If fellow passengers are smart enough to bring along their own goodies to eat and/or drink, do not look pathetic in the hopes that they’ll take pity on you and feed/water you.
We won’t. And all the ‘hints’ of: “Oh, that smells sooooo good, I wish I was smart enough to bring (foo) along!” won’t work either. I brought along my munchies so that I would have something to eat and drink, and so that people don’t think that rumbling noise is the plane falling apart.
(I do try to be considerate however: if I’m munching on something that has a definate odor, like arare, a nice fresh hamburger, french fries, etc., I’ll do my best to finish them before I board the plane. French fries smell good for a bit, but then having that scent recirculated for the next n hours? Ick.)
I have found, however, that if problems are cropping up (flight being delayed, and what not) that lurking near the podium is a good place to be, if it can be done without interfering with anyone else. I can usually overhear what’s going on (from the squawking of the walkie-talkies to the phone conversations to answers to questions people are asking) enough to get the info I need.
<< Save the Earth–it’s our only source of chocolate. >>
I went to Phoenix a couple of weeks ago, and got through the metal detectors at PDX just fine. On the way back, though, at Sky Harbor, I had to laugh.
I had purchased a new pair of shoes in Phoenix. Leather. The kind that are close toed but open heeled, so you can literally step right into them. The guard made me expose the inside soles of the shoes…and then decided I needed to have them x-rayed.
And then he decided that my anklet needed to be x-rayed too. Black leather, like the shoes, with a little bit of metal for decoration and for jingly sounds. I was surprised when he didn’t also ask me to remove my metal rimmed glasses, my silver hoop earrings, my engagement ring and my wedding band, my metal banded watch, or my mostly metal (with some onyx) bracelets. My WATCH had more metal than that anklet!
I’m not making this comment to any particular poster here, but it does apply to some of the anecdotes and claims made.
Why on earth would anyone bother to fight anything but a gross civil injustice at the airport security? The place and time to gripe about it is here, offline. But hearing people say “you don’t have to take your shoes off/your belt off/search your drink and food/turn on your laptop/etc” - Jesus Christ, it’s out of your control, and in very rare exceptions are you going to be able to convince or social engineer security into letting you NOT do what they want. I guess maybe a lot of people have 4+ hour layovers and are VERY bored, and/or don’t mind or even enjoy getting the complete bag search and pat-down, which seems to happen (as I see it whilst traveling) 100% of the time to the people who protest on any basis.
Unless they ask me to undress in the terminal, try to steal things from me (like my rant a while back about my digital calipers), feel me up, or otherwise do something vile or something that violates my civil rights, I’ll do what they want because all I want to do is get to the executive lounge and drink my irish Cream and eat cute little sandwiches.
My comment on people griping about those of us with roller bags: it’s been covered ad nauseum and at length. The simple summary: wait until the first time your bags are stolen, lost, or broken into, and you try to make a claim with the airline. Especially on a business and/or international trip, where you get to spend hours on the phone to hear how they won’t help you, don’t care how fucked you are without any clothes or other items, and finally reluctantly offer you $0.10 on the dollar in value for your items two months after your trip is over. Then you will understand.
Since I did gripe about this, I’ll just add one comment - I don’t care if the carried-on roller bags are within an airline’s acceptable carry-on bag dimensions. That’s fine. I just wish the airline staff would enforce their own damned rules more often so that people who do follow the rules wouldn’t get fucked over by those who don’t.
[QUOTE=Una Persson]
Jesus Christ, it’s out of your control…
[/quote[
Truer words were never spoken. I’ve been on flights where I didn’t set off the metal detector and had nothing more interesting in my bags than clothes and toothpaste, but still got patted down and had my bags searched twice, once at security and again at the gate.
Now when I’m in line at security: boots off (my boots have zippers), belt off, jacket off, and everything metal kept in the pockets of my jacket except my wedding ring and the paper clip which keeps my I-94 in my passport. And both of those last two are non-ferrous. (Paper clips are made of aluminum, right? Whatever it is, it doesn’t set of the detectors.) Plus, the keys to any luggage locks are in a jacket pocket where I can get at them quickly if security wants a look-see. It doesn’t always save me from time-wasting scrutiny, but it helps.
What can I say? The only time I’ve ever had a bag lost, the airline found it and hand-delivered it to my door (a two-hour drive from the airport) in less than 24 hours. So I’m afraid I don’t understand.
Then again, I don’t have a problem with wheeled carry-on luggage myself, provided that it’s of a reasonable size. What sets my blood boiling are passengers who view overhead luggage space in the same manner that Christmas shoppers view the last Tickle-me-Elmo at Walmart: as something to be acquired at all costs and to hell with courtesy or common respect for others. And having lots of people in a small space for an extended period of time requires either courtesy and respect for others or else one-on-one deathmatch combat, as I see it.
This is, of course, a slightly separate topic from “people in airports who can’t recognize the obvious”, lest lucwarm accuse me of moving the goal posts again. People who deliberately try to carry on oversized bags may not be stupid, but they are being rude.
As if the customs person would know the correct address to the Holiday Inn in Phoenix. You could have put down 123 Main St, how the hell woudl they know the difference. It’s just plain silly to even ask; they don’t verify it, and only raise a stink if they perceive it to be incomplete??
You are a engineering saleswoman traveling to present your final proposal on a project the next day. Your $1000 Armani suit gets checked, and is lost. Because you were traveling all day, you are in blue jeans. You arrive at 10:00pm and find out that your bag is gone, and try to call the airline. Most numbers are voicemail for the airline, and when you finally burn several dollars sitting on a non-toll free number, they tell you “hmmm…don’t know where your bag is.” What do you do, at that point, to get ready for an 8:30am presentation? Iron your jeans and shirt and try to shine your tennis shoes. You look like a joke - a big, walking joke at your presentation, since everyone else is in full formal business attire. You feel like you should put on a hair net and start serving drinks to everyone, instead of proposing a half-million dollar project.
Later, back home and rested, you contact the airline. The airline says “prove you had an Armani suit”. That item is “atypical”, and to refund you money, they now demand:
An original store receipt, with proof that you paid for it (yes, they actually claimed they would only pay for items I bought, not gifts, which was a lie)
A notarized affadavit saying I owned the item, it was packed, and lost.
A photograph of the suit showing condition, wear, style, etc. so they can give me a “pro-rated value”.
Or, optionally, a notarized affadavit from a co-worker who saw me put the suit in my bag.
Five comparison prices for “equivalent” outfits - such as, “Doesn’t JC Penney’s sell things that look about the same for about $100?”
Finally, after you argue and fight and yell, they send you a check for $200, and say essentially “You don’t like it? See you court, bitch.”
Also - check out the list of items NOT covered at all. The list is huge. No medicine, no electronics, no magnetic media, no software, no PCs, no “business material or documents”, etc. Mind you, this is what they say they won’t cover if it’s lost of stolen - we’re not talking about damage to things. How an industry can justify taking control of our luggage and lose/steal it almost with impunity is a crime, IMO.
IMO there should be a flat-fee per bag - $1500, cash payment, upon loss of bag. No questions asked. In this day of scanning and screening and tracking bags, they should god damn well know where every single bag is, and if they lose your bag, it is a sign something is seriously fucked up with their terrorism prevention system. Any system that mistracks a bag and loses it completely seems likely to also be capable of allowing in an unscreened bag to cause havoc.
All the flight attendents have to do is enforce the “size-wise” rules and use the little metal sizing frame. My bags always fit, every time. End of story. Except they won’t do that unless it’s an obvious problem.
In effect, they apply the sizing things like “don’t be a jerk” - it’s purely a judgment call based on the experience and feelings of the Staff depending on the situation. And they apply this far too little of the time.
I used to travel for business up until a year or so ago (never ONCE got to fly in business class!! Waaahhh!!!). The ONLY carry on I would take was my computer bag. It was so completely crammed full of shit that I was ALWAYS amazed that it was rarely ever checked manually. Let’s see, here’s a list of what it might contain: Laptop computer, two spare batteries for same, about 10 different power cords/transformers for various electronic devices, PDS, PDA accessories (meaning folding keyboard, accessory sleeves), Pouch filled with Laptop accessories (Mouse, ethernet cable, retractable phone cord, small headphones, pens, markers, various adapters…), external floppy drive, cd case with 48+ cds, books, cell phone and accessories, more pens, notepads, clipboard, munchies, and other stuff I can’t even remmeber.
The thing weighed fully 40 pounds. But it fit easily in the overhead, and even under the seat, but I needed my legroom.
As for asking the gate personnel about flight status. I encourage it when they tell you NOTHING. While waiting at SFO one day for a flight back to Sea-Tac there was no information about the flight being late. So, about 10 minutes before the flight was supposed the DEPART, I asked the gate person if the flight was delayed (hadn’t even landed yet as far as I knew). She said, no. And of course it showed up a minute later, and we weren’t even boarding by the time it was supposed to depart.
I wear the exact same outfit every time I fly. Originally I did this because I hated trying to figure out what to wear on the flight and fit it into my overall packing strategy, but it has proved to be a godsend in the post-9/11 era. All of my clothing is pre-tested and pre-approved to pass through security checkpoints without incident. I have no pockets, no metal of any kind, and I wear sneakers which I never have to remove.
The last time I visited my parents, my mother got depressed when I came down to breakfast wearing my “flight suit” because she knew that meant that I was leaving. I’m also easily identified by people picking me up at the airport because they always know exactly what color outfit to look for.
My only air travel tip is to expect that things will go wrong. I’m always amused by people who somehow thought that there would be no delays, that the plane would meet their exact specifications, that all of the other passengers would be to their liking, and that their luggage would be handed to them without incident as they departed. The more the situation deteriorates, the more I smile and think, “this too shall pass.” (Except if they lose my luggage – then I panic.)
I haven’t been on a plane since a couple of years prior to 9/11. One time, I noticed the X-ray techs at National were paying extra attention to my carry-on. It later dawned on me why: I had forgotten about my swiss army knife in there. It was still in there on my return trip and the techs in Houston paid no attention.
Never heard of, ummmmm, how can I phrases this, errr…INSURANCE!!!
What havoc could be caused by a bag accidentally being placed on the wrong flight? The only purpose of passenger-bag matching is to make sure that somebody doesn’t check in a bag including a bomb, then not get on the flight. With modern procedures, whether the bag is lost or not, the flight isn’t leaving without the passenger.
My company provides no compensation for insurance. 95% of my travel is corporate. So which is the more sensible option:
Pay nothing, and carry on my stuff and know it will make it there, or
Pay something, and STILL not solve my problem listed above. Assuming I have insurance, and lose what I need the night before a presentation, tell me how exactly this makes one whit of difference? It only makes a difference ex post facto in terms of cost.
My worst case scenario was being flown to Italy to teach a course, and arriving with no clothing, no course materials, no nothing. How does insurance help me then? (thankfully, in that case, BA brought my bags the next morning, and I had one day padding prior to the course for sleep adjustment).
Is it such a stretch to imagine that if an airline can lose your bag completely, not even knowing if it exists or not, that they might also not be aware of extra bags on a flight, containing, for example, a bomb? That’s what I’m saying.
If you choose to take an Armani suit with you, it seems reasonable that you insure it yourself.
And no, a bag accidentally getting onto the wrong flight is not in itself a security breach. In any individual case, the bag will still probably make the right flight, therefore a (non-suicide) bomber will not want to get on the plane. The Lockerbie bombing, and the Air India flight blown up in the 1980s, proved the need (in Europe at least) for passenger-bag matching, because in both cases the luggage containing the bomb was checked in, but the passenger did not board.
On the other hand, if a bag contains a bomb, and it gets as far as an aeroplane, then it’s a massive security failure, correct flight or not. But no terrorist is going to check in a bomb, and then hope for the bag to be put on the wrong flight.
Admittedly, suicide bombers are a different matter, but are a very recent development as far as western international terrorism is concerned, and we don’t know what to do about them.
Gorilla, my Man (cheerful-natured pun intended) I don’t think you’re seeing my point. There is no travel insurance that will replace clothing, business papers and presentation materials (which are by definition pretty much irreplaceable outside of my effort) and other things overnight.
Like I said, I carry my items for both the safety of having them make it there, and the replacement cost. Any single item is enough to justify it.
You are exactly correct. I wish they did, and it gets expensive for me to cover it myself. I’m approaching 600 flights now, and getting insurance on each would break the proverbial bank for me.
Once upon a time, I believe that taking off your shoes was determined by the individual airport. Then, at RDU, my sister flew American (from Terminal A) while I flew Delta (from Terminal B). During her 1 hour taxi, she called and started a conversation about how we didn’t have to any more because she was bored. I, leaving at roughly the same time, did.
Just this past week, in explaining to my mother that it depends on the terminal, our line got bored with people who weren’t deshoeing and just ignored it, while the one next to us made them keep on going until, amid protests, they dropped it too.
It apparently depends upon the individual guard.
Delta airlines, for the rare occasions where we’re forced to check, has lost a bag on 4 flights out of 10 from someone in my family checking something. Thus, I pack light and carry on whenever I can. Losing something 40% of the time is the best record of any airline, and usually, they make it a major pain to get it back. American will demand a claim-check ticket (which they don’t always give you) to admit they lost something, and elsewise not give it back even if it has your name on a tag and you provide photo ID. They’ll gladly send it to a hotel, even if you’re staying with a member of the family and expressly tell them that and give them the adress.
Or, they’ll send it to Columbus, SC, instead of Columbus, OH.
Idiot passengers get the kind of service they deserve. That’s their story and they’re stickin’ to it.
