On Feb 5, 2010, at 9:52 AM, Tom C wrote: > I've heard this .. 'The number one reason for late departures is because > travelers delay > departure by not handling their carryon items properly.' > > WHAT??? The CUSTOMER is responsible for late departures? Who decided > to change their policy and charge an exhorbitant fee to check luggage, > so that now 70% of the passengers bring the larger carrier on bags > into the passenger compartment? THE AIRLINE. ...
I travel frequently, my wife has been logging 1600+ miles per week for over two years now. We have friends who are (former) executives at airlines, friends who are current or former pilots for major airlines, friends who are gate agents. One thing I know from my personal experience and from talking with my friends is that there is no such thing as THE AIRLINE. For that matter, I can't think of any organization with more than one or two persons which is so monolithic that it could be described in such terms. The bean counters at Delta, United, etc. try to figure ways to avoid too great a financial loss. The PR folks establish schedules that seem to ignore the possibility of weather, inadequate staffing of FAA controllers or other disruption, in order to try and fill one more passenger onto the plane. The cabin crew are left with trying to pleasantly cope with a bunch of frustrated people who would rather save a few bucks than check their bags (and who apparently are clueless about size limitations). The flight crew is left with trying to get out and away as fast as possible so they don't get a black mark with a "late" arrival. The experienced traveler is left to recall when airline travel was better than riding the Greyhound bus, as he sits with his knees in his face, his obese seat mate's blubber spilling across the arm rest, just hoping they get it together soon and get underway so that the torture will soon be over. I did have a couple of pleasant airline experiences recently. In the first I flew into Flint MI, had had a very tight connection in Milwaukee. I made the flight, my luggage didn't. "I am going to be in Midland" [about 60 miles away] I told the person at the counter in Flint. "Not a problem" she said. "We've delivered bags toTraverse City." [about 190 miles] And I had the luggage the next day. On my next flight in that direction I went through Detroit. Got to the counter for the connecting flight, found that there would be a 20-minute departure delay. Because it was the last flight of the day to Midland, they had people coming in on flights that had suffered weather delays, and they were waiting to try and give them a chance to make the connection. When we did leave, it reminded me of MASH episodes when Radar would yell "Bug out!" We pushed back from the gate, and then a minute or two later we were in the air. I am still not convinced that the pilot didn't take off from the taxiway to avoid wasting time by going all the way out to the runway. We arrived just about on the scheduled time. Air travel may be frustrating, but the airlines still have a lot of good service-oriented people working for them who try and make the experience as painless as possible. stan -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
