I LOVE it!! Right on....

MTV

I've got 67,000 miles to use with United's FF program and for the life of me I can't find a time when I can use them, unless I want to use 50,000 miles to fly 1,800 miles through Denver and hope that my connection isn't cancelled. I tried to use one ticket last year, booked it and the whole nine yards. Then the night before they sent me an email telling me that I would be leaving from Austin on an earlier flight to Denver and that the flight to Boise that night was cancelled so I would have to take the second flight there the next day. Turns out, I was only going for 2 days, and it turned out I didn't want to spend one of those days in Denver. They still charged all of the fees even though I never went. (I have no taste for hanging out in Denver these days, seems every time I go through, it storms like mad....even made me get stuck in Rawlins, WY last spring during a "late Spring blizzard-that was driving, but either way...) (I commute back and forth from Idaho and Austin, TX on a regular basis)

I hate flying USAir through Phoenix because their service, including First Class, flat out sucks..... But they can't claim to have weather problems in Phoenix very often.

Transfers from American to Horizon don't tend to work out very well, it seems, either. At least not when flying AUS-LAX, LAX-SUN. I wouldn't ever to expect your bag to appear until the next day when the Seattle flight arrives in Hailey.

And speaking of being uncomfortable, I am 6'2", so those little CRJ's aren't much fun.... Believe it or not, my favorite flights are on Skywest on their EMB-120's. Seats are so much more comfortable than just about any other...

Oh yea, and United told me they were cancelling my flight due to weather 24 hours before, even though weather was forecast to be just fine in Denver, Boise, and Austin for days to come. I'm sure it was just so they could get their money out of me. Shysters..... Funny how the seat map showed that there were only 12 seats sold for that flight, total B.S. on United's part. Haven't actually flown them since.

I can't say which airline I think is the best, but I would have to go with Horizon. Free Beer!!!!

MTV,

As far as UAL dumping our retirement on the tax payers, I think you don't really understand how that worked. The PBGC is government backed insurance for retirement plans. Retirement plans pay into this insurance pool, just like you pay into a medical plan. Sometimes you get sick and require more medical coverage than you have ever paid in, but you get covered. Sometimes you get lucky and live a healthy life and never get your premiums back out of the insurance companies because you don't need the coverage. In the case of UAL dumping their pension obligations, the PBGC took more money (my vested portion of the plan) than they will ever be required to pay out to me. I simply don't have a chance of living long enough to collect my own money, even without interest, at the rate they will pay it out once I retire. So your assertion that the tax payer picked up the bill is based on misinformation. The PBGC actually made money by grabbing my retirement. We offered to have UAL transfer our retirement funds into a 401K. The PBGC wouldn't let them do that because they saw it as an opportunity to grab a bunch of cash.

Damn crooked deal done with the full backing, blessing and encouragement of the boys and girls back in DC.

There are some good trains. My folks live near Memphis and when we visit we often fly into New Orleans for fun and then take Amtrack to a station near their town in TN. Seats are damn luxurious to those of us used to cattle car airline travel.

But this ain't Europe. Have to be lucky to live near a route.

To Mr. Ed.
I'm sure many have had a rough go from all of the fallout of the last ten years. The airlines are certainly well connected I am sure, and, of course, money talks. I can only guess that the airline biz is Cutthroat. (Like a trout, which I look forward to warmer weather and catching a few of--and releasing, of course!) Let's hope there aren't too many mudslides (or fires) on the Middle Fork of The Salmon this year....

Also to Mr. Ed..
I appreciate all that Pro pilots do. I'm still around after so many flights. I have flown a bazillion miles over the last few years on airlines, and have had no real incidents. A friend and co-worker of mine was on the US Airways flight that landed in the Hudson River in New York. I watched it all on TV and just about s**t myself until I found out she was OK. I can't imagine what she felt, and never have had the the b*lls to ask. But, I appreciate pro pilots, because I rely on them an awful lot. Cheers

patrol guy wrote:UNITED AIRLINES. It is impossible to contact a live person in their customer service dept. After three hours of trying, I have gone on the offensive and am starting a campaign.

United is the worst airline in the business, bar none. You suck. After making and paying for round trip tickets Columbus to Denver three weeks in advance, you sold our seats for the return flight with no other options for us. It cost a hotel and rental car and an extra day.

The complimentary free round trip ticket voucher is worthless. I followed the rules and booked three weeks in advance. Seats are available, but when the voucher is presented, suddenly, there are no seats. I have done this several times.

Never fly United. I hope you go broke.
John Graham

This is addressed to the airline guys and gals who know the details So. now I am really curious about how the airlines determine who actually gets on a flight. If I buy a ticket 3 weeks ahead the airline knows there is a seat available and makes a contract with me, Takes my money and the deal is now done. Can someone come along days later and buy a ticket and beat me out of my seat that was paid for earlier? I can assure you that if I get to the gate and the boarding agent tries to play god by seating a customer who booked and paid for a flight at a later date they better be calling security very fucking fast cause I WILL make a scene. I won't get physical but they will know for sure I won't need a PA system to get my point across.......................

Back when Crandall was CEO of American and I was free and single, I roomed with an AA captain. He had Crandall's home phone (I guess all the pilots did in case of an incident), so of course, I had it too. One night in Chicago, a gate agent tried to turn my business class seat to London into a middle seat in coach. I asked to speak to his boss. He said "I'm in charge here, I don't have a boss (familiar theme?). Anyway, I said something to the effect, "there's this guy named Bob Crandall who I'm pretty sure thinks he's your boss. Here, I've got his home phone. How about you and I call him together?" By the time it was over, I was in first class - I don't know what happened to the gate agent but I hope he ended his career emptying the honey buckets from the lavatories.

Best
O-2

I always thought that an airline ticket should be like a ticket to a baseball game. You purchase it, you have a seat. You do not show up, you loose and the seat is empty. You want to sell it on ebay or scalp it in front of the teminal, be my guest.

Tim

once&futr_alaskaflyer wrote:There are some good trains. My folks live near Memphis and when we visit we often fly into New Orleans for fun and then take Amtrack to a station near their town in TN. Seats are damn luxurious to those of us used to cattle car airline travel.

But this ain't Europe. Have to be lucky to live near a route.

My wife and thought it would be fun to take the train to Portland from Albany with our grand daughters last summer. It took the expected 1.5 hours up to PDX in the morning, but our afternoon trip took 4 hours because of "signal problems". A month later, another family member was treated to the same delays.

Passenger train travel around here is not quite ready for prime time, even after what? 150 years.

tom

The last few times I have been forced to fly commercial, it has been a nightmare! Coming back from Tampa to SLC (that was the flight plan anyway) we ended up in Albuquerque at 2:30 AM, the terminal was shut down, so I had to "camp out" on a couple of pushed together chairs until my connecting flight left at 8 AM. Weather was not a factor.

When my mother died a couple years ago, rather then fly I jumped in my Subaru and drove to Michigan and back. I didn't get pissed off once, had no delays, and actually saved money! It was good driving weather, not so good for flying, for my plane anyway.

The contrast between being PIC of your own plane, and the current state of airline travel, is hard to handle, I'd rather rather cruise my plane at 95 mph, and have to land to take a crap, then deal with the airlines even though I do get a kick out of using the bathroom while up there, the drinking while flying can be fun too.

Mr. Ed,

You're correct that the long time pilots of UAL who had a bunch of money owed to them in retirement got hosed, and in those cases, the government made out.

But, consider the NEWER pilots at UAL: THOSE were the folks' retirement program that I was referring to. Their retirement is going to be based on federal programs.

I don't know how the math will eventually work out, but I'm betting it won't favor the federal taxpayer in the long term.

MTV

Here's my 2 cents worth on how the purchased seat thing works. Unfortunately, the bean counters run the show. They come up with statistics on each city pair/flight for how many seats get sold and how many of those passengers actually show up for the flight. If a city pair has a high no-show rate they will over sell the seating capacity of the plane by the statistical average number of no-shows. Every flight has the potential of being oversold, some more than others. So now comes the day of the flight and on this particular day the bean counters were wrong and more people show up than there are seats for. Who gets the seat? Generally speaking, the early bird gets the worm. They will hold seats for frequent fliers till about 20 minutes prior to departure. There is a more involved pecking order that I'm not privy to but I would guess it involves what you paid for the ticket. Best bet is to check in on line when you get up in the morning. If you have a seat assignment you should be in good shape. But.......if you check in at home and then hit the sports bar in the terminal and don't show up at the gate and actually try to board the plane till the last minute they may give your seat away.

I know this doesn't help much when you show up and there is no seat available but when bean counters run things that's the way it goes. Our last good CEO, Pat Patterson, (yeah, that was many years ago) would say that if you filled more than 60% of the seats on a particular market then you were under serving the market. Ticket prices and economics have changed that perspective. Now if there is one empty seat on a flight they think they failed at either marketing the flight or properly matching the size of the aircraft to the projected load.

I do little comercial flying. My job keeps me home thank goodness. What flying that I do, I cannot complain. I guess it helps to be 5'7" and not too fat. I was seated next to a fat guy once. I almost told him that from the center of the armrest up there is an invisible line he should not cross with his flab. It was a 1.5 hr flight so I endured.

Problem is that an airline is for hauling people. 40 years ago I will bet that folks were a lot nicer to deal with than today. Wonder if that has somthing to do with it.

Tim

qmdv wrote:I do little comercial flying. My job keeps me home thank goodness. What flying that I do, I cannot complain. I guess it helps to be 5'7" and not too fat. I was seated next to a fat guy once. I almost told him that from the center of the armrest up there is an invisible line he should not cross with his flab. It was a 1.5 hr flight so I endured.

Problem is that an airline is for hauling people. 40 years ago I will bet that folks were a lot nicer to deal with than today. Wonder if that has somthing to do with it.

Tim

I know what you mean, Tim! I'm one of those tall fat guys . But I try my best to keep to myself and stay within that invisible line you had mentioned. I don't like strangers touching me, kicking me, poking me, etc as well!! I'm homophobic, too!!


By the way, you have two (2) misspelled words above .

Now if a good looking gal has part of her over the invisible line then that is OK.

Tim

qmdv wrote:Now if a good looking gal has part of her over the invisible line then that is OK.

Tim

For sure!!

The airlines treating their customers and employees shoddily is nothing new, and in fact is a worldwide phenomenon. The flight attendants from Air Comet have made a calendar to draw attention to not having been paid in months.

I just wish I could just give each one of them a big hug to let them know I care!

I agree that United is the worst of them. I stopped flying with them 4 yrs ago, and do not allow my employees to fly United. My experience of fly united meant I was on the bottom and didn't get kissed when they were doing their thing.

I bet their hand is in the 'stimulus' till.

u know, i too would rather fly the old 182 slowly wherever, and i have...but sometimes duty or opportunity calls at the last moment, and i gotta go. what i do that almost always works, is find out from my skywest 70 and 50 seat driver buddies which cities they go to, and i almost always try to stay on those small jets. almost all business folks, not a lot of luggage, and damn fast. ck your bag at the door, and then grab it back when u land, and roll. ain't it nice though, when u can poke along in your own bird, shoes off, willie goin' in the deck, talking on the phone with work, making notes for the next meeting or auction, and cking in with flight-following every little bit...oh yeah, and having a sandwich and coffee as u wish. spent several nites in the desert when enroute to somewhere, sitting out the weather, having a blast at some old strip or road, on my own terms...total peace and quiet...!