Why do that when I can book online? Especially if I’m flying Southwest and not American?
Yeah, I fly Southwest almost exclusively when I have a choice. They’ve never had meals, but they did hand out little boxed snacks for a while. I like booking my own travel, selecting my own seat, and eating what I want to. And the cost is just icing on the cake. Seems like Southwest is one of the very few airlines making a profit these days.
This statement just does not make any sense. When the airlines did serve food, the cockpit was full of various food odors, and there are always food wrappers to be disposed of from the snacks or boxed lunches that are served now.
When you fly for a living (some months I am out of town for 3 weeks) a good travel agent is a blessing.
The less time I spend fucking around trying to book tickets, hotel and a rental cars the more time I can spend doing what my employer pays me to.
We used to have a travel agency sited in our headquaters. I would pick up the phone tell my travel the day I wanted to leave and return, and if I needed a car. She knew which airline, what seat, which special meal, which hotel. She also knew I was a cheap bastard, and wanted a good fare.
I could go back to work. When I got a chance to pick up voice mails, the details were there waiting for me, and they were always right.
Where she really paid of was when I had to go to a new city (she knew the layout, and which hotel to pick) or if things went sideways. I got bumped in Vegas once when Southworst had a plane go down for a mechanical. The ticket agent could not tell me when I would get out of Vegas. One phone call, and 30 minutes later I was on a flight out with America West.
Now in the name of saving money, we have to use a certin website which shall remain nameless to protect the guilty. Worst. Interface. Ever.
It talkes me at least 30 minutes to book a trip out of town. GRRR. You should see their low fare options
Trying to book LAX-OAK
They suggest LAX-San Jose (Won’t work I have car waiting for me at OAK)
The return is where this trip get priceless
Return leg OAK-Ontario (OK hot shot how the hell do I get back to my car which is parked at LAX? I’m thinking a taxi from Ontario to LAX is going to be at least twice the $80 fare “savings”)
On my recent flight from Calgary to Toronto I was exposed to the food for a fee thing. I knew that there was going to be food for sale and I planned on getting a sandwich and a beer. Each item was $5 and all I had was a $50. They told me that they couldn’t make change. WTF? If you are going to sell things realize that not everybody carries exact amounts of cash. They did come up with enough change after a while.
SuperShuttle from ONT to, say, Pasadena Hilton is $25, and another BlueRollingBoxOfDeath from Pasadena to LAX is another $25 (or actually cheaper from the hotel). Call it $60 with tip, which saves you $20 in trade for an extra 90+ minutes of travel time stuffed in a van with an insane Armenian driver and six other frustrated, tired, smelly travellers. What a bargin! (I’ve had to do it a couple of times when flights into LAX were cancelled, so I fly into Burbank or Ontario and go from there. Actually, it’s probably just as cheap just to rent a car.)
The present company has largely dispensed with travel agents and all of the primary travel planning is done by secretaries who are, by and large, not familiar with the vagaries of travel; for instance, sending me on a triple-leg flight “direct” to Flagstaff, AZ instead of flying into Phoenix and driving (plesantly) the 105 minute drive up into the mountains, or sending me through Los Vegas in order to get to Salt Lake City. I can call AmEx Travel to reschedule tickets and so forth, but there’s no simple way to arrange travel.
And don’t even get me started on goverment-specificed per diem. If I have to shell out money out of my pocket to upgrade to a decent hotel one more time…grrr.
Stranger
Well, if you happen to be connecting thru AUS, I suggest picking up some Salt Lick BBQ for your in-flight meal. If you are more into sandwiches, there is a Schlotsky’s there in the teminal also. My person pre-boarding snack is the Auntie Anne’s pretzle with the lemonade.
And in that vein, if you’re connecting through Sky Harbor International (Phoenix) then check out Paradise Bakery. Abosolutely fantastic sandwiches and soup, and the give you a fresh-made chocolate chip cookie, gratis. The only problem is that unless you’re switching concourses anyway its a pain as it is in the main terminal and you have to go back through security, but still worth it. I can’t believe that the fast food chain outlets that bracket them get any business at all.
Stranger
They’re charging for the bag lunches now? Sheesh.
I am fairly picky and deeply suspicious of the sort of food that used to be served on airplanes. (Imagine the fun I had last week spending two days in a hospital! Thank Og my SO made food runs for me, since I wasn’t on a special diet or anything…) So I don’t actually miss it. But I am annoyed on everybody else’s behalf.
If you ever have time to kill in Miami International Airport, I recommend you get some delicious Cuban food from La Carreta. Bring it on the plane with you and make everyone else jealous!
I can agree with this for a lot of flights, and I prefer to take my own food rather than eat what they have most of the time. However, we had to pay severely inflated prices for food on our flight to Hawaii and back. On that long a trip (8 hours?), the airline really needs to provide food, and provide some variety. I had a choice between a salami and cheese snack (I hate salami and processed cheese) and a spicy wrap sandwich (I’m not found of wraps to begin with, and when my stomach is upset I don’t really want spicy). And these were $5 and $8 respectively.
I think they are shooting themselves in the foot - there has been an expectation established that you will get at least some food so people who don’t travel so much don’t realize that it has changed. The airlines end up with hungry people and hungry people=cranky people. Cranky people make more complaints and they don’t necessarily realize that their real problem is hunger, not how long the flight took or any problems with baggage.
Reading all your airline gripes makes me glad it’s been almost 10 years since I flew regularly. (only twice in the last decade) And it makes me wonder what has happened to MidWest Express? I used to fly them several times a year and always looked forward to it. They only used to cost 10-20$ more than other airlines and that money was worth every extra penny.
They had business seating in all their planes that were large enough for me (at 6’2") to not be cramped. Their food was actually good! It wasn’t gourmet by any means, but it was as good (or better) as anything I’d buy in a store. And they gave 2 warm chocolate chip cookies to everybody for dessert.
I see with Google that they still exist, but how’s their price vs service? If any Dopers fly them, please let me know (just to sate my curiousity, not because I am planning on flying anywhere soon.)
Well, they’re Midwest Airlines now. They’re okay–still better than the competition–but not as good as they used to be. The cookies are no longer cooked on board, and they don’t serve them with complementary milk or wine any more. They don’t serve food on china anymore, but the main service planes–MD-80s–still have the business class seating.
The also have an economy class, called Super Saver and flying Boeing 717s, which is about on par with the better cattle truck airlines. Cramped seating, no meal service, and I don’t think they even handed out cookies on my last flight. The attendants are generally more friendly, though, and they do have one of the better on-time flight records, unlike ATA or bloody furgin’ Northwest, which can almost be guaranteed to be delayed on one flight out of three.
Stranger
Well, not exactly the same. The airlines don’t bar you from bringing in your own food the way movie theaters do (“least. enforced policy. ever”). Won’t it be fun when the regulations are rewritten to forbid passengers from providing their own food, ostensibly because of the risk of violating apple maggot quarantine or other agricultural rules, or for some anti-terrorist reason. I admit, I can’t come up with even a lame rationalization under the auspices of the latter, but allegedly stodgy bureaucrats have proven to be quite imaginative in the area of justifying stupid rules.
This is part of an interesting trend. Pre-packaged, prepared snack foods are being offered instead of traditional meals. It’s not just on airplanes. Have you been on the train lately? Well of course not. That’s just silly. But if you had, you would notice how much they are relying on vending machines to supply meals to their passengers. School cafeterias do the same thing. In each case, there is more money to be made by giving clients access to junk food, which is usually reasonably tasty and reliable, instead of preparing meals which can be unreliable and often unpleasant. The next time you’re cinsidering the obesity epidemic in this country (as I know everyone so frequently is), consider that as part of the reason. I don’t think anybody is being a villain in this; it’s just one of those trends everyone seems to be contributing to.
I don’t mind the no food service. And when I book on line, it usually says right by the flight info what meals, if any, are served. At least when I bring my own I get what I want; much of the time the airline food contained some item I am either allergic to or hate. Besides, I have to be at the airport 90 minutes before the flight anyway; if I didn’t pack anything I can buy something on the ground.
On flights of less than 4 hours, what difference does it make? Are we so spoiled we can’t wait that long? The usual wait between meals is usually at least that anyway. Now, where one really has a problem is with a series of short flights, none of which is long enough for meal service. But you know that up front and can be prepared.
Slight hijack: Couple of years ago we were booked on American into I think Grenada. Long flight, ample meal service. Turned out due to some problem or other American could not go there that day, and they put us on a regional Caribbean airline for a series of puddle-jumping flights, none of which was individually more than an hour, all of which served cheese spread and crackers in little plastic boxes. It took us ALL DAY to travel, with nothing to eat except those little snacks which if I never see again will be too soon.
That’s a relief. Not that I’ll be flying the Kangaroo Route anytime soon.
I’ve travelled on Qantas, Virgin and Jetstar in the last 2 years and while I hate being cramped in a little seat, I’ve found the service quite good.
Jetstar doesn’t have allocated seating which is a pain, but I don’t mind buying snacks for a 3 hour trip when I’ve saved $50-100 on my ticket. Same with Virgin. Although I could save myself a few and bring something from home. No movies or music though so you better bring a book.
Qantas has food service and the meals I had were quite good - fresh and tasty. And they have in-flight movies.
That’s my 2 cents.
Stranger, thanks for the MidWest update. I’d forgotten about the china, real plates, real silverware (well, real flatware anyway, to use the proper name for it), and best of all, real salt and pepper shakers, tiny ones that I always thought must have been a PITA to refill without spilling all over the place… Ah memories of good trips.
Anyway, as MLS mentioned about buying food at airports before a flight… I suppose one good change that has come about (perhaps because of the downgrading of airline food) is that airports now have decent food. No more ‘airport cafeterias’ that served worse food than the airlines used to. Now they have real restaurants and outside vendors with decent healthy food. And the prices are only slighly high, not outrageous like I feared they might be… at least in my experience.
Put me in the “I don’t mind” box. Delta began experimenting with in-flight meals a few years ago. Of course, they had huge signs in the waiting gate explaining what complimentary food would be, and wouldn’t be, served. Since we knew in advance that lunch wouldn’t be served, we bought nice boxed lunches in the concourse and brought them on board. Granted, the sandwiches were grossly overpriced, however I got to pick my own sandwich, so it didn’t go to waste. And it was made with fresh bread, actual meat and fresh veggies. I’d gladly pay $8 for a decent sandwich over the complimentary crap they serve.
On the non-stop flight back to Hawaii, we were supplied meals. Dinner consisted of a slimy turkey wrap accompanied by some processed potato thing. Horrible. Neither my husband nor I ate it. Wasted money for the airlines and it certainly didn’t enhance our flight experience.