You know what really grinds my gears?

[dsallupinyaarea]

Re: You know what really grinds my gears?

How you gonna say you fly 60-70 times a year but don’t have VIP status? You probably have some of the Pilots and Flight Attendants Numbers on speed dial LOL.

Don’t be trying to go all humble on us now, bruh, lol

LOL! nah man, you have to basically live on an airplane to get high tier status on major carriers. The top tier with American is 120 flights a year and 12 grand in ticket revenue.

[WaitTilNextYear]

Re: You know what really grinds my gears?

People whose profile pic [for whatever online platform] is them taking a picture of themselves in the mirror.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: You know what really grinds my gears?

Trying to help a dude at work (on his personal computer) with a corrupted hard drive recover his files, I had forgotten how much I hate Macs because I'm never forced to use one. Dude brought me 3 different discs with recovery utilities to try:

Doesn't matter. MacBooks gotta be thin, so no disc drive. No worries there, I've got an external. Except MacBooks gotta be thin so they only have USB C connectors. No worries, we'll try to find an adapter. Try to login, don't have the account credentials, login as Guest, but they only let you use Safari as a Guest. It's a ****ing chromebook now?

Just told him I can't help him and I don't wanna deal with this foolery anymore.

[AUChase]

Re: You know what really grinds my gears?

People don't realize just how cheap air travel is these days. I flew to Portland, OR this year from Raleigh. For $300, they pinged me 3000 miles across the country in 4.5 hours. It's really remarkable when you think about it. For that price point, you sacrifice convenience. Studies after studies have shown that the only thing people *actually* care about when traveling is the cost.


What's the first thing you do when you're booking a flight?
Click the "sort by price" button.




The improvements people want (better seats, looser flight change policies, more convenient connections, more properly staffed crews) would come with ticket increases. You don't want that.
Is the service irritating at times? Yes. But air travel is more accessible to "regular" folks than it's ever been and that's the deal we made to make it happen.


P.S. - While they won't do anything for weather (act of God), I've always been accommodated for mechanical and/or staffing cancellations. I do fly 60-70x a year so I have some level of status but nothing close to VIP.


P.S.S. - I've never heard of a flight being cancelled because of a lack of seats sold. I've flown on planes with 10 people on them. It's more important for them to get that aircraft to where it needs to be so they can keep the schedule humming because the schedule is tight because.......... you want cheap tickets.

I used to fly ROUND TRIP from Japan to Alabama for around $1200 at least once a year, which typically involved 6 total flights.

Fukuoka to Tokyo to DFW to Birmingham
Fukuoka to Tokyo to IAH to Birmingham
Fukuoka to Tokyo to MSP to CLT to Birmingham
Fukuoka to Tokyo to O'Hare to Birmingham

Those were the different routes I took and I never paid more than $1300 except for one time I paid extra for emergency row seating.

It's really not expensive at all if you book it right or in advance. I have so many airline miles I could get several flights for free now. That flight used to take about 24 hours.

As for service, I've never been treated bad at all, but I do prefer to fly on Japanese airlines (JAL, ANA, etc.) It's just less of a hassle compared to when you come through TSA in the US it's a pain in the *** and they deal with stupid people all day and are all in a bad mood, but Japanese airlines don't ask you to take off shoes, your belt, jacket, etc.

[Gotmadskillzson]

Re: You know what really grinds my gears?

When people don't get up their leaves, instead they just blow it to the edge of their yard and allow the wind to blow it into every one else yard.

[dubcity]

Re: You know what really grinds my gears?

When you think about how many flights take off and land every day, the amount of bad experiences people have is incredibly minimal. Celebs like to go on Twitter and put airlines on blast when they have a bad experience, but they don't say anything the other 3-4 times they fly every single week when everything is fine.

That said, I don't fly and will never fly lol. Height issues.

[pietasterp]

Re: You know what really grinds my gears?

So I get that I was late based on company policy but here's my beef:
- It was the same airline for both flights so they should know that I was checked in and where I was en route.
- The first flight was late because THEIR crew wasn't on-time.
- I was literally on the ground and running there when the second gate was closed.
- I've had flights held for other passengers in the past where I waited 15 minutes or more.
- Not once did anyone at the company apologize.

In the end, I know that I don't fly nearly enough to be considered a VIP and that's clearly the only set of passengers the airlines care about. Holding the gate for 2 minutes (for a passenger that had already landed, no less) could have made a world of difference in my experience. Or better yet, the flight attendant could have contacted someone to make the request on my behalf.

To a bigger point, I'm convinced that the FAA is in the pockets of these airlines anyway so your suggestions, while great for consumers, would never see the light of day.

Status basically doesn't matter all that much. I fly almost every week for work and I had the identical situation as you describe happen to me a few weeks ago, except I couldn't get out until the next morning. So I lost a whole day and had to re-schedule a bunch of workflow and meetings because even though they knew I'd be there a tad late, and even though the f'n door was OPEN when I got to the gate, they already gave my seat to someone else. Ridiculous.

People don't realize just how cheap air travel is these days. I flew to Portland, OR this year from Raleigh. For $300, they pinged me 3000 miles across the country in 4.5 hours. It's really remarkable when you think about it. For that price point, you sacrifice convenience. Studies after studies have shown that the only thing people *actually* care about when traveling is the cost.


What's the first thing you do when you're booking a flight?
Click the "sort by price" button.




The improvements people want (better seats, looser flight change policies, more convenient connections, more properly staffed crews) would come with ticket increases. You don't want that.
Is the service irritating at times? Yes. But air travel is more accessible to "regular" folks than it's ever been and that's the deal we made to make it happen.


P.S. - While they won't do anything for weather (act of God), I've always been accommodated for mechanical and/or staffing cancellations. I do fly 60-70x a year so I have some level of status but nothing close to VIP.

I see this argument get made all the time, and I completely disagree with it. It's an easy argument to make on the surface, but whether you fly a lot or not, if you really dig into how the business operates, you realize that argument is just a cover for airlines to abuse their passengers.

Yes, people are price-sensitive with regard to airfare; as they are with virtually any product. It's one of the more price-elastic products people buy. However, the reason people are generally unwilling to spend more for alleged upgrades are myriad. There are too many to go into here (and it would bore people anyway), but one of the primary reasons people aren't willing to spend more for upgrades is that upgrades and levels of seating on different airlines are not comparable, and even upgrades within an airline can differ significantly. For example, the difference in a business-class seat on an Airbus A380 is significantly different than the business-class seat on a 777-200 or 300. Even the 'deluxe coach' or whatever the airlines are calling it can vary from plane-to-plane, ranging from significantly better to not-really-any-different, depending on the plane, airline, and configuration of that given plane.

How many people are going to research which plane and configuration will be flying their route, and how much better each upgraded cabin class is on each flight? Almost none. Even those experienced fliers that know all of this generally don't waste their time, because the airlines can (and do) switch which planes are flying which routes in between the time you book your flight and when you take your flight. So all the comparison shopping and time you take to try to evaluate is all for naught anyway. Given all this variability, it's no wonder people book based on the one metric that they know for sure they are controlling: how much they are paying.

Compare all of this to buying better seating at a sporting event or a concert; you know exactly what you're getting for your money when you shell out more for a courtside seat vs. nosebleed. It's not like you're going to show up and find out that the more expensive seat you just bought is not as good because they changed arenas on you at the last minute, or the arena wasn't how you thought it would be. Or worse, they gave your seat to someone else and told you to come back on another night (without compensating you for the inconvenience). This happens routinely on airlines, and I can't even believe it's an acceptable way to do business.

And that's just scratching the surface of how pricing is problematic and confusing to consumers; never mind the fact that when you purchase an airline ticket, it's not even clear (or agreed upon) what, exactly, it is that you're buying. What exactly is an airline ticket? You’re not buying a seat, you’re buying transportation—a contract to get you from one city to another as the airline wants. And the “ticket” comes with pages and pages of rules that work in the airline’s favor. One of the better writers about air travel in the modern age is Scott McCartney of the Wall St. Journal, if you have a subscription:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/that-airline-seat-you-paid-for-isnt-yours-1501081568?mod=article_inline

I could go on for literally days about how the airline's current model has shifted way too far in the business' favor and away from the consumer's rights and agency, but this post is already getting to be well past TL;DR territory.

Oh, and regarding how "cheap" it is to fly today - that's sort of true, but it's all relative. Advances in fuel efficiency, design, logistics, cabin space optimization, air traffic control, and route optimization (think hub-and-spoke model) have all contributed to the costs of air travel being relatively lower, in addition to the reduction of services, reduction of seating pitch/room (it's not you; airline seats are way smaller and they're cramming way more into each plane than prior), and implementation of rapacious fees which account for a significant bump in airline profits. You're actually getting a lot less for your money than you did (comparatively) before. There's a reason airlines are making record profits, and it isn't because they're keeping prices low for consumers.

P.S.S. - I've never heard of a flight being cancelled because of a lack of seats sold. I've flown on planes with 10 people on them. It's more important for them to get that aircraft to where it needs to be so they can keep the schedule humming because the schedule is tight because.......... you want cheap tickets.

You've never heard of it because they never announce the reason for cancelling a flight is because it's not profitable for them to fly it - that would be stupid on their part. They call it a "mechanical" or "crew issue", in which case they don't have to reimburse passengers for screwing up their travel plans. On the occasions where they do fly empty planes, it's because (as you note) the route needs the plane to be there for the next leg and there wasn't another plane that they could use to make the next leg work.

Just to be clear, the schedules are tight because.....they want to maximize profits at your expense. People will pay for luxury (look at the resilience of luxury brands even in down-markets), they just won't pay for a vague, unenforceable promise of slightly better than crap seat that may not even come to pass when push comes to shove. If I give a jeweler money for a Rolex, I'm getting a Rolex. They aren't going to give me a Timex at the last second and then not reimburse me for the difference. And if they did do that, and enough times for people to notice, everyone would stop buying Rolexes.

I used to fly ROUND TRIP from Japan to Alabama for around $1200 at least once a year, which typically involved 6 total flights.

Fukuoka to Tokyo to DFW to Birmingham
Fukuoka to Tokyo to IAH to Birmingham
Fukuoka to Tokyo to MSP to CLT to Birmingham
Fukuoka to Tokyo to O'Hare to Birmingham

Those were the different routes I took and I never paid more than $1300 except for one time I paid extra for emergency row seating.

It's really not expensive at all if you book it right or in advance. I have so many airline miles I could get several flights for free now. That flight used to take about 24 hours.

As for service, I've never been treated bad at all, but I do prefer to fly on Japanese airlines (JAL, ANA, etc.) It's just less of a hassle compared to when you come through TSA in the US it's a pain in the *** and they deal with stupid people all day and are all in a bad mood, but Japanese airlines don't ask you to take off shoes, your belt, jacket, etc.

The non-US airlines are miles ahead in terms of comfort, quality, and customer service. You can't even compare any US domestic carrier to the likes of Etihad, Emirates, JAL, Korean Air, or any of the other flagship foreign carriers. It's like night and day. It's what flying used to be like back in the day in this country, before we had only 3-4 major carriers and airports got divvy'd up and locked down by a single-carrier.

[l3ulvl]

Re: You know what really grinds my gears?

posts with too many words :wink:

[TheShizNo1]

Re: You know what really grinds my gears?

posts with too many words

...and without spoilers.


Sent from my SM-G950U using Operation Sports mobile app

[pietasterp]

Re: You know what really grinds my gears?

...and without spoilers.

Yes, it's my way of forcing my diatribes on all of you.

[Caulfield]

Re: You know what really grinds my gears?

...and without spoilers.


Sent from my SM-G950U using Operation Sports mobile app

Use of spoilers in this regard on OS leads to the opposite of a gear grinder for me: when I see spoilers from blzr I feel like a kid on Christmas morning opening a gift of surprises. You never know whats gonna be in those spoilers. Its like gumps box of chocolates lol

[Blzer]

Re: You know what really grinds my gears?

posts with too many words :wink:

tl;dr


In all seriousness, save a couple of movie reviews... I don't actually intend on making long posts. I just type so fast that my words pour into the text box and my mind keeps building off itself.

[DieHardYankee26]

Re: You know what really grinds my gears?

Taking the short exhale after getting through double integrals... Just to be met with triple integrals.

Newton, you're crazy for this one.

[Caulfield]

Re: You know what really grinds my gears?

I love crunchy tacos, I just hate how messy I am with them. I don't know if I get more on me or in me. I have to make sure I wear a clean shirt before I eat'em because I already know my shirt is gonna be a second plate. Then I also have to make sure I have a second shirt afterwards.

Edit: Damn, somehow I ended up with tacos in my toboggan

#tacotuesdays

[LambertandHam]

Re: You know what really grinds my gears?

I love crunchy tacos, I just hate how messy I am with them. I don't know if I get more on me or in me. I have to make sure I wear a clean shirt before I eat'em because I already know my shirt is gonna be a second plate. Then I also have to make sure I have a second shirt afterwards.

Edit: Damn, somehow I ended up with tacos in my toboggan

#tacotuesdays

On the hard shell note, buying stale hard shells from the store in box.