Seeing how we were the last flight into Albuquerque that night, I don’t think that ten minutes was going to make a big difference in getting someone’s luggage to them.
The Philly airport…average ‘on-time’ rate both coming and going is somewhere around 20%. The baggage handling system was probably built in the 60’s and hasn’t been updated in the least since then. The PA systems in some terminals are completely incomprehensible. And they’ve got those damn automatic soap dispensers in all the bathrooms.
I grant it’s not as bad as the Kansas City airport, in which at least one terminal, you have to leave the ‘secured’ area to use the bathroom or get to any of the shops.
A lot of airlines do, once you’ve landed, make announcements like, “For those of you with connecting flights, we have gate information for you…If you’re going to Albuquerque, gate B9, Boston, C14, etc…”. They did this when we landed in Cincinnati, and neglected to mention the delay.
Also, sincerely out of curiousity, not trying to be snide: What do the flight attendants do that’s crucial to taking off/landing? I know that they secure the doors before you leave the gate, but beyond that, I was under the impression they mostly dealt with the passengers.
A two hour delay? That is hardly even worthy of the title. Try a ten hour delay in Atlanta, a twelve hour delay in Qatar, and a two day delay in Kuwait on the way to Iraq! Anyways, I have been delayed on dozens of commercial flights, most of those for more than two hours. It is just a fact of life when you travel on flights later in the day.
Whenever I fly, I just bring a big book and resign myself to whatever fate the airline gods will deal me. Will I make it home or to my destination that day?
Here’s to hopin’
My favorite was back in January when I was flying out of Tucson, connecting in Pheonix, then landing in Sacramento. I thought it was a bit odd that the check-in line for America West was about 50+ people deep (Tucson airport is usually pretty slow) and had to find out by asking random people in line if they knew what was up that the flight from Tucson to Pheonix was cancelled. Not delayed, cancelled.
Well, hell.
My brother (whom I had been visiting) had just moved and I stupidly didn’t have his new number on me and if I waited for the next flight out of Tucson I’d end up getting home about 7 hours late. I had my S.O. driving 2 hours to pick me up who had to work at 7 the next morning and REALLY didn’t think he’d appreciate having to pick me up at midnight, then drive 2 hours home so I ended up having to shell out 60 bucks to get my ass on two different shuttles to the Pheonix airport so I could catch my connecting flight.
Which was delayed by 2 hours. Add to that being hand-picked out of the security line twice for an in-depth security check (must’ve been looking shifty that day) and losing my cell phone and it was a fabulous day! Fortunately, I got to the point where so many crappy things were happening, all I could do was laugh about it. I was making new friends with the people on my shuttle, chit-chatting with the security guards as they were going through my bags and generally having a good 'ol time. I mean, what else can you do?
My in-laws, who are in their late '80s, live in Philadelphia. When they come to visit we get them on the first flight of the day, and over 8 years and probably 30 flights they haven’t been late more than once, and that not very late. When you take the last flight of the day you are asking for trouble.
Particular flights have on-time percentages published. Some are better than others.
Meh… code sharing is too common these days to compolain, the key is to know what you’re getting into before you buy.
2, 3 . OK, yes, PHL has been the site of much aggro for me. Specially when riding on USelessAir, formerly Agony Airlines. And they are particularly odious with the dance of the switching gates. Much time have I spent waiting around on the PHL tarmac for a gate to open for my arriving plane, or for my departing one to finally get going.
Independently of airport, USAir has of late shown an annoying tendency to try and compress boarding into a fraction of the normal time, causing much chaos among the self-loading cargo.
OK, so they got delayed. Big Deal. The thing that does rile me about delays is the next item:
Hell, yeah. There SHOULD be SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE in the airport, that you can go to and get a fuckin’ truthful answer (WRT that, kudos to the Continental staff @ Hartford Bradley last summer who kept me advised as to how the T-storms in Newark were causing the entire system to domino back unto itself and finally actually put people on a bus to NJ when it was obvious they weren’t flying there that night). Notice however that what I want is “truthful”, not “pleasing to me”. I know the difference.
Oh, go up there and blow the pilot for getting you on the ground in one piece. I have by now concluded that flying through the middle of the continent late in the day means an even chance that I will be shaken AND stirred at the end of the trip.
Indeed it has to do with the passengers, as FAs are the primary safety/evac people aboard. The “flight attendants take your places (or something like that)” call means they should be strapped into seats at specific duty stations, usually (a) close to one of the main doors or an emergency equipment locker and/or (b) within line-of-sight of the block of seats they’d be tasked with clearing in an evac. That way if a tire blows on landing and you skid into the embankment, there’s a trained person close to the door/first aid kit. Also, upon landing and taxiing to the gate, you want the very first person nest to the door to be someone who’ll remember to disarm the inflatable slide before grabbing the crank to open.
This would probably be a bad time to mention that I enjoy turbulence.
The dropping, the shaking, the feeling like you’re onboard a real airplane instead of a block of 150 seats where you sit for three hours until someone opens a door for you; I don’t know, it’s just so fun!.
I’m in the Kansas City airport about once every two weeks on average, and it’s all of the terminals that are that way. They spent untold millions on them recently for a “rennovation”, and actually made them worse. There’s not even a drinking fountain past security, nor any pay phones (until just a few months ago, when they added a couple with great reluctance). I’ve been to fucking airports in the wilds of Poland that were better equipped and more modern than MCI.
And the security staff are consistently the worst I’ve seen.
Hang on, hang on… you paid for NorthWest, got Delta, and you’re complaining about it?
Perhaps international flights are different from internal ones then, as I’ve flown both airlines a few times across the Atlantic. Delta, while certainly not my favourite airline, is adequate IMHO. NorthWest? Man. Their fleet makes Air Chad look like a shining beakon of modern aviation technology, their staff is lazy and uninterested, and they have delays bigger than any airline I’ve ever flown with.
Of course, out of all possible Us airlines, KLM just had to partner up with NorthWest.
I’m with you on the Philly airport, though. It was like traveling back in time the one time I had a connecting flight there.
Don’t feel bad, I love turbulence, too. And air pockets. Plane rides are normally so freaking boring, it’s nice to have something to make them a little interesting.
I like turbulence (except when I’m trying to drink something) but my daughter loves it. Her dream is to fly in such turbulence that her face gets bloody.
But she also jumps horses over high fences for fun. I think she got the daredevil genes that are repressed in me but which came out in my brother, who is both a skydiver and gambler.
No, the one where the cowboy pilot’s on the nuclear bomb after it’s been launched and he’s riding it to his death above some sort of Russian instalation that will trigger the end of the world. That one.
Oh, I thought Slim Pickens wan another film. Hmmm, I thought Sellers was like four characters in that movie, including the pilot. Okay, so we know he was Dr. Strangelove, obviously, but who else?
Sellers was originally intended to play the Major Kong character, but broke his leg and couldn’t. He also played President Muffley and Group Captain Mandrake.
I know, but I will not share it with someone who enjoys severe turbulence. People who want turbulence because “it’s boring to ride smoothly” deserve to have their bags rerouted to Ouagadougou
