Holy frijoles! Really? Details, please! Was it at least a more interesting country than the one you had planned to go to?
America is shooting itself in the foot
There is also the fact that satistics (as David Letterman likes to pronounce it) can be misinterpreted and even used to fudge or conceal the relevant data.
I can say only one in a million of my components fails but if my product is a computer with two million of those components then every single one of my computers is failing.
If an airline in counting on-time performance removes enough causes (weather, government, air traffic control, etc) from the statistics then they can be on time 100% of the time.
If I and my wife fly roundtrip from A to C with a stopover in B and check two bags each that’s four bags times four segments = 16 bag*segments. If any one bag is lost our trip is ruined or inconvenienced. The chances of this happening in this case are 16 times greater than that of an individual bag being lost on an individual segment.
As I say, often satistics only tell a very narrow fact which then needs to be interpreted.
I remember an example where some university was sued for discrimination because overall it accepted more men than women but when you analyzed the data it turned out each individual school was accepting more women than men. It is the perfect example of how you can manipulate statistics to prove anything you want.
Always take your statistics with a grain of salt.
They can say what they want but I have had luggage lost much more often that the statistics suggest.
Yeah, absolutely (well, a bit under 16, but very close to it). You wouldn’t have to make too many trips to see the inlaws to become almost certain of having lost something at some point.
Okay, point taken.
How DARE You! Alitalia is not the worst airline you have ever flown. It is literally the worst large business ever created. It is the Italian state airline after all :shudder:. I have lots or horror stories about them but the worst was arriving at a Paris airport at 4:00 am to come back to Boston and the flight being delayed, We had a two year old daughter and the Italians love lines which we had to switch from one to the other for 6 hours because our flight was delayed. We could no go through the check-points to go to the bathroom or get food or water at all. I begged anybody to get us food or water. I got about 2 ounces of water which I had to give to my two year old daughter to keep her alive. Once we finally boarded, I asked for water and water over and over and they would just give a sip even though we were obviously dehydrated.
I couldn’t take it anymore so I went to the bathroom lavatory and turned on the sink and drank and drank and drank as much as I wanted. The next day, I developed this massive rash that covered all of my upper body including my face and scalp. It too about six months to heal.
Alitalia doesn’t suck in the way that people say Wal-Mart does. It is in a class all of its own. It is a horrible business. My daughters are 25% Italian and I don’t want them to be exposed to the culture anymore mainly because of Alitalia. It would be the same if they were part black and we had to fly Nigger Airlines. It is that bad.
And if there weren’t enough inconveniences already, as of next month you have to get a permit through this website Electronic System for Travel Authorization.
Click on the application link and they clearly tell you, you will be monitored prior to issuing the permit.
Unreal. How’s that not police-state like?
I have managed to resist flying (mostly) for the past 7 years. Our vacations take a little more planning and a little compromising (my wife doesn’t always appreciate my “stand for civil liberties”) but I certainly haven’t missed flying.
The few times I’ve flown since 9/11 I just shake my head that our knee-jerk reaction to terrorism is to take away the rights of our citizens. The terrorist got just what they wanted and with the help of our government.
All Americans should refuse to go through these security lines, even if it means not flying. I know a lot of people need to fly for work, you poor folks have to suck it up I guess. But there are few reasons why a freedom loving American should voluntarily give up his or her civil rights just to get somewhere a few hours earlier. It’s a crying shame. Especially since we really need to work on our other forms of mass transit in this county, like trains and busses.
I think I’m more upset at the fact that I can’t bring food with me more than anything. Like other posters have mentioned I fly regularly enough that I know the drill by now. When the family went on vacation in June, I had everyone preped before we even got to the airport on what to do/not do. Even with a 3 year old, a 1 year old, and two grandmothers we got through without too much issue.
For those interested in the security of their checked luggage, I happened to sit in on a lecture at a hacker conference in July that I thought was fascinating. Here is a link to a page that has an audio download of the talk. Look for “Packing and the Friendly Skies - Why Transporting Firearms May Be the Best Way to Safeguard Your Tech When You Fly” and listen to the audio. Basic point the guy makes is that if you check firearms in your baggage, you are required to have a lock that the TSA cannot open. I just thought it funny as hell that the best way to protect your belongings is to carry a gun. Note that you don’t actually have to have a gun, just a gunlike object. An airpistol would count.
Oh, and Ilitalia - one of our few flights - was the worst airline ever(not TSA’s fault). My wife spent 12 hours waiting in the Rome airport for our lost luggage which will arrive “any moment”. When she finally threatened to start screaming someone suddenly found the luggage in the back room. It’s a miracle!
Not usually…they seem to disappear into thin air, especially when I need one.:smack:
I noticed. How’s life on the Iberian peninsula?
Oh, and TSA sucks, but it’s our collective faults, for us US citizens putting up with this nonsense which does not make us more secure.
My luggage was lost on a puddle jumper flight that was 45 minutes long and for which I’d been checked in and waiting at the gate for an hour. Even better, I was in a foreign country, traveling by train to meet friends an hour from the airport, and my address book with their phone number was in my checked bag. I had absolutely no way to contact them.
Luckily the airline finally got it together and sent it along on the only other flight that day, but I had to wait in the airport for 3 hours, when I had specifically chosen the earlier flight so I’d have more time to spend with my friends. And if I’d been on the later flight, I couldn’t have gotten my bag until the next day.
I’ve had my luggage lost on a number of other occasions, too (and in those cases I had to keep calling the airline for a week saying “Where’s my bag??!” …thankfully those were on the trip home, at least), but that was what really did it for me. It was basically an overnight bag, no problem carrying it on, and I’m not going to be stuck somewhere far from home without so much as a change of underwear. Plus I’m not interested in risking theft of my stuff, either, unless I absolutely have to. If I keep my things with me, I have no worries on either of those fronts, and most of the time I don’t need more than an overnight bag.
Especially when I understand that the airlines make no guarantee of any kind that your luggage won’t disappear off the face of the earth. No thanks.
Well, in the US it doesn’t entirely disappear. It eventually ends up for sale here.
Cite? I’ve never heard of that outfit, and I’ve never heard of any airline doing business with them. Ours, at least, destroys or donates to charity all unclaimed baggage after a specified period of time.
Read their “about us” page if you want details.
Sorry, I should have been clearer. Cite from a source which isn’t the organization in question?
Here’s some recent news articles: Examiner is back - Examiner.com
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26390895/
I’ve been aware of this operation for years. The airlines have certainly never hidden what they do with ‘unclaimed’ luggage.
Interesting, thanks for the links. I know where all of our luggage goes, but I suppose I need more friends in our competitors’ baggage services departments. 
Just as a point of interest, because I’ve heard this comment many times before but never gave it any serious thought myself: What options do us US citizens have in terms of “not putting up with this nonsense”? Write our Congresscritters to complain about how inefficient and ineffective TSA is, and demand that something be done to change it? Refuse to cooperate with regulations we find idiotic and intrusive, at the risk of being detained and charged with who-knows-what?
Perhaps that would be a subject for a whole new thread: What rights do ordinary citizens have when faced with government regulations which they feel violate their rights or needlessly complicate their lives without yielding any effective action?