Forget Flying United
I just got back from Denver over the Memorial Day weekend. I returned on Monday. I can’t believe how bad the airlines have gotten since I last flew. Right after 9/11 I tried to fly and ran into a complete disaster at the Denver airport when a security guard let someone slip through security without screening. They closed down the terminal and spent hours re-screening everybody. I ended up missing my flight out and had to re-book another one (my flight left on time even though the security area was closed and the concourse wasn’t open. The Airline Operations was in rare form that day), and wait several more hours for the next flight. After that I swore off of flying--not because I was afraid of terrorists, but because of the crude, stupid, inefficient security system and extremely poor airline management. It turned out the whole fiasco at Denver was a mistake on a security guard’s part, and there was nothing out of the ordinary going on. I started collecting news stories of similar security problems, screw-ups, and confusions, and built up a huge file collection.
After abut a year or so I let my guard down because friends had reported fairly smooth flying experiences, and I decided to give it a try. It wasn’t such a bad experience initially, except that I determined that the terror situation gave the airlines a large window of opportunity to treat their customers--passengers--like crap, and cut down on services, frills, and customer relations. Further the terror situation opened a similar window for minimum wage earning, sloths in the security guard biz to stick it to "The Man" every chance they could get. I saw many successful middle-aged men and women getting thoroughly searched while really scary looking people were allowed to pass freely by the security station. But I was willing to tolerate a certain amount of this in the spirit of “it is for the safety and security of the passengers.” That turned out to be pure B.S. The security situation has improved quite a bit, but the airlines still regard their passengers--customers--as cattle there to come and go at the airline’s pleasure.
I had a departure scheduled for 7:45 in the morning out of White Plains for Chicago then connect with a flight to Denver. Usually the first flights of the day out of HPN (White Plains) have the aircraft already on site and ready to go. The sky was beautiful with some puffy white clouds, and I was counting on an on-time departure. However the aircraft couldn’t land in HPN the night before, so an aircraft had to be ferried up for the flight. Some rocket surgeon in Operations decided to dispatch the aircraft out of Washington D.C. at roughly the same time my flight was to take off rather than an hour or so before hand. I knew at that point my connection was shot, so providently I got reservations on a subsequent flight to Denver out of Chicago. They couldn’t assign me seats because they didn’t want to cancel my connecting flight, and I couldn’t have boarding passes for two different flights. O.K. Needless to say, I arrived in Chicago too late to connect, so I collected boarding passes for the next flight. I was with my wife, and we tend to like traveling together in the same airplane. United prefers just to dole out whatever seats they feel like, and we weren’t even close. We did at least get an aisle seat and a window seat instead of the dreaded center seat. I got the window seat, and United seated a severely handicapped person in my row on the aisle. All of us in that row were dead people should anything have happened that required a quick evacuation.
Fortunately the flight made it to Denver without mishap. Except, of course, my bags didn’t get on the new flight. How could they? I’m certain no one at United had even a clue when my next flight went out. They just put my bags on any old aircraft heading sort of in the direction of Denver. As it turns out, I met one of the very few competent people working for United in baggage claim. He was able to electronically scan my claim ticket and provide me with exact details on which flight would be carrying my bags. I only had to wait for the flight to arrive. File away in your memory banks that baggage guys can do that now, the next time one of them tries to tell you they don’t know where your bags are or when they will arrive--they know--you just got a lazy slug who doesn’t want to help you out. So far, United’s batting average is one for two or .500. But the first at bat was a hit into a double play.
For my return on Memorial Day, the batting average went WAY down. Since it was a holiday with lots of travelers, United had ample opportunity to display their disdain for their customers. One of the things you as an airline passenger have to watch carefully for is that when you buy tickets on one of our exalted air carriers, they are often only selling you a reservation--not real passage. This is especially true if you get your tickets on the internet at the good deal prices. What this means is you get a ticket that says you have to check in at the gate to get your seats. So you show at the gate, and all of the decent seats have already been assigned. If you are traveling with someone, you might get seats on the same airplane, but they won’t be together, and they will probably be middle seats between large fat people or crying, screaming, screeching, undisciplined spawn of some yuppies who have to immediately transport their 2-year-olds to the Ivy League college of their choice for admission interviews for the little tyke. We got crappy seats. I guess we were lucky, we could have been forced to go standby where we have to stand at the gate podium and salivate as they call out passenger’s names hoping we will be in the chosen few who actually get to board an aircraft that day. Dangling that prospect in front of you makes it seem like a good deal if you get that middle seat I love so well. Worse yet, if you don’t have a seat assignment, you could even get bumped because the airline has “Oversold” the flight. Now don’t get me wrong, but doesn’t that sound unethical, at least a little bit? The gate attendant was pleased to announce the flight was oversold by a considerable margin, which is gate attendantspeak for, “I am not lifting a finger to help you out, and, in fact I might stick it to you because you look a little like “The Man. Take what I give you and be happy with it.”
Our flight left an hour late because United is unable or unwilling to maintain flight schedules. Fortunately for us, we had a great tailwind going back, and we arrived nearly on schedule. We were able to make our connection to White Plains with no problem. No problem, that is, except that the rocket surgeon was back on duty in Operations scheduling. When we arrived at our departure gate (an hour early I might add) our flight was already in delayed departure status. The board showed three hours ahead of time that our flight would be two hours late. You would have thought other plans could have been made to keep everything on time. When I asked the gate person what the delay was for, she said the plane would be arriving late. I asked where the plane was coming from and why it would be so late (the weather in Chicago was fine, by the way). She said she didn’t know. Remember the baggage guy who knew exactly where my bags were? Believe me, she could have found out if she gave damn about helping me. So now United is batting 1 for 4 and hitting into another double play with bases loaded and only one out to end the inning and the game (sorry for the baseball metaphor, but this stuff sometimes needs a context to make it make sense). The aircraft finally arrives an hour and a half late, and for a brief second it looked like we might at last get out of Chicago. But United delayed the takeoff because a couple of young drama queens had misplaced their girlfriend, and even while they and several United employees talked to her on a cell phone trying to talk her to the departure gate, the time was ticking away. I guess the United people were also going around the terminal recruiting other passengers who might want to go to White Plains, because passengers straggled into the aircraft almost two hours after the flight was scheduled to leave. There was no intention to leave the gate until every seat was filled. I didn’t get to HPN until after two in the morning.
Sorry for the long rant, but the bottom line is--the airlines have degenerated into glorified bus service that could care less for keeping schedules, passenger comfort, passing out timely information concerning flights, or even whether you make it where you want to go or not. A 25% on-time percentage isn’t even close to acceptable performance. I have decided the airlines can all go bankrupt as far as I am concerned (I’m tired of their whining about how they are losing money. Sure, this story is a good example of why they are losing cash hand over foot). Somewhere out there there is an airline company that can handle the workload, and they will come out the big winner. Let me know who that company is, and I might buy another airline ticket some day.
ACE (Aero Commander Extraordinaire)
After abut a year or so I let my guard down because friends had reported fairly smooth flying experiences, and I decided to give it a try. It wasn’t such a bad experience initially, except that I determined that the terror situation gave the airlines a large window of opportunity to treat their customers--passengers--like crap, and cut down on services, frills, and customer relations. Further the terror situation opened a similar window for minimum wage earning, sloths in the security guard biz to stick it to "The Man" every chance they could get. I saw many successful middle-aged men and women getting thoroughly searched while really scary looking people were allowed to pass freely by the security station. But I was willing to tolerate a certain amount of this in the spirit of “it is for the safety and security of the passengers.” That turned out to be pure B.S. The security situation has improved quite a bit, but the airlines still regard their passengers--customers--as cattle there to come and go at the airline’s pleasure.
I had a departure scheduled for 7:45 in the morning out of White Plains for Chicago then connect with a flight to Denver. Usually the first flights of the day out of HPN (White Plains) have the aircraft already on site and ready to go. The sky was beautiful with some puffy white clouds, and I was counting on an on-time departure. However the aircraft couldn’t land in HPN the night before, so an aircraft had to be ferried up for the flight. Some rocket surgeon in Operations decided to dispatch the aircraft out of Washington D.C. at roughly the same time my flight was to take off rather than an hour or so before hand. I knew at that point my connection was shot, so providently I got reservations on a subsequent flight to Denver out of Chicago. They couldn’t assign me seats because they didn’t want to cancel my connecting flight, and I couldn’t have boarding passes for two different flights. O.K. Needless to say, I arrived in Chicago too late to connect, so I collected boarding passes for the next flight. I was with my wife, and we tend to like traveling together in the same airplane. United prefers just to dole out whatever seats they feel like, and we weren’t even close. We did at least get an aisle seat and a window seat instead of the dreaded center seat. I got the window seat, and United seated a severely handicapped person in my row on the aisle. All of us in that row were dead people should anything have happened that required a quick evacuation.
Fortunately the flight made it to Denver without mishap. Except, of course, my bags didn’t get on the new flight. How could they? I’m certain no one at United had even a clue when my next flight went out. They just put my bags on any old aircraft heading sort of in the direction of Denver. As it turns out, I met one of the very few competent people working for United in baggage claim. He was able to electronically scan my claim ticket and provide me with exact details on which flight would be carrying my bags. I only had to wait for the flight to arrive. File away in your memory banks that baggage guys can do that now, the next time one of them tries to tell you they don’t know where your bags are or when they will arrive--they know--you just got a lazy slug who doesn’t want to help you out. So far, United’s batting average is one for two or .500. But the first at bat was a hit into a double play.
For my return on Memorial Day, the batting average went WAY down. Since it was a holiday with lots of travelers, United had ample opportunity to display their disdain for their customers. One of the things you as an airline passenger have to watch carefully for is that when you buy tickets on one of our exalted air carriers, they are often only selling you a reservation--not real passage. This is especially true if you get your tickets on the internet at the good deal prices. What this means is you get a ticket that says you have to check in at the gate to get your seats. So you show at the gate, and all of the decent seats have already been assigned. If you are traveling with someone, you might get seats on the same airplane, but they won’t be together, and they will probably be middle seats between large fat people or crying, screaming, screeching, undisciplined spawn of some yuppies who have to immediately transport their 2-year-olds to the Ivy League college of their choice for admission interviews for the little tyke. We got crappy seats. I guess we were lucky, we could have been forced to go standby where we have to stand at the gate podium and salivate as they call out passenger’s names hoping we will be in the chosen few who actually get to board an aircraft that day. Dangling that prospect in front of you makes it seem like a good deal if you get that middle seat I love so well. Worse yet, if you don’t have a seat assignment, you could even get bumped because the airline has “Oversold” the flight. Now don’t get me wrong, but doesn’t that sound unethical, at least a little bit? The gate attendant was pleased to announce the flight was oversold by a considerable margin, which is gate attendantspeak for, “I am not lifting a finger to help you out, and, in fact I might stick it to you because you look a little like “The Man. Take what I give you and be happy with it.”
Our flight left an hour late because United is unable or unwilling to maintain flight schedules. Fortunately for us, we had a great tailwind going back, and we arrived nearly on schedule. We were able to make our connection to White Plains with no problem. No problem, that is, except that the rocket surgeon was back on duty in Operations scheduling. When we arrived at our departure gate (an hour early I might add) our flight was already in delayed departure status. The board showed three hours ahead of time that our flight would be two hours late. You would have thought other plans could have been made to keep everything on time. When I asked the gate person what the delay was for, she said the plane would be arriving late. I asked where the plane was coming from and why it would be so late (the weather in Chicago was fine, by the way). She said she didn’t know. Remember the baggage guy who knew exactly where my bags were? Believe me, she could have found out if she gave damn about helping me. So now United is batting 1 for 4 and hitting into another double play with bases loaded and only one out to end the inning and the game (sorry for the baseball metaphor, but this stuff sometimes needs a context to make it make sense). The aircraft finally arrives an hour and a half late, and for a brief second it looked like we might at last get out of Chicago. But United delayed the takeoff because a couple of young drama queens had misplaced their girlfriend, and even while they and several United employees talked to her on a cell phone trying to talk her to the departure gate, the time was ticking away. I guess the United people were also going around the terminal recruiting other passengers who might want to go to White Plains, because passengers straggled into the aircraft almost two hours after the flight was scheduled to leave. There was no intention to leave the gate until every seat was filled. I didn’t get to HPN until after two in the morning.
Sorry for the long rant, but the bottom line is--the airlines have degenerated into glorified bus service that could care less for keeping schedules, passenger comfort, passing out timely information concerning flights, or even whether you make it where you want to go or not. A 25% on-time percentage isn’t even close to acceptable performance. I have decided the airlines can all go bankrupt as far as I am concerned (I’m tired of their whining about how they are losing money. Sure, this story is a good example of why they are losing cash hand over foot). Somewhere out there there is an airline company that can handle the workload, and they will come out the big winner. Let me know who that company is, and I might buy another airline ticket some day.
ACE (Aero Commander Extraordinaire)