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Author
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Topic: Flying is overrated (AKA: Northwest Airlines YOU SUCK!)
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Phil Hill
I love my cootie bug
Posts: 7595
From: Hollywood, CA USA
Registered: Mar 2000
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posted 07-13-2007 05:17 PM
"It's FUN to fly"...
It's all the BS of driving to the airport, parking or taking the shuttle service, waiting in lines, waiting for the flight to be called, waiting to get luggage, standing in line and getting the rental car, driving to the destination, then returning the rental car and then doing it all over again for the return trip home. ![[puke]](graemlins/puke.gif)
Most times (not overseas) it's quicker to just DRIVE! ![[thumbsup]](graemlins/thumbsup.gif)
For overseas, the best for me was KLM, Cathay Pacific, and NWA.
Been to Narita soooo many times it seemed like old home(boy) week! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I agree with others about Southwest, they're great! ![[beer]](graemlins/beer.gif)
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Brad Miller
Administrator
Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99
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posted 07-13-2007 06:39 PM
So I sat on the Dallas tarmac for 91.5 minutes AFTER the time they said we would be off the ground because the plane had to have some tests done. I was in seat B on one of those 2 and 3 seat rows, so at least I only had a guy next to me on my left. (And of course this guy was huge and seemed afraid of the window because he was occupying half of my seat. I essentially sat there for 4 hours leaning to the right.)
Why did I say I sat on the tarmac for 91.5 minutes? Why didn't I say 91 minutes, or even just round to an hour and a half? Well, remember the baby with the devil lungs I mentioned? He sat one row behind me on the aisle seat!!! So the guy on my left is forcing me to lean outward into the aisle all the while this fucking baby is screaming maybe 2 feet away from my ear. Fortunately the baby only screamed for about 90% of the time, however BABY #2 three rows up took over for him anytime he was quiet! Now I fully understand what TSA's purpose is. It's not to prevent terrorism. It is to save babies lives, because I couldn't find anything around to perform a decapitation. I am going to bring an SPL meter with me on my next flight and document the levels. I am pretty sure that was over the legal limit of exposure for 4 hours.
My apologies to you parents out there with infants if you are taking offense to this, but this is what I call bad parenting and an overall disrespect to society and trust me when I say damn near everyone agrees with me, they are just being polite. That 1 year old will NOT remember anything about that flight and the screaming is a hint that the baby is not happy. Leave the kid with a family member or babysitter! Until the kid can speak fluent English, they have no business riding a plane. This should be a law.
By the time I got to my connecting airport, I had less than 10 minutes to run across it to catch my connecting flight. Do I even need to point out THAT plane was delayed too?
My rule of thumb has always been to drive it if I can do it in 5 hours or less, but I am considering more and more about upping that to Louis' recommendation of 10.
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Paul Mayer
Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under!
Posts: 3836
From: Albuquerque, NM
Registered: Feb 2000
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posted 07-13-2007 07:24 PM
Northwest had a big operational meltdown last month, canceling approx 260 flights due to lack of crews to work them. The same thing will probably be happening towards the end of the next several months, due to not enough flight crews and ground staff, and the existing flight crews running out of time at the end of each month.
Apparently the company set itself a pretty aggressive and optimistic summer flight schedule combined with reduced staffing levels which rely upon employees working lots of OT to cover all scheduled operations.
The end of the year holiday season looks to be even better ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) when the crews not only run out of monthly time, but yearly time as well. Pilots flying under Part 121 rules are limited to 100 flight hours in a given month, and 1000 flight hours in a given year.
Northwest has pretty much recalled all furloughed flight crews, at least those that wanted to come back, and is predicted to start hiring off the street shortly. They are also reportedly recruiting heavily from their own regional lines. The regionals in turn are scratching for crews too. Now's a good time to be looking for airline flying or ground staff work, even for relatively inexperienced candidates.
Yeah, today's in-flight atmosphere isn't what it used to be. Flying has become cheap enough that almost anyone can afford it. Combine that with lean fleets and staffing, and you have mostly full flights and thin profit margins. Not many people are happy with the resulting flying experience. But it's either this, or surface transport.
When I had a car or the ability to rent a car I used a 6-hour driving radius, which from here put most of SoCal within driving instead of flying range.
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Steve Guttag
We forgot the crackers Gromit!!!
Posts: 12814
From: Annapolis, MD
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 07-13-2007 08:18 PM
Well, I won't fly SouthWest unless there is no other way...couldn't care less about any potential cost savings...I'm an assigned seat sort of guy and when I've flown Southwest...I've been burned by a connecting flight where...sorry, we are overbooked and since I didn't get there sooner (via a Southwest plane), I can't be on that flight. It wasn't that my plane was late, it was that SouthWest overbooks like no other (yes they all do it but not like SouthWest). What concerns me are assigned seats and leg room. I'm all for Coach Plus, 1st class or any other class that has reasonable leg room.
If you want legislation, it should be the seat size...both width and leg room. One need not be Super-Sized to not really fit the seats in the plane. If you are tall, that window seat WILL have you leaning away because the plane is curving in!
As to the screaming babies...our kid has traveled quite well up until recently (he is about 1.5 years). He was an exceptional traveler for the first year. I have had the discussions with my wife about future travels though...he was a bit loud on the last one. I too think that if you know your kid is going to scream his/her head off on the plane, then it is very inconsiderate to force that on EVERYONE (and I'm normally into inconsiderate!). This was the first time our little one was loud (about a month ago).
As to driving vs flying for work related...it really all depends. We have shipping containers for our tools. Thus one may FedEx or UPS the tools to the site ahead of time in a safe and reasonable manner. From a cost standpoint...it all depends on what it costs to ship tools (both ways), gas vs airplane and cost for travel (technican time) of flying versus driving. Technican travel time on the road can add up pretty darn fast too. 10-hours on the road travel can often double the cost vs flying.
Steve
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John Walsh
Film God
Posts: 2490
From: Connecticut, USA, Earth, Milky Way
Registered: Oct 1999
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posted 07-14-2007 08:30 AM
I used to fly a fair amount, and while the airlines did screw up several times, I found it was the passengers not listening or following instructions that caused most problems. For example, after that ass hole shoe-bomber guy, the TSA had to require everyone to take off their shoes to be inspected. They would announce; "Please take off your shoes to be inspected." Yet person after person would wait until they got right up to the xray machine, act surprised, ask if they have to, look dumb, slowly get their shoes off and delay the line.
I was on a flight to Florida (about 1.5 hours long) with a baby crying the whole time. This kid was screaming so loud and intensely, people were wondering if there was something wrong with it. The very next day, I bought a Bose noise-cancelling headphone.
The company I worked for had their own jet, which was used for corporate inspection of the theaters. While flying in a small jet is nice, it's really not much roomier than a regular commerical jet. But the really nice thing is when you are ready to go, you get in and go. When you land, five minutes later you can be in a rental car driving away.
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Leo Enticknap
Film God
Posts: 7474
From: Loma Linda, CA
Registered: Jul 2000
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posted 07-14-2007 09:44 AM
Hmm... not liking the reports about Northwest very much, as I'm flying with them the week after next and again in September! I tend to stick with them for two reasons: the KLM/Northwest partnership is the only route out of Europe from my local airport (Teesside/MME) which doesn't necessitate connecting through London Heathrow (which is the devil's own airport, as far as I'm concerned), and NW have always been very reliable. I've made two or three trips to the US annually since 2002, all of them on KLM/NW, and there's only been one serious problem. That was a technical problem with a stone age (well, it was probably around 30 years old) DC-10 in Memphis, which delayed the flight by two hours and made me miss the connection home in Amsterdam. They gave me a 20-euro meal voucher for the five-hour wait at Amsterdam, 2,000 miles on my KLM frequent flyer card and upgraded me to business class for the final hop (only 50 minutes in the air, so it was really just a gesture, but a nice one nonetheless). On one other occasion my hold baggage failed to make a connection, but KLM sent it by cab from the airport to my home from the following flight, and it only arrived about three hours after I did.
Compared to Shitish Airways (oops, freudian slip!), I was very happy with NW's customer service. I had three bad experiences with BA in the space of one winter. The first was on a trip to Australia. When booking the ticket, I told them that I was lactose intolerant, i.e. I can't eat anything with milk, butter or cheese in it. That's fine, they said, we'll put a special meal on for you. Half an hour after take-off, the lady with the trolley came round and said 'Pizza or lasagne?'. I was VERY hungry by the time we got to Singapore! Then I was bumped from a flight home from Berlin on Christmas Eve, and put on one to another airport, 70 miles from my original destination. I was left there at 1am on Christmas morning with no way of getting back to my car, and BA couldn't care less. Finally, they lost a friend's luggage and it took them six weeks to find it. It'll be a chilly day in Hell before I ever contemplate flying with BA again.
But, touch wood, I've always found NW to be reasonably reliable and their staff have always been very friendly and helpful. I can't remember meeting one bolshy or unpleasant NW flight attendant or gate agent, even in high stress situations with hundreds of people queuing up, babies screaming (which they tend to do in pressurised cabins, because it relieves the pressure on their eardrums) or whatever. They really should have got rid of the DC-10s long before they did, though - they were cold, noisy and vibrated so much that I'd always have a backache at the end of an 8-10 hour flight.
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