The airline experience has become miserable

[mcsluggo]

i can't go by this thread without reference to one of the interweb gold-medal hall-of-fame moments....    and the 2005 winner-of-the-internet was :   

 

 

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/03/seat-29e.html

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/seat-29e/

 

[China]

VIDEO: WOMAN CALLS JETBLUE EMPLOYEE A ‘RAPIST’, SAYS SHE HAS A GUN AT FLORIDA AIRPORT
 

 

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA -  An intoxicated woman had to be restrained by police at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International airport on Sunday after screaming at a JetBlue employee and threatening that she had a gun.

 

Video of the incident was posted to Instagram by Dre London. 

 

 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[No Excuses]

Stuck on the tarmac for 14 hours in a United aircraft, in freezing weather with a broken aircraft door, is my personal hell. 

 

Another winner from our major airlines:

 

https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/20/us/united-flight-canada-grounded/index.html 

[Xameil]

Sorry...that's more on the customs rules than the airline. I've had colleagues have the same issue with other airlines when they have to land somewhere unexpected on international flights. 

Did you hear about the woman who got fined $500 because she brought an apple into the country she got on a flight from Paris?

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/540655002

 

International laws in flying SUCK.

 

Edited January 21, 2019 by Xameil

[No Excuses]

3 hours ago, Xameil said:

Sorry...that's more on the customs rules than the airline. I've had colleagues have the same issue with other airlines when they have to land somewhere unexpected on international flights. 

Did you hear about the woman who got fined $500 because she brought an apple into the country she got on a flight from Paris?

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/540655002

 

International laws in flying SUCK.

 

 

The plane not being able to take off because of mechanical issues and then door breaking and remaining open in frigid weather is 100% on the airline. They aren’t stuck on the tarmac for 14 hours, exposed to the elements, if UA doesn’t run third rate planes.

Edited January 21, 2019 by No Excuses

[Fergasun]

There's something about flying that makes people crazy. 

 

I flew last weekend and there was some lady trying to board early (ahead of her group?) that was going crazy on customer service and then was very rude as in, "Thanks for NOT HELPING!" I didn't understand the situation but she had some type of carry-on with team uniforms that they weren't allowed to check -- think they were offering to gate-check it for free. 

 

 

[Xameil]

7 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

 

The plane not being able to take off because of mechanical issues and then door breaking and remaining open in frigid weather is 100% on the airline. They aren’t stuck on the tarmac for 14 hours, exposed to the elements, if UA doesn’t run third rate planes.

Ok..see your point there...but again...all airlines have the same quality planes...at least in the US. I travel quite frequently and some of th nicest planes I've been on are in Asia.

1 minute ago, Fergasun said:

There's something about flying that makes people crazy. 

 

I flew last weekend and there was some lady trying to board early (ahead of her group?) that was going crazy on customer service and then was very rude as in, "Thanks for NOT HELPING!" I didn't understand the situation but she had some type of carry-on with team uniforms that they weren't allowed to check -- think they were offering to gate-check it for free. 

 

 

I see this more times then I can count. Or the person bringing on an object that is WAY too big to bring in the plane and arguing for 10 minutes in why it needs to be on the plane and not checked.

[HOF44]

29 minutes ago, Xameil said:

 

I see this more times then I can count. Or the person bringing on an object that is WAY too big to bring in the plane and arguing for 10 minutes in why it needs to be on the plane and not checked.

I now right!! You see this little boxes you're SUPPOSED to see if your carry on fits in??  Nobody bothering with that ish!!  It's amazing the size of "carry ons" people try to mash in there.

[Malapropismic Depository]

On 1/8/2019 at 10:18 PM, China said:

VIDEO: WOMAN CALLS JETBLUE EMPLOYEE A ‘RAPIST’, SAYS SHE HAS A GUN AT FLORIDA AIRPORT
 

 

FORT LAUDERDALE, FLORIDA -  An intoxicated woman had to be restrained by police at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International airport on Sunday after screaming at a JetBlue employee and threatening that she had a gun.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

JetBlue's competitor could use this video footage as a perfect prelude to their "Wanna Get Away ?" slogan.

[China]

Airline algorithms may be keeping you from sitting together

 

The concept of "dark patterns" might make you think of some kind of rip in the fabric of spacetime.

 

But it's much more banal than that—and probably more irritating.

 

Here's an example: You want to go on a trip with your family. So you book your tickets online, expecting that the three of you will get seats together. But you don't—they appear to have been generated randomly. Now, in order to sit together, you have to pay the airline for the "privilege" of sitting together.

 

This kind of insidious coding is what UX design consultant Harry Brignull calls a dark pattern, "where you're trying to do one thing, and the service tricks you into doing another thing that you weren't expecting."

 

Brignull runs a website where he posts examples of dark patterns, as a way of publicly shaming companies for "naughty" practices, he said.

 

Low-cost airlines like Ireland's Ryanair have been called out for allegedly separating passengers travelling together, even when a flight isn't close to being full. And then travellers have to pay a fee to re-arrange their seats.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

'Oh, my God, something bit me': Scorpion stings student on Toronto to Calgary flight

 

A woman on an Air Transat flight from Toronto to Calgary on Feb. 26 was startled when she was stung by a scorpion shortly before the plane landed.

 

Quin Maltais is from Yukon and is studying in Alberta. She was in the last hour of a four-hour flight when she started to feel a fluttering motion on her lower back.

 

"I just kind of ignored it," she said, thinking the air conditioning on the plane was blowing down her back.

"As soon as the lights turned off again, closer to when we're literally about to land, I felt the piercing pain on my lower back, like, oh, my God, something bit me."

 

She said she was freaking out, trying to grab her sweater, but couldn't take her seatbelt off to see what it was as the plane was landing.

 

"The lights turned on, I looked into the ball of bundled sweater that I had but nothing was there. I looked behind me on the seat and then I saw movement and there was a scorpion that was in the fold toward the back of the chair."

 

Maltais asked a flight attendant to explain what was happening. She said the attendant initially went back to her seat and found a gum wrapper, trying to tell her that's what had stung her. But Maltais told her to check again, so she did and then spotted the scorpion between the seats. 

 

Paramedics escorted her off the plane. EMS confirmed they responded to the airport at 10:30 p.m. and assessed Maltais, and she wasn't hurt. 

 

"I had a full-fledged panic attack … paramedics had to kind of keep me strapped to a heart monitor for a while cause I was just unable to calm down," she said.

As for the scorpion, the airline confirmed it was captured once all passengers had disembarked from the plane and handed over to airport authorities.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[ixcuincle]

https://abcnews.go.com/US/doctor-dragged-off-united-airlines-flight-watching-viral/story?id=62250271

He said while in his seat, belt still fastened, he was on the phone with a friend, asking for advice on whether he should get up, when the next thing he knew, he was being pulled from his seat. He doesn't remember anything after he bumped his head on the low ceiling.

"After that, to be honest, I don’t know what happened," he said, adding that he heard a "big noise" and later woke up in the hospital with a trauma team surrounding him.

(MORE: 2 officers fired in connection with dragging doctor off United flight)
The first few months were "horrible," he said. He suffered a concussion, lacerations to his mouth and nose, and several of his teeth were knocked out, he said. He was put on suicide watch by hospital staff and later spent months learning to walk again, he said.

Dao relied on his faith during his recovery, he said, adding that he made a promise to God that if he got better, he would devote his time to charity work. Since then, he has helped residents in Texas displaced by Hurricane Harvey and traveled to Vietnam and Cambodia to help install solar power in villages with no electricity, he said. Even in the Far East, people knew his story, he said.

[China]

We've made the seats as uncomfortable and small as possible, so now pay extra to get a decent size, comfortable seat:

 

United Airlines has shrunk seats as much as possible, so they’re adding more premium seats, CEO says

 

The CEO of United Airlines said Tuesday that seats on his company’s planes cannot continue to shrink.

 

“I think we are nearing a point certainly that we can’t do that anymore,” Oscar Munoz said in an interview with ABC.

 

The airline announced in February that it would attempt to woo high-fare passengers by retrofitting more than 100 planes with more premium seats on key routes. The company also has planned to start using a new 50-seat jet with mostly premium seats on some key business-travel routes.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

You know the airline experience is bad when you're exposed to bubonic plague:

 

Bubonic plague outbreak: Plane passengers quarantined after couple die from disease

 

A married couple have died leaving their four children orphaned after an outbreak of the bubonic plague, which sparked plane panic.

 

The man, 38 - named only as Citizen T - and his pregnant wife, 37, are thought to have fallen ill after hunting and eating contaminated marmot, a large species of squirrel, in Mongolia.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Elessar78]

On 1/31/2019 at 4:24 PM, China said:

Airline algorithms may be keeping you from sitting together

 

The concept of "dark patterns" might make you think of some kind of rip in the fabric of spacetime.

 

But it's much more banal than that—and probably more irritating.

 

Here's an example: You want to go on a trip with your family. So you book your tickets online, expecting that the three of you will get seats together. But you don't—they appear to have been generated randomly. Now, in order to sit together, you have to pay the airline for the "privilege" of sitting together.

 

This kind of insidious coding is what UX design consultant Harry Brignull calls a dark pattern, "where you're trying to do one thing, and the service tricks you into doing another thing that you weren't expecting."

 

Brignull runs a website where he posts examples of dark patterns, as a way of publicly shaming companies for "naughty" practices, he said.

 

Low-cost airlines like Ireland's Ryanair have been called out for allegedly separating passengers travelling together, even when a flight isn't close to being full. And then travellers have to pay a fee to re-arrange their seats.

 

Click on the link for the full article

Yup. They just did us dirty on this one. Found what I thought were great fares to London. When it came time to pick seats I had to shell out another $600 to sit together. I have 3 kids under 9 can’t just have them out sitting next to some rando. 

 

Both Ryan Air and British Airways did us dirty with this.

[No Excuses]

22 minutes ago, Elessar78 said:

Yup. They just did us dirty on this one. Found what I thought were great fares to London. When it came time to pick seats I had to shell out another $600 to sit together. I have 3 kids under 9 can’t just have them out sitting next to some rando. 

 

Both Ryan Air and British Airways did us dirty with this.

 

Zero reason to do this except to suck more money from passengers. The airline industry is a predatory unregulated mess. 

 

Consumer protection hell.

[China]

Southwest Airlines Flight from SMF Gets Delayed after Passenger Makes Vodka Joke

 

SACRAMENTO -- After hours of delays, a man on a Southwest Airlines flight from Sacramento International Airport (SMF) to Los Angeles was kicked off after he jokingly asked if water being handed out by a flight attendant was vodka.

 

Now, a fellow passenger says it was the flight attendant who overreacted to the joke.

 

“I have been flying for decades and I’ve never ever seen anything like this,” said passenger Peter Uzelac.

 

Wednesday afternoon, Uzelac was on Flight 478 to Austin Texas from SMF with a stop at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). While on the tarmac, a maintenance light came on.

 

“It’s minor but they want to go back to the gate and check it out and see,” Uzelac said.

 

Then the flight was delayed again. "You know, we’ve been burning fuel,” Uzelac explained.

 

By the time they needed to refuel, a few hours had passed. So, the flight attendants had started to pass out water to all the passengers.

 

That’s when Uzelac says the man next to him, made a joke.

 

“He said something [like], 'They should be passing out vodka because we’ve been waiting so long,’” Uzelac said.

 

Uzelac says the flight attendant, who he described as young, did not take kindly to that comment.

 

“She came by and was like, ‘I don’t think that and I didn’t like your joke,’” he explained. “Then my wife tried to butt-in there and say, ‘Look it, we’ve been on this plane for hours.’ And she says, ‘Well, so have I, so get used to it.’”

 

Uzelac and the other passengers were shocked by the flight attendant’s reaction.

 

“Then all of a sudden, I see her on the telephone up in front,” he said.

 

That’s when the plane turned back to the gate again and several Sacramento County sheriff's deputies came on board to ask the man next to Uzelac to leave.

 

“And people started yelling then. In fact, people stood up. I stood up. People were saying this man didn’t do anything,” Uzelac said.

 

The sheriff’s office says the man was not charged with any crime.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Passenger Zip-Tied And Duct Taped After Allegedly Punching Flight Attendant On Pittsburgh To Dallas American Airlines Flight

 

PITTSBURGH (KDKA/AP) — A flight from Pittsburgh to Dallas had to be diverted to Oklahoma City because of an alleged unruly and drunken passenger.

 

The incident happened Sunday night after the American Airlines flight left Pittsburgh International Airport.

 

A flight attendant says she was trying to give 32-year-old Brandon Ganus, of Weatherford, Texas, bottles of water to calm him down, but then he got into a brawl with the passenger sitting next to him.

 

“He tried exiting out of the front door, and we stopped him, so we went to his seat and we turned on the lights bright. Then, him and the person next to him got into a brawl,” said the flight attendant.

 

She said Ganus then punched her in the chest.

 

Eventually, crew members and other passengers zip-tied and duct taped Ganus’ hands until the plane landed.

 

“I left the handcuffs up front with the other flight attendants in case anything happened, but I had the duct tape with me in the back, and then we just ran together at the same time,” the flight attendant said.

 

In Oklahoma City, police boarded the plane around 11:30 p.m. and arrested Ganus.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

The flying saddle: Would you give it a try?

 

Say goodbye to whatever personal space you had left.
 

PARIS — Airlines are squeezing as many passengers as they can onto their jets, but one seat manufacturer believes its product can help carriers push capacity to the absolute limit. And it may help push down fares.

 

Say goodbye to whatever personal space you had left.

 

At this week's Paris Air Show, lots of curious convention-goers eagerly wanted to try out Avio Interior's "SkyRider" saddle-like airplane seat, but that's probably not the reception it would get if people found it installed on their next flight. See it in the slideshow at the top of this post.

 

 

SkyRider passengers would lean on a bicycle-seat type cushion that sits higher than your traditional airline seat. Legs sort of hang off the saddle, as they would if you were riding a horse. The seat back sits straight up, forcing good posture. A knee cut-out provides another precious few inches of legroom.

 

You're neither sitting nor standing — you're sort of leaning.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Riggo#44]

Wow, that might be the worst idea the airline has come up with yet...

[TheGoodBits]

38 minutes ago, Riggo#44 said:

Wow, that might be the worst idea the airline has come up with yet...

 

Yeah just off the top of my head, you’re killing the under-seat storage area for carryons. And how in the hell are kids going to sit on that? That doesn’t even get into the passenger comfort issue. 

[No Excuses]

Air Shows sound like Prison Con these days. A convention on how you can maximally increase profit while completely degrading the human.

[Burgold]

I had a really good experience last month on Copa Airlines. First time I traveled with them. Not sure if it was because it was an international flight,but every leg of the flight came with a meal... even stretches as short as two hours. The food was only okay, but they were friendly, the checked baggage was free, and I believe there was no charge for watching movies or using their earbuds (not sure because I was napping or reading my book).

 

 

[Larry]

56 minutes ago, Riggo#44 said:

Wow, that might be the worst idea the airline has come up with yet so far...

 

FTFY. 

[China]