The airline experience has become miserable

[China]

Delta pilot jailed for being over alcohol limit before New York flight

 

An American pilot, caught over the alcohol limit before he was due to fly a passenger plane from Edinburgh to New York, has been jailed for 10 months.

 

Lawrence Russell, 63, was searched by airport security officers at about 09:15 on 16 June last year.

 

He was found to have two bottles of Jägermeister in his carry on luggage - one of which was half full.

 

A breath test revealed the Delta Airlines captain was more than twice the legal alcohol limit for pilots.

 

Edinburgh Sheriff Court heard Russell, from Georgia, has been treated for alcoholism.

 

The court heard Russell had not less than 49mg of alcohol in 100ml of blood.

 

This exceeded the strict legal limit which is 20mg of alcohol.

 

Sheriff Alison Stirling said a prison sentence had to be imposed as a punishment and for the "protection of the public".

 

The court previously heard the pilot was to take control of a Boeing 767 flight from Edinburgh Airport to JFK Airport in New York, which was due to take off at 10:35.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[China]

Florida man calls American Airlines passengers 'blue-eyed white devils,' threatens to 'take this plane down'

 

A Florida man on an American Airlines flight was put in a headlock, removed from the aircraft and arrested after he called fellow passengers "blue-eyed white devils" and threatened to "take this plane down with all you motherf---ers on it."

 

Shail Patel, 29, was drunk when he boarded the flight from Tampa to Philadelphia on Tuesday and began "antagonizing passengers, calling flight attendants names, threatening passengers and aggressively moving through the aircraft," court documents show, according to WFLA.

 

The report stated he was acting hostile after he boarded and "began acting erratically, yelling and cursing at the passengers."

 

Patel called passengers "blue-eyed white devils" and threatened to "take this plane down with all you motherf------ on it," according to court documents. He is also accused of slapping a passenger on the hand and face and spitting on them.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[TheGreatBuzz]

 

 

 

[The Evil Genius]

Who knew deregulation of airline regulatory authority would lead to planes falling apart? 🤔 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[The Evil Genius]

This should have been a given anyways.

 

Or even better...spend $20 or $30 and get a decent small but portable powerbank. That way you don't have to fight over the limited outlets. 

Edited April 4 by The Evil Genius

[China]

United Passenger Extorted For Bribe At Newark Airport Check-In Counter

 

Most checked bags in the U.S. are limited to 50 pounds. Anything heavier than that and you’ll pay extra. First and business class passengers, and those with elite status, may be allowed 70 pounds. When you approach the check-in counter, they’ll weigh your bags, and if your luggage is overweight you’ll be assessed an extra fee.

 

However it’s not always so simple. There’s an unspoken cat and mouse game between airline employees and passengers.

 

The scales may be wrong. For instance, the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services found half a dozen scales at the Charlotte airport were miscalibrated. This happens all the time. People are slamming heavy suitcases on them all day, every day, and sometimes at odd angles. They need maintenance!

Passengers may use guerilla tactics to avoid overweight bags like supporting the bag with their foot to reduce the weight on the scale.

 

Pay the airline – or the employee? Airline staff may solicit bribes which are less than the cost of overweight bag fees.

One United passenger reports being extorted for a bribe at Newark airport terminal C when checking a bag for their flight home.

 

They self-tagged their luggage and went United’s bag drop to have it weighed. The scale “read 47lb then the number started slowly climbing until it went up to 50.5lb.” That didn’t make any sense since the bag was within allowable weight on the outbound portion of their trip.

 

That’s when things got weird:

 

Quote

The employee says, “ah, don’t worry. I don’t see anything” and gives me a high five. In my naivety I thought, wow that’s so kind. Then he says, “but you can leave my tip right there” pointing to an inconspicuous spot on the counter. I asked if he was for real, he said yes so I left him $5.

 

I thought something was off but it wasn’t until I walked away that I realized I just got scammed. I couldn’t see his feet so I don’t know for sure but as soon as I got home I weighed my bag and it was 43.7 lb. Also when he took the bag off the scale it read -0.5lb but I’m not sure if that means anything?

 

Airline check-in agents soliciting bribes to ignore overweight bags isn’t, itself, unheard of. What’s different here is the agent making the bag overweight in order to solicit the bribe.

 

And bribery in the airline industry reaches the highest levels. United Airlines actually lost a CEO in a bribery scandal involving Newark airport. And recently three of the airline’s executives engaged in a bribery scheme involving Newark renovations.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

[SkinsFTW]

Airlines have their own scams too.

 

I've been looking for 2 tickets to Belgium for August. I'd rather take a no stop flight because I can't walk but I don't see any from Nashville or Atlanta. I could drive to either one but the closest airport with a nonstop flight that I can find is Dulles.

 

What is funny though is that the flight from Nashville involving 2 airplanes through Dulles is 20% cheaper than the direct flight from Dulles on the same flight. WTF?

 

The problems for me is I'm not sure how long it'll take me to get from one airplane to the other so I'd rather just avoid all that. I also don't want to drive an extra 4 hours to an airport in Northern VA.

[China]

'Skiplagging' to save money on plane tickets is only possible because airlines are breaking one of the basic laws of geometry

 

One of the hottest money-saving travel hacks right now only works because of bad math on the airlines' part.

 

Skiplagging, also known as "hidden city" ticketing, involves booking a one-stop flight with the intention of "skipping" the second leg and getting off in the layover city. Simply, it's booking a flight from Airport A to Airport C and getting off at a layover at Airport B.

 

People can save hundreds of dollars doing this because a nonstop flight is more expensive than booking one with a layover in the intended-destination city.

 

However, airlines have been trying to cut down on this travel hack and haven't shied away from punishing passengers who get caught, including canceling the return flights of those who skiplagged on their outbound journeys.

 

And it's only possible because airfares don't follow one of the most intuitive rules in math.

 

One of the most basic laws of geometry is called the "triangle inequality." If you're trying to measure the distance between points, one of the basic rules is that the distance between two points has to be less than or equal to the distance from your first point to some other point and then back to your original second point.

 

We might expect airline fares to more or less follow this rule and act as a distance metric between cities. Between fuel, maintenance, and crew pay, it should cost more to fly a plane from New York to Amsterdam, followed by a leg from Amsterdam to London, than it would to fly the plane from New York to Amsterdam. That cost difference should be reflected in the price of tickets between the three cities.

 

But that's clearly not always the case, and that violation of the triangle inequality is what makes skiplagging possible. The fact that it's sometimes cheaper to book a flight from New York to London that has a stop in Amsterdam than to book a nonstop from New York to Amsterdam shows that the airlines are breaking the triangle inequality.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Intentionally cut AT&T wires caused massive flight delays at Sacramento International Airport, sheriff says

 

An internet outage that caused massive delays, some hours long, for flights at the Sacramento International Airport (SMF) started after AT&T wires were intentionally cut, officials said.

 

Sgt. Amar Gandhi, a spokesperson for the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, said wires were deliberately cut at Bayou Way and Power Line Road, causing the outages that affected flights from Southwest and Delta Airlines. That utility pole is roughly two miles away from Terminal B.

 

"It looks like someone who knew what they were doing," Gandhi said. "So this wasn't just a couple of teenagers ... ripping some wires out as a prank. [It] looks very deliberate ... like they knew what they were doing."

 

Investigators are confident they will find the person(s) involved. Gandhi explained that any airport in the country is one of the most heavily surveilled areas possible. Those responsible could face at least felony vandalism charges, but because the FBI is also investigating, Gandhi said additional charges could arise depending on motive.

 

That depends on whether it was either a prank or something more criminal-driven that warrants more involvement from federal officials.

 

SMF’s flight status webpage showed some flights were delayed by as long as 156 minutes for arrivals while most departures were delayed by anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour.

 

The outages caused such a backup for passengers that a line of people stretched around the entire terminal.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

 

[ixcuincle]

 

[The Evil Genius]

4 minutes ago, ixcuincle said:

 

There is a considerable amount of information missing. Did he mean his ticket or the actual seat he selected?

 

Most (or a lot) of airlines are now charging junk fees to pre-select seats unless you are a certain tiered flier with them. So that shouldn't surprise anyone. 

Edited Wednesday at 01:25 PM by The Evil Genius

[skinsmarydu]

Mayor Pete (I still call him that for some reason) was on tv saying, (paraphrasing): "Hey, we're gonna make sure if you pay for a ticket, you get a seat on the plane for what you paid originally."

The emphasis was his. 

[The Evil Genius]

7 minutes ago, skinsmarydu said:

Mayor Pete (I still call him that for some reason) was on tv saying, (paraphrasing): "Hey, we're gonna make sure if you pay for a ticket, you get a seat on the plane for what you paid originally."

The emphasis was his. 

 

I personally find the junk fees for seat selection and carry-on **** that airlines have implemented to be odorous. That said, I don't see how what Buttigieg said changes what airlines are doing. Airlines see it as the consumer paying for a class (economy, economy plus, business, etc) of seats. As long as you get that class of seats (or better),  I don't see how anything is different. 

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 01:38 PM by The Evil Genius

[TheGoodBits]

2 hours ago, The Evil Genius said:

 

I personally find the junk fees for seat selection and carry-on **** that airlines have implemented to be odorous. That said, I don't see how what Buttigieg said changes what airlines are doing. Airlines see it as the consumer paying for a class (economy, economy plus, business, etc) of seats. As long as you get that class of seats (or better),  I don't see how anything is different. 

 

 

I flew American last week for the first time in a bit and noticed they now charge you to pick ANY seats. Used to be you could get to pick a seat toward the back included in your ticket cost. Now you have to pay them $10 per flight just to not end up in the ****ing middle seat. You can check in without picking a seat but they will auto assign you to wherever they want. 

[The Evil Genius]

9 minutes ago, TheGoodBits said:

I flew American last week for the first time in a bit and noticed they now charge you to pick ANY seats. Used to be you could get to pick a seat toward the back included in your ticket cost. Now you have to pay them $10 per flight just to not end up in the ****ing middle seat. You can check in without picking a seat but they will auto assign you to wherever they want. 

 

Some of them will allow to you pick without fees once you get to the checkin (24hrs or less) period. But it's definitely ymmv with airlines now. We didn't want to pay 200+ to pick seats on our flight to London via British Airways this weekend. Definitely feel like we are rolling the dice on that. It is free though with them at the 24hr mark...or if you are a higher tier member. 

 

We are flying Aer Lingus back from Paris, and seat selection with them was free. Go figure. 

[TheGreatBuzz]

Yea, I'm still not getting on a Boeing.

[The Evil Genius]

19 minutes ago, TheGreatBuzz said:

Yea, I'm still not getting on a Boeing.

 

I checked ours out of curiosity and we're flying Airbus 388 there and Airbus 320 and then Airbus 330 on the way back. Glad to avoid Boeing as well right now.

[PleaseBlitz]

On 4/18/2024 at 1:05 AM, China said:

We might expect airline fares to more or less follow this rule and act as a distance metric between cities. Between fuel, maintenance, and crew pay, it should cost more to fly a plane from New York to Amsterdam, followed by a leg from Amsterdam to London, than it would to fly the plane from New York to Amsterdam. That cost difference should be reflected in the price of tickets between the three cities.

 

Prices are not based on what things cost.  They are priced based on what the market will bear.  

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Cooked Crack]

Quote

The airline, which flies only Boeing 737 planes, said on Thursday that delays from the embattled aircraft manufacturer contributed to its struggles. Southwest reported a loss of $231 million for the first quarter, worse than analysts expected, sending its share price down 10 percent in early trading. 

 

To cut costs, Southwest said it would cease operations at four airports from early August: Bellingham International Airport in Washington State, Cozumel International Airport, George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, and Syracuse Han**** International Airport. It would also “significantly restructure” its flights from other airports, most notably by reducing flights at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and Chicago O’Hare International Airport.

 

[purbeast]

Hmmm I wonder what that means for their flights to Belize.  Those had layovers at that Houston airport.