SaltPork

So, over the last year or so, every single time I go to get on an airplane it seems there are mechanical problems with the plane. One of these mechanical problems occurred after a maintenance problem delayed the plane for more than 3 hours, and after we were up at about 15,000 ft, the plane caught fire and we had to go back to Toronto....long story, I'll add details if anyone is interested.

More recently, the last three times I've flown (all within the last three months) every plane I have been waiting to board has had problems. Two of those flights were outright cancelled and the other was delayed and we had to get a new plane. I've feel like someone is trying to send me a message.

Anywho, anyone else experience repeated attempts on their life due to the airlines?

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It was like that when I got here....I swear.

feelgood

You should watch that show Airliners on A&E (Wednesday @ 12 noon, sometimes Saturday), you'd be surprised at how easy people get pissed off whenever there are problems, especially delays

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Sage

caught fire? yeah, I'd like to hear more!

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ziadel

the plane caught fire in the air?

dude, fucking play the lottery.

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Carno

Those types of things happen because people are unwilling to pay higher prices for air fare. When the airlines are able to actually generate an income, things will get better. Maybe.

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taboo

planes, no matter from which company, should ALWAYS be kept at maximum quality and function 100% well, no matter what. Don;t be afraid, it's just coincidences..if there is another way to get to where you're going, that won;t take too much longer, take it for a change, just to get your mind off of the possibility of something happening to a plane you're on

maleficent

Sionce I moved I haven't been flying much lately - and I'm not sure I really miss it... The past few years, I would honestly be shocked if any flght I took was even remotely close to being on time.. Between mechanical delays, weather delays, etc.. my time tracking software figured out that in the year 2004 - I wasted over 150 hours in delays/cancellations/mechanical difficulties/flight crew changes etc... 2005 was close to 100 hours... (none of which is billable - though I did try to submit a bill to ContinentHell for a day in whcih they wasted 14 hours of my time... because they had mechanical difficulties on three different planes that I was supposed to get on.

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Rodney

That's another way of saying, "People can't easily afford the fares that airlines require to run a safe and effective business."

Which means that, as good and responsible capitalists, the airlines should either come up with new and better ideas that allow them to prosper by offering safe and efficient service at a reasonable price. Or go out of business and be replaced by something that can do it better.

Being that corporations are actually, in the main hierarchies of timid and unimaginative people dominated by unimaginative and manipulative people with no societal conscience (that's not what they're paid for, after all), the airlines will probably 1) try to slip by offering with substandard maintenance until they're called on it, and 2) ask Uncle Sugar to bail them out, like before.

Meanwhile, teleconferencing technology continues to improve.

maleficent

Maybe --but it's still not the same as sitting down in the same room as customer... being able to shake their hand... and work in real time make a huge difference.. plus if you are dealing with end users (like me) being able to get into their workspace is ideal - -webex and other stuff just doenst' cut...

Though it might be a unique way to take a vacation - just teleconference myself to a beach in tahiti...

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rmarshall

You're not flying on sunday are you SaltPork? I wanna stay away from you when flying. We're flying to Panama City Florida fom Toronto at 9:15AM.

The last plane I was on had a problem with the load distribution system. After an hour the Captain decided we'd go anyway. It was a Continental flight from Newark to Syracuse on a small Canadair regional jet.

These jets have two seats on the right of the aisle and one on the left. In addition, the cargo is loaded first on the right as the cargo door is on the left. And the overhead bins are on the right. The result is that the plane is right-heavy. (What a dumb design!)

Without the weight distribution system (which manages the fuel load, I guess) , the takeoffs and landings are very rough. The plane wants to drop on the right as soon as it gets airborne and the pilot obviously was fighting it until he was able to trim it. The landing was very rough. I was glad to get home though, as I was coming back from Europe and it had been a long day. We missed the first flight because of delays in customs and immigration and had to wait 2 hours for the next one.

Rodney

No, but I knew a guy in the defense industries used to fly to Scotland for a two-hour meeting monthly status meeting, then fly back. And he did a lot of that.

There's no question that, especially on business deals between companies, you need everybody in the same room for the meetings in which agreements are hammered out and in which major decisions are made. But there are a lot of mid-quarter status report meetings, where everybody already knows everybody and no major policy shifts are expected, where teleconference or even NetMeeting is good enough.

Frankly, part of the reason that the airlines are hurting is that business travel _is_ down -- because teleconferencing is on the rise, and thus businessmen are traveling less (and corporations are trying to cut travel costs in any case). Airlines grew to depend on those full-price non-discount fares that business travelers paid to go somewhere on 1 or 2 days' notice, especially during the dot-com boom but even before.

So, as I said before -- the airlines need to find a different technology/business model if they are to offer a service that 1) the remaining customers can afford and 2) is safe. Or step aside for somebody else with the next big idea.

Carno

Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant.

Easier said than done. You think airline managers aren't trying to figure out ways to become profitable again? Many industry folks think that the airline industry is still in a shake-down period from dereg. Nobody has come up with any better solutions, and the legacy airlines refuse to die; so it's still the same old cycle of new airlines cropping up and then going broke, and the old airlines filing for bankruptcy every so often.

The FAA and NTSB have recognized the danger of airlines pinching pennies so they have stringent safety regulations. But still, things are going to keep slipping by, especially with most aircraft flying nowadays being decades old.

Obviously nobody knows how to solve the problem with the airlines, because nothing has changed yet. The new low cost carriers are eking out a profit, but even then it's not much. The airlines are going to have trouble finding quality pilots in the future also, since the new pay scales put the maximum wages at like $100K. Not many people are going to be willing to incur tens of thousands of dollars of debt just to get a job that pays $20k/year in the beginning and $100k/year at the end.

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Catdaddy33

My worst experience was after the trip was done...On a business trip to Tampa during August, the plane pulls up to the gate and shuts off and the door is then suppose to open. Well, they couldn't get the jetway to work, so they couldn't open the door...did I mention it was August? and in the hot Florida noontime sun? I had to go straight to the office I was visiting so I wasn't in comfortable clothing.

We sat on the plane that was getting hotter and hotter by the second, when they finally came on and said they have to move us to another gate, so they start the plane up but very little air was coming out. By the time we got to another gate it had to be 100+ in the plane.

Marvelous Marv

I won't fly for awhile. Five years ago, a ticket for an annual trip I take cost $500. Now it costs $350. That's idiocy by management.

Then you have the unions demanding such outrageous contracts that the airlines all have to bankrupt out of them. I guess the unions think they're acting wisely.

Of course, when the airlines are in bankruptcy, their employees treat passengers like crap. On my last flight, I actually called airport security just to get a baggage agent to quit screaming and being a bastard. It worked pretty well.

Nope--they won't be getting any of my money until they clean up their act.

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sailor

My girlfriend just flew from Raleigh to Stuttgart to see me, and Air France managed to lose the bags of almost every person on the flight. It's like they just forgot to load the bags on the plane. It took her 2 hours to get through the lost luggage claim. Gotta love flying... And I'm sure that by the time they find the baggage, she'll be going home...

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goddfather40

I guess I'm lucky. I've have probably taken about 25 trips by plane and never, ever, have had a huge issue. Only a couple delays of like 30 minutes, but that's it.

By the way, a lot of my flights have been from Southern California to Phoenix, Vegas, or the Bay Area, which are all about 1 hour flights. The short duration probably helps my perception of airline inconvienence or safety issues.

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Grasshopper Green

I've had slight delays and only one slight mechanical problem while flying. I don't fly often, probably once a year on average. My worst flying incident was due to the incompetent, shouldn't-be-working-in-customer-service-, rude, POS employees on a flight from Raleigh to Newark. No, I'm not bitter about that experience

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santafe5000

This past July i made my first flight in 20 some odd years. Had to fly out west to attend a wedding in Calif.
Boy have things changed.
Booked on America West from DFW to Phoenix to Reno.
First leg was OK, just cattle car full.
Had a 1.5 hr layover in Phoenix, then boarded another plane to Reno. We sat at the gate for an eternity(45 mins) and then they come on the intercomm to say the winds are to high to land in Reno, so we will wait for more weather info.
After about 30 mins they say we are going.
We push back from the gate and all of the sudden we hear this awful banging noise from the underside of the plane.
From my seat i can see the ground crew( in the reflection of the windows) trying to remove the towbar from the front landing gear and are having all sorts of trouble.
The guy is beating on something and that is where the noise is coming from.
They pull the towbar away with part of the landing gear strut still attached.
We promptly return to the gate and are told, DUE TO WEATHER, THIS FLIGHT IS CANCELLED.
The gate agent says we are on our own for hotels and we will be put on a flight tommorrow if space is available.
After hearing this, one of the passengers steps forward and informs the agent that he is with the FAA and there are no delays with landings in Reno and the airline caused the mechanical problem and would have to put us all up in lodging.
Boy did the agent get flustered. He agreed with the FAA guy and we all got hotel rooms for the nite. As well, I got put on a flight the next morning in first class.
The return flight was uneventful.
About 6 weeks later, I got a voucher for $100 from America West.
It wasn't the lines to check in or the crowded planes that i object to, it's them lying about the plane and not owning up to their respondsibility to the passengers that i find upsetting.
They broke the plane so either get another or put me in a hotel overnite.
That is the law.
If they can't make money by the fares they charge, RAISE the prices.
People will pay if that is how much it costs.

BY the way, i seriously doubt i will be flying again soon. Cram un in planes and no services is not worth the hassles. I'll drive wherever i need to go.

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abaya

I lost track of how many flights I've taken a looooooong time ago. On average, I have probably flown 3-5 times a year for every year of my life (26). This year was a doozy, with 7 flights to and from Seattle from Philly alone, not to mention flying to Zambia (through London and Johannesburg, nearly 20 hours each way) and Iceland. And I will end the year flying from Philly to Seattle and then to Lebanon (through Europe).

Mind you, I'm not a business traveler! Just a student, and an anthropologist at that.

That said, I have never really had problems flying, other than ones I created for myself (have missed two flights in my life and come VERY close to missing 3-4 others). Never lost luggage, though I did get charged $985 for excess (a major misunderstanding) when returning from Africa.

Three incidents in my life of flying do come to mind, however, but they weren't enough to make me question whether or not I should continue flying (esp. since 95% of all extended family members live over the Pacific or Atlantic, and cargo ships are not appealing! ).

1) Snow delay leaving Seattle for San Francisco. Airline put us up for the "night" (3 hours, basically).

2) Mechanical problem leaving Seattle for Philly. Annoying, but they canceled it before we got on the plane. Airline rescheduled me for a later flight that day.

3) LUFTHANSA, those assholes, made the biggest boo-boo on my record. They canceled not one, but BOTH flights going to/from Lebanon (my itinerary next week) and then pushed my entire schedule forward by 24 hours. A WHOLE DAY, including a 15-hour layover in Frankfurt (which was previously 3 hours). Unbelievable. And they did not compensate me for the $200 service charge incurred. Granted, I had two legs booked separately, so apparently they wouldn't cover the "other" contract, but jesus. I have been so loyal to the Star Alliance, gathering up every mile possible with them, and they couldn't reimburse me for a change fee caused directly by them?... their only consolation was to give 5,000 "goodwill" frequent flyer miles. Please.

(Obviously I am only really bitter about the last one, and I can tell you I will mostly likely NEVER fly on Lufthansa again as a result!)

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