. The obvious flaw with this idea is that the high speed rail plans all have Philly as part of a Boston to DC line and a separate line from NYC through Albany and then across upstate NY. That puts the trip around 480 miles with probably 4 stops.

Build a real ground system and let the airlines focus on the longer trips. Charge prices that make sense for those and provide the kind of customer service that those prices warrant.

I don't expect near perfection. On feedback, option is toss out the bottom 5-10 percent, over time a trend will emerge which will airlines to keep and reward the high performers.

I think a good equivalent is Disney/other theme parks, they are open more than 12-14 hours and they are pretty good -- from their parking team, to retail store associates, to their actors, to hotel staff etc.

My guess why they are consistently good is screening & hiring of right candidates, training, customer centric mantra etc. I'm thinking most of their customer facing staff are not paid more than airline equivalent either.

Yup, I'm all for this. Not practical for the short term and routes probably won't be as extensive or convenient but more alternate transportation options would be nice.

My vote is let foreign carriers do domestic routes. Not sure how to resolve the fairness argument re: subsidy.

Darned good example IMO, (though Disney service has taken a hit over the past decade).

But it wasn't long ago when even I -- a fairly tough arbiter of good/bad service -- could go days without a bad experience on Disney property.

Good question. Wikipedia's high speed rail page for the US gives a good look at the overall map proposed in 2009.

I feel like the only thing missing is going beyond Vegas to add in Phoenix, Provo, SLC, and Denver.

{scratches head}

A lot of the grief consumers experience with airlines could be eliminated if, en masse, we decided that a lot of stuff simply wasn't worth the hassle.

Sure, there are situations that are difficult to impossible to avoid - emergencies, work-related stuff, etc - but we still do a lot of optional air travel here. I'm not talking about those.

It's been, give or take, a little over a decade since I've been on a plane & somehow {gasp} I've survived. And that's after flying several times a year for a few years prior to that. Pricing & aggravation simply made it not worth it anymore yet, OMG, I didn't die from not jetting hither, tither,and yon.

As long as you keep hand-feeding the machine, hard to be legitimately shocked if it bites you.

That's where I think reducing the need to fly to mostly longer trips makes the most sense. There's no good reason to have to fly from Philly to Buffalo most of the time. A good rail system is nearly as quick and much cheaper to maintain. Cross country flights make sense. I'd rather fly Philly to LA or Boston to Miami than any other method of travel between them. I'd rather hop on a train, or even in the car if traffic isn't bad, to handle those short and mid range distances.

When I was in Honolulu flight was mandatory to go anywhere else in a short time frame. Since then I've only been on 3-4 flights and those where paid for by universities that interviewed me for jobs.

You're spot on about how we've made air travel too common when it's not necessary. It feels like we've overburdened a travel method that doesn't scale to the level at which we are using it and then complaining about the result.

I was on a plane last month, BWI to Boston for an interview. It was the first time I'd been on a plane in a few years, and I didn't pay for it. So that was ok -- though for the return trip, I still started the trip to the airport at about 1PM, waited because I got there early to make sure I got through security ok, waited some more because the plane in was delayed. Got to BWI then had to drive home...finally got home around 9PM. I could have just driven and gotten back around the same time.

My wife wants to go to AZ sometime, and for that we'd probably need to fly. But it's hard to want to spend much for four of us to travel. Even if each ticket is somewhat reasonable, there's still four of them. We'd also probably have to rent a car. It would still likely be worth it just to save time for that far a trip, but for anything less it doesn't seem worth it. We've basically committed to driving from MD to FL for visits to the in-laws.

Then again I see no reason to think it wouldn't be as bad or worse than what we're seeing with air travel.

Changing the method doesn't solve the problem of people that simply aren't cut out for customer service. That's a breeding issue, not a transportation issue.

If you get a chance to see the trains in Europe, especially in Germany, in use then you would see the difference. Much more efficient, much easier and cheaper to maintain, and much less hassle than flying. You don't need nearly as much customer service for train systems, especially when they're designed well.

I spent the summer of 2014 in Europe. Went to an academic conference in norther Finland and then a bunch of us decided to just travel for the next 6+ weeks before going back to Hawaii for the fall semester. We went across Scandinavia (skipping Norway), down through Denmark into Germany, Czechia, and Austria, then wrapped around and came back up through Eastern Europe finishing in Estonia before taking a ferry back over to Helsinki to start the eternal flight back to Honolulu. I honestly don't remember a single time that a train required more than a 15 minute wait and the information about schedules/routes/price was so clear that I don't think any of us spoke to a customer service person a single time after getting our passes at the very beginning.

Of course, that's the rub, hoping that it would be designed and implemented properly in the first place.

Yep.

Plus scale does become an issue.

When you're talking about having states that are the size of a lot of those countries you mentioned, the sheer volume (even for short hops as under discussion here) becomes an issue.

The Eurail system covers an area bigger than the US.

I've taken the rail in Europe (Brussels to Paris, London to Paris). I didn't know it had that large of coverage.

The easternmost part of the EU (Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia), including western Russia, isn't officially part of Eurail, but they almost all have a similar system that you can transfer onto. I believe we had to take a car once in Moldova and a bus into Estonia, but that was it. Eurail goes as far north as northern Sweden and Finland, and as far southwest as Istanbul.

This is really cool. I would love to travel around Europe like this one day.

I think short-haul airplane travel will die off one day, but not due to high-speed rail. I think it will be self-driving cars that spell the doom.

Think about it - with self-driving cars traffic delays/accidents will be minimized, and cars will become more of a moving office/living room rather than "the ultimate driving machine."

I'd much rather drive (sit in the back seat) from Philadelphia to Buffalo in a comfortable atmosphere, watching movies or working on my laptop without the drudgery of baggage check, long security lines, wasted time in the airport, etc.

Sure, when I have to go cross-country, flying will still be necessary. But for convenience and flexibility, self-driving, utility cars will be the bees knees.

I'm there today, even having to drive.

My intersection point is roughly 10 hours.
In the past I had a client in Miami, FL. That's a 10 hour drive for me.
Charlotte to Miami is a 2 hour flight. I am 1 hour south of the Charlotte airport. Add in 2 hours to get through security successfully. Then an hour de-boarding and getting through the terminal and another 30 minutes at the rental counter and its
10 vs 6.5 hours.

Then cost factors in and that flight costs ~$300 1 way. Add in $50 for a rental car.

Compared to 700 miles. It costs me roughly $100 in fuel

Now balance out I can talk on the phone and do business the entire way down. Never have to go "out of pocket" Stop where I want when I want. And have much more comfort in my plenty wide air conditioned and heated seats. I drove it every single time.

But I've driven 50k+ miles every year for the last 15 so Im probably an anomoly.

Thanks.

I think we probably need to go back to post #2. We pay relatively little for airfare, yet expect it to be luxury (that's where I think the comparison with Disney falls down). Totally understand efficiency when factoring in drive time vs security, etc., but I think that's a different issue.

Eurail seems to think otherwise
European Railway Map | Eurail.com

Istanbul to London looks like the longest route.
Google says that's 3,038.2 km
Google says that's just under 1,888 miles.

#JusSayin

So technology reduced costs, as a result we shouldn't expect creature comforts?

I mean the cost of computers has fallen dramatically in the last 30 years, should we just learn to live with slow processing speeds?

Airline costs are greatly decreased by technology I'd imagine. Not to mention I think pilots are paid considerably less comparably. Etc.

That doesn't even bring into conversation the economies of scale created by increased fliers etc.

Well, you continue to hold the title as the champion of false equivalency. We're talking about two different things here, but if you want to go with your comparision...

We've brought the cost of home computers down and many can get a stripped down version of a powerful machine when they didn't have access before. But if I want a top of the line rig, I have to pay for it.

Airlines have become less luxurious for travel, but there are more options than there were 20 or 30 years ago and it costs less. If I want to be treated royally, then I pay more. They still get me to where I need to go on time about 90% of the time.

If you want to view airline travel as an "experience" that's fine. You have to pay more for that. But it really has become just a mode of transportation, moving millions daily, safely and mostly on time. We, as a market, don't want to pay luxury prices for that. Could airlines run better or differently? Sure, but the market isn't really demanding that right now.

And you can get a big screen TV for 10% of the price that it would have cost 20 years ago. The cheap, stripped down version would be pretty much indistinguishable to the average person from the top of the line version that also gets sold now (which would also be at a way lower price than 20 years ago).

There's a big difference between "being treated royally" and having your knees being pushed into the seat in front of you for hours. The cost for that is maybe another $50-$100/one way. Add that back in and how are we doing in comparison to prices of a couple decades ago?

I corrected that above. The EU itself is larger (3.931m square miles to 3.797). Eurail covers much of it and connects to trains in eastern Europe that take the overall distance farther than the US. Also, London to Istanbul is not the farthest trip as there are stops in northern Finland and Sweden. There are also trips from Portugal to Istanbul. The trip from Kiruna (northern Sweden) to Istanbul is about 4500 kilometers or just under 2800 miles.

Now remember that what I'm suggesting is the infrastructure be built out to chop off a lot of the short range flights and it makes much more sense. A train from Philly to Denver (which is about 1600 miles, so less than London to Istanbul), or maybe even Kansas City, isn't really different than a flight. A train from Philly to Pittsburgh or even Indianapolis for business is. Eliminate the flights that are going 200 miles, and even the ones that are going 500-600 miles, and replace them with a much better transit option whether that's a real rail system, hyperloop, self-driving cars or whatever.

Yeah I obviously made my point very poorly based on your response.

My point was the cost to operate an airline is (dramatically) lower today than it was. The cost build a plane is lower than it was. The cost to operate the plane is lower than it was. And yes the price of a ticket is lower than it was. When you combine lower costs with competition sales price decreases.

Profits are up across the industry.

Yet airline employees today are less happy than ever before and airline passengers today are less happy than ever before.

That's not a properly run and sustainable business model in my opinion.

I'm not asking for luxury. I'm simply asking for reasonable accommodations. Again you point out that ticket prices are cheaper, but you also get less for your dollar.

Today's first class domestic is inferior to the 80s coach, smoke free air excluded.

R&D for planes is massive. It takes 10-15 years to get a new model in the air. You can't, not throw that into the cost to build it. Planes are cheaper to operate because the PRASM it tightly controlled by the airlines. That is how costs are controlled and it's decided what routes are worthwhile or what carriers are efficient or not. Whether or not expansion or contraction should occur. Margins have been crammed down for years. Employees were all taken through bankruptcies and lied to by management.

Airlines are pouring millions into the operation to get back on track from a lost decade. I mean lost. As in no infrastructure investment because of 9/11 and the resulting financial recessions. Yes, airlines are making money, but people act like nothing is changing. But companies are investing in new jets, investing in employees, investing in better tech to help passengers. It's a massive, wide ranging operation. We aren't talking about Disney that upgrades it's hotels in Orlando. We're talking about companies that fly to hundreds of cities in hundreds of planes that all have to be scheduled, maintained, upgraded. Airports where the airlines are working with the local authority to make things better for passengers.

There are thousands of wheels turning, but because you may not see it, or remember what it was like before doesn't mean that they are raping passengers and piling money into big piles for execs to shower with.

My airline employees are happy for the most part. There are over 20,000 flight attendants at United. All it takes is for 1 of them to say the wrong thing and the entire operation takes a hit. Hell, all it takes is for one flight attendant, working for a completely different airline to do something wrong, and my FA's pay for it. That is an impossible standard. People are individuals, and try as you might, there will always be some person, or some situation that gets out of hand. You cannot micromanage the personalities out of people. Are there plenty of FA's that should probably move on, hell fucking yeah, but unless you want the govt to come in and allow discrimination to where the airlines can age out, or size out FA's it's not happening. I'm not even talking about gate agents, or pilots. That's an organization of hundreds of thousands in one company that is expected to never have a bad day. And if they do, someone with a cell phone will be there to record it and demand millions because of it. I can't wait until I can do that to everyone else.

It's totally a sustainable business because there are survivors that have made it decades. It's going to change, for sure. They already are looking at reducing the number of pilots from 2 to 1 or 0.

Then this...

Where are those airlines now? Gone. Almost all of them. Regulation provided profitable airlines at 65% load factors. Now, with deregulation, airlines need to be nearly 92-93% load factors to maintain profitability. That is the straight change in ticket price and efficiency. Yes, deregulation made the industry more competitive, made it cheaper, made it more efficient. The result was that those airlines in the 80's thought they could survive with the same operation, but they all went away. We have now, what we have because it's what the industry will bear.

It's a massively complex, way more than meets the eye operation. Every day, flight after flight, we get most places on time, and safe.

The idea that flying is comparable as an operation to trains is laughable. Trains don't worry about volume delays into the train station on the level we do, because if a train has to wait, it doesn't run out of gas and fall out of the sky. Trains don't worry about weather, in such a way that it keeps you from leaving. Trains don't lose power and make emergency landings. No shit, someone once asked me if we fly on cables in the sky. That's how the public views flying. Like it's some kind of magic show where we make up a lot of shit, but only they know the real truth.

Like EF up above who totally knows all the lies about emergency equipment and how it wasn't a real emergency because they didn't do what he thought they should. I mean, what am I supposed to say? He totally knows.

Reasonable accommodations.

I'll admit that the flying experience from check in to boarding is fucking stress ridden and bullshit. It's crowded, busy, loud, you can't ever seem to do it right. You need a the right identification....hey KY resident, yeah, your drivers license won't work anymore because your governor is a jackass who vetoed the bill that was going to resolve this, so now, you're going to need your birth certificate or a passport. This starts next year. Most of that isn't the fault of the airline, it's the result of the FAA, and TSA and learning from what people will do and still want to do to airplanes. I pretty much despise the TSA. I talk as little as possible to them, I say thank you, but when I'm a passenger it almost always seems like I'm about ready to get into a fight with them because they act like jackasses.

The domestic operation and the international operation work almost like 2 different airlines. Each international 777 flight costs us 1 million dollars to operate. How many of those per day, every day. It's crazy. I read through this and it's over-generalization after over-generalization as if those things would remedy all the problems. Take things as part of the bigger puzzle. A gate agent in LA isn't going to be the same as a gate agent in BUF no matter how you train them. You can't turn them all into robots. Not yet anyway.

Airlines have changed the American experience. You don't have to fly on them. I much prefer to drive where I can, but they play a vital part to our economy and to our way of life.

FWIW, I don't think there is a single thing wrong with the banking industry either. So there!

I strongly suggest people watch the PBS miniseries from earlier this year on the airline industry. It really is as complex as it is massive. That's a big part of why I push for alternate means of travel for shorter distances. Save the complexity for cross country or international flights and charge accordingly.

I think the smartest way to approach it nationally is to work out a meaningful formula that places time as the biggest factor. With the added time air travel takes, figure out where the threshold is for high speed rail, driving, or whatever and drill that into people's heads while adjusting the infrastructure to match it. If the difference in time ceases to be statistically significant at 500 miles, then build for trains to hit the major travel points that are less than that. If it's 1000 miles, then aim for the trips that are less than that. Find that level and build a multi-modal transit system that makes sense.

A better train system would have been a great area to focus on for a new President who was supposedly going to take advantage of historically low borrowing rates to invest in the infrastructure of this country.

That being said, I think we're too far past the point for this to be feasible, at least in a large portion of this country where you just won't be able to start laying down high speed-capable tracks through fairly decent sized cities. We're just too late in trying.

Hyperloop?

If there was one, private industry would have already attempted it.

Alas ... and the one thing I figure could actually make a more miserable experience out of travel than the airlines (and the associated gov't entities already involved, to be fair & thorough) would be the government to do it.

Underground transport system that Elon Musk dreamed up. They've now run tests and he just got verbal approval from the federal government to build the DC to NY line of it. Supposedly will be able to go NY to DC in 29 minutes.

Elon Musk says he has ‘verbal govt approval’ for D.C.-to-New York Hyperloop - The Washington Post

Was a response to Logan in regards laying track down in cities

A good 50+% of the problems and absurdities with airline travel could be solved by eliminating the security theater we've implemented post 9/11.

Most air travel inconveniences aren't a big deal to me. I think we romanticize the old days a little bit, I'd much rather get where I want to be cheaper, and I love having all of the technology that makes traveling easier - knowing where my flights are at any second, being able to get online at airports, being able to arrange ground transportation and knowing where the best place to kill time at any particular airport is, having the tools to quickly mitigate any delays or travel interruption.

It also helps to live next to a smaller airport where the time to get through security averages about 3 minutes, including the line. Though I still haven't seen these multi-hour security lines people talk about even when coming back through bigger airports.

But the one thing I find completely unacceptable, and which fortunately hasn't happened to me yet, is sitting out on the tarmac for hours. I think the newer DOT rules have helped with this, and reading around it looks like long tarmac delays are down significantly from 2009 peaks, and maybe we don't have as many issues like this as we used to:

'You can't do this to us': Fuming passengers stuck on planes for hours call 911 - Ottawa - CBC News

But, you still sometimes hear about it. I can entertain myself in the airport, but stick me on a hot plane for 5 hours and I might hit a breaking point.

The airlines have been great at re-routing me automatically when I miss connections due to delays. There have been times when I see I'm going to miss my connection, I get in that long, angry line at the customer service desk, but then I check the airline app and see that they've already re-booked me and I don't have to wait in that line. I wonder how many pissed people in that line didn't have to be there if they were better prepared. It's great to have those tools. I remember in 80s once being stranded somewhere and being tracked down by a airline staffer in a restaurant after she figured out a way to get us home. Great service, she must have ran all over the airport looking for us - but I'm glad we're not in that era anymore.

I don't really have a hard time with security. I mean, once you fly long enough, you understand what needs to be done, what shouldn't be done, etc.

Yes, I've had had things confiscated - a battery pack (in China), some toiletries, etc. But seriously, if you're not being a jackass, odds are they won't be a jackass to you.

I've been "randomly" selected for pat downs around 50% of the time. Oddly, about 20% of the time I've been told I don't have to go through the line and have been fast tracked through. I have no idea why either has happened.

I'm not saying there aren't valid complaints but this is still how I feel most of the time in regards to airline travel.

I bring candy for the flight attendants and have been treated like a king on every flight.

Great idea, I'm going to try it.

What type of candy and how many FA do you give them to?

Hah, same here. Beijing airport, apparently anything over 10 whatever. I tossed by battery pack into a bin that was full of battery packs!

Kisses or any kind of bagged mini works great. Just give it to the lead when you get on the plane. Never expected, always appreciated.

Just got off a Delta flight. Upgraded to First class and dinner was nice (I do like airplane business class meals).

However, the flight attendant was an older lady, hair in a bun, and best way I can describe it is a "school marm" look & attitude. Dropped off my tray without a word. Picked up my tray without a word (nor asked if I wanted anything else to drink). On approach, gave me my jacket without a word.

I know I'm stereotyping but its just another data point on inconsistent service.

I am going to try giving candy/kisses and will report back sometime.

This is a fantastic article on the metrics and dynamics of how airline travel has changed and the wide reaching effects on employees and passengers. The topic gets dense, because it is, so be forewarned, but the scope is broad and accurate. I've lived it. There are a couple spots where It misses and It feels like It ended to quickly without a sufficient summary, but otherwise, it definitely hits the mark.

How we ruined airline jobs.

I'm all for this being tossed. He paid for the travel and if he doesn't want to complete the full leg its his prerogative.

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/l...ntl/index.html

So to our resident commercial pilot, what say you re: Boeing 737 Max?

What I've said all along.



The majority of the problem is on the pilots and the training quality and culture of foreign operators. I flew the plane the last day before it was grounded and it's really nice. Boeing did screw up though. The inclusion of a new system that was on included in the initial training, or how to handle it in the event of a system failure was also not included. The manufacturer assumed that pilots would treat is as a similar failure, which it is, sort of, and if they did, it resolves the problem and regains control, but in the Lion Air instance, that company was also at fault for not addressing the concerns of a previous crew regarding the problems they were having. The Lion Air pilots were not experienced, and without being able to speak to their training I can only assume it was similar to Asian carriers, who for years have taught pilots to fly the automation as the most important thing. Pilots in the US are trained to fly first, then deal with the automation, but that isn't the standard elsewhere. Africa is notorious as one of the most dangerous places to fly, but Ethiopian is actually one of the safest in the region. Similarities point to similar system issues, but pilot response to the emergency will be a critical item to look at. I am confident the plane is safe. US carriers have pilots who are very well trained and will be able to deal with the failure should it occur here. I would not have a problem flying it again today.



This article in the Seattle Times yesterday gives a very good accounting of the entire situation.


Flawed analysis, failed oversight: How Boeing, FAA certified the suspect 737 MAX flight control system | The Seattle Times

My bad, I thought you went back to school for computer science

While i trust your judgement on this, i think the more important takeaway here is the lack of division of production/inspection ('church and state' sort of thing). I mean, who is to say the same thing won't lead to issues that can't ultimately be boiled down to "minor issue that is heightened by lack of pilot training" ?

I think that was where the article was going. There's a real limit to the amount of self regulation that a company is going to do. That has been shown time and again in various industries. Deregulation does have real world consequences in the right places. This may not be true deregulation, but when you start taking money away from instpections, or push less, the idea that a company needs oversight to comply, you open the door for massive fraud and corruption.

Thanks for your perspective.

The industry is constantly getting nailed by people who love to complain about it, but so much is missed that is done so well. I'm not sure if you're aware of the story of the jumpseater who was commuting to work for his last trip with Mesa Airlines before starting his career with United. He was killed when the plane crashed outside of Houston. I have speculation on the crash itself, and I think it's pretty clear why nobody is talking about it, but that's not really the point here. Instead the point is how United handled it. They presented his wings with his new hire class in training and last night flew his ashes to his family in Columbia.


https://www.gofundme.com/sean-archuletas-family


Good Morning Everyone,

Last night our Mesa Family was able to pay tribute to Captain Sean Archuleta by sending the ashes to his wife on his last flight from Houston to Colombia. Special thanks to every single member who attended the last flight and United Airlines for making it possible.

Attached you may find pictures of this special tribute. God Bless you all for supporting this noble cause that has gathered our aviation community.

Best Regards,

Yoandy

Nice tribute.

Not sure how this is possible, flew north instead of south:

British Airways flight mistakenly lands in Scotland instead of Germany

Pretty sure I get what you're saying, but my question is a little different. If it is what I think it is, does the company bear responsibility for the pilot's actions?

Not knowing the particulars of US law that well, and only based on speculation, I'd have to say possibly. This article is a different country, but the arguments raised could be the same.



Germanwings Plane Crash: Airline Could Be Legally Liable | Fortune



FWIW, the preliminary results released by the NTSB do not contradict my theory one bit.

Wonder if this will work in the US?

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/a...cli/index.html

Just my 2 cents here, but this country has the largest highway system pretty much anywhere, and anyone driving on it has to have seen all that dead space along the sides and in some areas even right down the center.

Why, oh WHY do we not have a high end rail system that quite literally runs adjacent to all these gigantic highways?

They connect every major city, it seems like a no brainer.

National rail system. Part of the National Highway system.

LEts get train-ing.

Airlines already provide lighter choice (low fat) options for (flight) crews to choose from. I don't think the FA's get a choice (other airlines maybe?). We also have cultural choices like Kosher, Hindu, Veg, Muslim, and the Far East crews can get Japanese meals. Additionally, we can request preferences of chicken, beef. Breakfasts can be cereal, or oatmeal if you don't want the standard. Of course, the airlines themselves have no control over what crews eat, and they can't discriminate.

It isn't a thing here because it isn't particularly desirable. Among other things, we have more faith in our ability to get ourselves places by land than we do in other people to do the same.

And the cost - again, due to the scale.

And, honestly, who in their right g.d. mind wants to be stuck on a fucking train with people?

Its no different than being stuck on a plain, and if the train breaks down at least you can walk OUTSIDE....lol

I completely agree we should but ... We don't because FORD, CHEVY and DODGE have aggressively and successfully convinced everyone, for generations, that the automobile is the AMERICAN way to travel.

You can always walk when you're stuck on a plain.

HAH!

Sorry, there's no way train travel ever works in the US at a large scale. For a start, just due to the distances you need insanely high speed trains. Look at the places where high speed trains work, you have incredibly high levels of funding from local and state governments, and that's never going to fly in the US. The UK has got itself into a terrible mess over electrified high speed trains and have spent the last 5 years basically making the scope smaller and smaller and smaller due to delays and cost overruns, and that's a country that prioritizes public transport and is the size of Colorado or Nevada.

And let's say you spend those hundreds of billions of dollars to put high speed trains between every major city in the US, and the absolute army of maintenance workers and technicians to keep it up and running through thousands of miles of nothingness, you've basically still just created what is essentially a much slower but possibly a bit cheaper plane network and nobody is going to use it.

I do think some expansion of regional rail does make sense (I was genuinely disappointed to see the SF - LA high speed link bite the dust, even if it was going to be a corrupt expensive clusterfuck even by California standards) and it has never made sense to me that one of the Casinos doesn't built a high speed link connecting Vegas and LA (well, I do know why not and that's because California won't let those tax dollars leave the state even easier) but on a national interstate level? Just never going to happen.

DOLA - for speed comparison, the fastest section of the bullet train network goes around 200mph. An average cruising speed for a passenger jet is 575mph. So even getting to the airport and getting out of the airport, your journey is probably going to triple or quadruple in time. Nobody who isn't travelling without any consideration for schedule is going to do that.

You haven't sat in many coffee shops with hipsters....have you....

I've always thought it would be nice to have a bullet train system. The key would be start small with select big cities and tourist areas (e.g. Orlando) and then grow it.

It takes me <2 hours flight from Atlanta to NY.

Distance wise its approx 900 miles. If a bullet train @200mph can get me there in 5 hours, I would maybe consider it for work and definitely for pleasure.

Atlanta to Orlando is about 400 miles. I would definitely travel to Orlando in a train for pleasure.

Maybe one of these days in an infrastructure program.

Yeah, I tend to always add about 2 hours to my flights (because I'm the type of person who shows up to the airport 2 hours before my flight to give me loads of time to get through security). But I guess you could add a half hour getting out of the airport to the pick up area.

I'd imagine with a bullet train you could add a half hour to get there early (the security isn't close to as bad).

So a 5.5 hour all inclusive train trip vs. a 4.5 hour plan trip, I'd seriously weigh the train if it was cheaper.

That's not really a realistic depiction of how trains work though. If you can get an express bullet train that doesn't stop or have to wait for any other trains between those two points, then maybe you can roughly use that 200mph as a calculation.

Smaller countries work again because the distances are small enough they can build it economically and because there are a limited number of major destinations. For every person who wants to go Atlanta to New York there's a person who wants to go Atlanta to Boston, or Atlanta to DC or Atlanta to Chicago etc... it's going to be a regional network connected together with stops and with changes and it's going to suck. The economics just aren't going to line up.

Yeah because in America we always gotta get there quick. Everyone is always in a hurry, I get it. 'Yippee I got here now I can piss around on my phone for 2 hours, before my meeting starts'.

Look I understand it takes longer than flying and the economics are not favorable, at least currently. But the current means by which we travel has a shelf life. Trains could be the next shelf.

They are going to build a hyper loop train from St Louis to Kansas City. A 300+ mile trip would take about 30 minutes.

Yuck.

500 - Internal Server Error

So there has been a lot of speculation about the 737 Max. I've gotten a lot of questions about it, especially as the delay of it's return has gotten longer. In fact, it's grounding is now keeping me from advancing my career. I've been asked my opinion on the plane, since this is what I fly, and I've flow it one time. The day before it was grounded.



What I've said was, "that Boeing fucked up, but the plane is good, and the plane is safe. It's the pilots, and they way that they were trained, and the way that they are encouraged to operate outside of the US that is the genesis of the problems. The pilots made grave errors, that pilots here in the states are trained, from early on in our pilot careers, to overcome. So while the plane created a problem, the failure of the pilots, who should have been able to manage it, were the main culprits."


This article in the Time today is the exact thing I've said all along. It's a ridiculously deep dive, and close to a 30 minute read, but it's good. Perhaps the best article I've read on aviation in a decade. You need to read it.



https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/m...x-crashes.html

This story on the 737 MAX software is full of crazy details.

https://newrepublic.com/article/1549..._y-HiQztf8fI5o

I'll be honest. I can't get past this:




It's so ill-informed, and sensationalist, and the complete opposite of the article that I linked to, which was very well documented. Articles like this make it sound as if these pilots were completely powerless to resist this, which couldn't be further from the truth. If you think that if one little link in the safety chain breaks that people die, you really don't understand the industry. Mistakes are trapped all the time, it's literally the biggest factor in training professional pilots. There may be some interesting engineering stuff in there, and Boeing did screw up, don't get me wrong, but the central issue is the pilots. That plane flew thousands of flights in the US with no incidents. Yet it's supposedly a flying deathtrap? Please. I'll fly that bird tomorrow.

Done.

And save for one bit early on (I suspect an editor's hand), the piece feels well written by an aviator who just wanted to try to make sense of it all and explain it as best he could to a general audience.

It read, to me, far more like something from The Atlantic (who the writer used to contribute to) than the NYT.

Good read, though for a layman it came close to headspinning a couple times where I think the writer simply had connected so many dots that it got a little frenetic. He could lay it all out faster than I could read it (if that makes sense)

I consider William Langewiesche to be one of the best on aviation pieces. I believe his article on Gol Flight “Devil at 37000 Feet” is harrowing read.

If he writes it I read, like I’d read John Maclean on anything related to forest fires.

Not exactly related to airline travel, but earlier this year I started a FB page that showcases the different views that I get from my hotel room while I'm on the road. It's called The Road View, and it's geared toward road warriors, and people who travel, along with people who like to travel, or people who just want to see all the interesting looks I get out my window. If you're interested you can follow it here:

https://www.facebook.com/Road.Views

I was sad for you that they put you in that hotel in Boise. I'm sure in it was nice on the inside, but, kind of a gross blah neighborhood.

Nice. Some questions

1) For some reason, I always imagined a pilot/crew that did international travel did that pretty much exclusively vs international and domestic? Not sure why but I figured if you flew a big 787 to Europe/Asia you wouldn't be flying a 737.

2) When you fly internationally, can you schedule for 1-2 days off to tour?

3) I've always thought the exposure is not so much terrorists getting onboard with weapons but more like a terrorist baggage handler. When I fly internationally, many times it seems Delta has additional screening when I return back to the US. But I always wonder how tight security/background checks are for the local baggage handlers. Your opinion?

4) Whats the latest on Malaysian Airlines 370? I think you were leaning towards the Captain did it. Any change of opinion and do you think we'll ever find the plane? Followup question - have they resolved the problem where planes are often in a "blind spot" from satellites/GPS etc. and not trackable?

5) ... do crew hookups happen as much as I think they do?

:)

You're correct. Pilots are assigned to a plane. You don't have guys going between the 787 and 737. But guys who fly the smaller planes still fly international where it makes sense for that plane to operate.



Time between flights on long international legs is determined by FAR 117 which dictates rules for crew rest. Those regulations came about after studies that pointed to tired and not well rested crews being the reason for a number of incidents. They're quite complicated and are impacted, but how many time zones you've transited, how long you've been there, how long the flight was, and how many pilots are operating the flight. You're free to spend your time how you like on your layover, but not to determine how long your layover is.



That's no something that I'm privy to honestly. I can only speak to pilots who are subject to FBI/DOT background checks.



There's been no change in the search, but I feel like more and more the Captain is still the most likely culprit. The parts of the plane that were found and the knowledge of currents and timing placed the likely disappearance in the South East part of the Indian Ocean. They might continue to find little bits and pieces of it, but otherwise it's gone. I don't know about your last question. Worldwide radar is limited, and it's not practical to have radar services everywhere. Even last night, I flew over the Ocean and was out of radar coverage, where the only knowledge of where I was, was based on my position reports. If a pilot wants to make a plane 'go dark' they still can. No satellite is going to visually or electronically track it. The resources just aren't there. Maybe trump can use his secret satellites get those photos?



Not for this happily married guy. Have you seen how hot my wife is? ;)

The pilot who got the 300k settlement that was in the news yesterday deserved every bit of it, and probably deserved the million he was asking for.

Well. That was quite the night. Was supposed to take of from Newark flying to London at 6:00. Sat on the runway for 5 hours with a 6 and 9 year old and my wife. Plane had to be deiced, finally do that then while waiting in line for take off another snow squall comes through. Have to deice again. About an hour goes by and pilot says we can't deice anymore. Too many other planes and by the time we would get through we wouldn't have enough fuel. they them take 2 hours to get us back to the gate, at which point the jetway breaks down and it takes another 30 minutes to get that done. they tell us we can leave the plane but don't have to. We leave. About 40 minutes later they announce everyone has to leave the plane and they will let us know when control has a taxi time and we can get back on the plane and go An hour later they announce the flight is cancelled. It is now almost 1:00AM. The line at customer service is at least 4 hours. I can't rebook through the app because wife and I booked tickets separately and it wouldn't work out. I wait 2.5 more hours and rebook over the phone leaving today at 3:00 from LaGuardia. We rent a car at Newark, book a hotel by LaGuardia, and arrive here at 5:00 AM. They have assured us our luggage will be waiting in London. Rough night but the kids held up great and my wife and I didn't turn on each other at any point.

Wow. I don't miss my annual ventures in and out of the northeast in the winter. I do the holidays in Idaho and visit northeast friends and family in the spring and fall now. Not just because of the weather, but that's a nice benefit. I guess its pretty lucky they're getting you out just a day later with so many people impacted.

That reminds of me a drama I saw played out in Denver last month. It was right before a blizzard was coming in. I was there early, just sitting at some random gate. Two guys got the gate late for their flight, and the airline had already given up most of the seats to stand-bys. There was 1 seat left. The gate guy said, "I can only take one of you, whoever doesn't get on this plane will probably be stuck here for at least 3-4 days, and you have to make your decision in 90 seconds". It was so intense and awkward that I got up and walked away, I couldn't handle it. Should have recorded it on my cell phone.

So is some pilot having a Snickers moment right now?

LAX-Bound Aircraft Dumps Fuel On 4 Elementary Schools, Minor Injuries Reported : NPR

Well this sucks.


They had fuel to get to China, needed to land ASAP. We're taught to try to be above 5000ft as the fuel will evaporate before hitting the ground. If you gotta land choices and options are weighed. Probably should have just taken the overweight landing given the result, but it's hard to judge when you're not in the moment.

There seems to be so many wrongs in this article. I don't think the full story is out yet but based on the article ...

The woman was not wrong in reclining. IMO the seats are too upright to sleep. I am often wasted by the time I get on a flight and catch a nap. Not sure if its my imagination but the smaller 50+ seat jets have an "angle" that is more comfortable.

The man was wrong in hitting her seat.

The flight attendant was wrong in not resolving the situation and "rolled her eyes"

The woman was wrong (likely exaggerating) in characterizing it as an "assault"

Delta is wrong is not resolving her complaint after the fact (admittedly she may have had unreasonable demands)

Delta CEO is an ass. Stop reducing space and treating economy passengers as cattle ... bring over Singapore Airlines training and do better

https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/w...rnd/index.html

Ah, the great recline debate

I'd never recline on anyone else. I'm slightly annoyed when someone reclines on me, though, i'd say it only happens 10% of the time, and then I just sit there annoyed and get over it like a normal person.

Would I LIKE to recline my seat? Yeah, probably. Do I? No, because I know I hate it when the person in front of me does.