Damn airlines. How the HELL do they get away with this shit.

The BBQ Pit
21

[QUOTE=Waverly]
This rant doesn’t make much sense to me. Are you saying that the flight was marketed specifically as a direct flight and later changed to a stopover? That would be really unusual. Even the near-criminal airline Southwest will include the statement “one stop” during the booking process…
[/QUOTE]

Near-criminal?! You have got to be kidding.

This summer has been trumpeted as the worst summer ever for air travel. Last month my family traveled from Connecticut to Disney in Florida on Southwest. We had no problem whatsoever. Our flights could not have gone more smoothly.

We even changed our return flight at the last minute (to stay an extra day), and paid only the difference between our advance purchase tickets, and the price for tickets bought one day prior to flying. For the three of us, it came to about $225 extra. We would have paid considerably more for such a change on any other airline.

I have flown Southwest nearly exclusively for the past 15 years. Every time I find myself on another airline, I regret it. They were even top rated in Consumer Reports last month.

FWIW, I have no connection whatsoever to Southwest. I just think they are a great airline that does what I need–get me from Point A to Point B economically and on time. Oh, and I’ve never had to worry about them going bankrupt or on strike between the time I buy tickets and my travel date.

22

[QUOTE=An Arky]
Direct != Nonstop

That’s how they get you.

Ditto on the making arrangements for carts, etc. in advance.
[/QUOTE]
It was booked on orbits as a non-stop. Of that I am absolutely sure.

Yes, we have an original itinerary as non-stop, both ways. They emailed us a new itinerary with the return trip as a stop over and plane change in Philly.

23

[QUOTE=acsenray]
Just wondering, as a matter of courtesy in future, if you could use actual names of airports. Not all of us have all the world’s airport codes memorized. Thanks.
[/QUOTE]

In general.I’d agree, but there are a few airports that are really memorable for their 3-letter symbols, e.g., CDG, EWR, JFK, LAX, LHR, ORD.

CDG = Charles De Gaulle, Paris
EWR - Newark, New Jersey
JFK = John F. Kennedy, New York City
LAX = Los Angeles
LHR = London Heathrow
ORD = Chicago O’Hare
(And I haven’t even been to half of those airports!)

24

I’ll never understand why people don’t fly Southwest when it’s an option. I mean, I’ve flown direct every time and haven’t paid more than $200 for a flight in years. And I get to choose my seat!

25

[QUOTE=Giles]
In general.I’d agree, but there are a few airports that are really memorable for their 3-letter symbols, e.g., CDG, EWR, JFK, LAX, LHR, ORD.
[/quote]

That depends on what you mean by “memorable.” I know JFK and LAX because those codes have almost become the primary names for those airports, at least in the United States. On the other hand, I’ve been to Newark and Heathrow more than once, but I didn’t recognize their codes. In speech, people say “Newark” and “Heathrow.”

And generally speaking, I see no reason why general interest forums like international message boards or newspapers should use codes developed for specific business or industry procedures (whether airport designations, country-code top-level domains, or U.S.P.S. state abbreviations). After all, how hard is it to type “Minnesota” instead of “MN”?

26

No, it probably isn’t grounds for a refund if he bought non-refundable tickets. Doesn’t matter what the change is. Seriously.

I booked tickets to Florida back in April, for a vacation I’m taking in two weeks. There was a stop in Atlanta, which is fine; we weren’t in a hurry and saving a couple hundred dollars wasn’t a bad trade off. About three months later, in July, Delta changes the flight times. Now my connecting flight in Atlanta actually leaves before I even take off out of Phoenix. A 10:00 PM flight time became a 7:00 AM the next morning flight time. Just like that. And since I had non-refundable tickets, they weren’t going to refund my money. Now, they would look for different flights for me, so now I’m flying into JFK (!) from Phoenix, and down to Florida, and arriving around noon instead of 8:00 AM, which is a pain in the ass, but at least I’m not getting there a day later like Delta first suggested I do.

So, it sucks. It sucks, it sucks, it sucks. But that’s the way it is, at least when it comes to non-refundable tickets. They absolutely positively can screw you over if they want to, and they’ll feel that getting you there by another, more painful route is just fine because they got your money no matter what.

27

[QUOTE=VCO3]
I’ll never understand why people don’t fly Southwest when it’s an option. I mean, I’ve flown direct every time and haven’t paid more than $200 for a flight in years. And I get to choose my seat!
[/QUOTE]

Same w/Jet Blue. They even have DirecTV on their flights.

28

What dates are you intending to fly?

29

[QUOTE=VCO3]
I’ll never understand why people don’t fly Southwest when it’s an option. I mean, I’ve flown direct every time and haven’t paid more than $200 for a flight in years. And I get to choose my seat!
[/QUOTE]
Our only choices are USAirways and United. The only direct flight back on USAir is now way too late. As we need to pick up our car, get our dogs out of the kennel, take my Mom home and THEN we have a 2 hour mountain drive to get to our house.

If we got a complete refund and rebooked getting what we basically first had at $450, it’s gonna be $1200 A TICKET economy class (we’d have to change to multiple carriers).

Fuck.

30

[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
What dates are you intending to fly?
[/QUOTE]
11/22-11/26.

Yep Thanksgiving weekend.

31

[QUOTE=DudleyGarrett]
Philadelphia has the worst airport in the world.
[/QUOTE]
Not quite, but almost. Their security inspectors are the cluelesslest bunch ever. And there’s nothing decent to eat at the airport. And the seats suck.

But it still isn’t the worst. Just almost.

32

[QUOTE=robby]
Near-criminal?! You have got to be kidding.
[/QUOTE]
No, I am not kidding. I’m glad you have had good [anecdotal] experiences with them. I have had terrible experiences, and less subjectively, I also know them as the airline: selectively threatening to refuse to let passengers fly if they don’t like how they are dressed, who has had several pilots arrested for attempting to fly while intoxicated, that has passengers que in line for hours for general admission seating, that habitually overbooks (even more than others – and being refused a seat is death for business travel!), and rewards customers wanting to make last minute changes with exhorbitant change fees or outright refusal.

I have seen it reported that they are on the low end of the complaint scale. I think that is because many business traveler have already recognized that they aren’t a viable option. People looking for a cheap flight to Las Vegas, however, love Wal-Mart air.

33

[QUOTE=Una Persson]
I’m guessing you don’t travel much. :slight_smile: Philadelphia isn’t even in my top 10 worst airport list, which includes such gems as Guatemala City, Chicago Midway, Boston Logan…
[/QUOTE]

I cam in here to say Logan. Philly isn’t great, but it’s a thousand times better than Logan. Logan is a nightmare. If Edvard Munch had known about it, he wouldn 't have painted that guy screaming, he would have painted Logan Airport.

34

[QUOTE=enipla]
11/22-11/26.

Yep Thanksgiving weekend.
[/QUOTE]

I just went on Orbitz and found a direct flight for $446 a person on US Airways (is that the one you had originally?) US Airways 1124, leaving Denver at 7:30 am on 11/22, and US Airways 1119, leaving Pittsburgh at 6:15 pm on 11/26.

35

[QUOTE=Una Persson]
I’m guessing you don’t travel much. :slight_smile: Philadelphia isn’t even in my top 10 worst airport list, which includes such gems as Guatemala City, Chicago Midway, Boston Logan, Caracas, and yes, even my home-town one of Kansas City.

I feel for the OP; I’ve had the same and worse happen to me. It will keep happening, and keep getting worse, so long as folks continue to drive air travel to record numbers by continuing to buy tickets. I know that everyone can think of a million reasons to justify whatever trip they take (except for me…I take a lot of unnecessary trips), but if people did cut back, and did punish the bad airlines by simply refusing to fly them, even if it meant canceling the whole trip, then there would be some change.

Or, alternately, Congress could (and I think should) step in with a draconian passengers rights law, with brutal - yes, brutal! - penalties for the airlines.
[/QUOTE]

May I add a few? ORD (Chicago for you non travelers) at night. At 10PM they go down to one runway. I took a one stop coming home once that stopped at ORD. We were number 50 for take off.
Or Newark (EWR) you have to take a monorail to get to rental cars or another terminal. The people that designed the piece of shit system must have thought that no one ever has any luggage. Two people with a roller suitcase and briefcase each pretty much fill one monorail car. Or the time the system malfunctioned as we were climbing the grade from rental cars to terminal A. As we crept forward at 0.06mph, I had visions of missing my flight. Add to that surly security people and you have the perfect storm.
Boston’s Logan (BOS). In town and short runways. I had a pilot almost run off the end of the runway when he could not get stopped on landing once. Add to that before the big dig, trying to get in or from the airport with non-existent signage on the roads. Even now trying to find rental car return can be a chore.
And the all time winner is Washington Dulles (IAD) A terminal so crowded you would swear they are giving away $100 dollar bills at the counter. Security lines that reach no shit over 1/4 of a mile. Stupid elevating buses to get to the midfield terminal. Any kind of food you want at the midfield terminal as long as it is Taco Hell or Mickey Ds. PAs that don’t work most of the time.

Back to the OP. If your flight was listed as direct, that does not mean non-stop. It is a flight with a stop that may or may not have a plane change. All that direct means is that the flight number does not change. I have taken direct flights from LAX to SEA that stopped in SFO (LA to Seattle with a stop in Frisco) the equipment changed in SFO, but since the flight number did not change, it was listed as a “direct” flight.

On the other hand, a one stop can be as listed above, or it can be two completely different flights. It depends on just how an individual airlines decides to call it.
For a real life example of this, my wife recently flew LAX to Seattle and back. On her outbound leg, it was a direct flight (one flight number) that stopped and changed planes in SFO. Her return leg was a one stop SEA -> SFO flight #123 change to flight #456 for SFO-> LAX.
Confusing? Yeah probably.

36

[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
I just went on Orbitz and found a direct flight for $446 a person on US Airways (is that the one you had originally?) US Airways 1124, leaving Denver at 7:30 am on 11/22, and US Airways 1119, leaving Pittsburgh at 6:15 pm on 11/26.
[/QUOTE]
The return flight is the one that changed and is now too late.

eta - That would mean leaving our dogs in the kennel an extra night and getting a hotel room in Denver so we could pick them up in the morning and basically wasting a day.

37

[QUOTE=Una Persson]
I’m guessing you don’t travel much. :slight_smile: Philadelphia isn’t even in my top 10 worst airport list, which includes such gems as Guatemala City, Chicago Midway, Boston Logan, Caracas, and yes, even my home-town one of Kansas City.
[/QUOTE]

[continuing hijack]
As someone who has lived in both KC and Philly, I gotta say you = crazy. KC is the most efficient airport in the country. From the time you get out of your car till the time you’re sitting on the plane averages something like 10-15 minutes!
Unless you’re talking about amenities. In which case you’re right: there’s nothing to do in KCI if you’re stuck there on a layover.
I’ve also lived in Chicago, and flown through Midway many many times, and it’s always been fine for me (especially since they opened the new terminal A). O’Hare, on the other hand: man. That place is crazygonuts.
[/hijack]

38

[QUOTE=Waverly]

I have seen it reported that they are on the low end of the complaint scale. I think that is because many business traveler have already recognized that they aren’t a viable option. People looking for a cheap flight to Las Vegas, however, love Wal-Mart air.
[/QUOTE]

QFT.

I refuse to fly on Southwest.

39

[QUOTE=Rick]
<snip>Back to the OP. If your flight was listed as direct, that does not mean non-stop.<snip>
[/QUOTE]
It was listed as non-stop. If I said direct anywhere, I meant non-stop. My Wife has the original itinerary. It says non-stop.

40

[QUOTE=Contrary]
QFT.

I refuse to fly on Southwest.
[/QUOTE]

Hell, I won’t fly on any other airline. If Southwest doesn’t fly there, I’m not interested in going there.