First airline horror story

[Sigarms]

When I travel for business now, I get there a day ahead of any scheduled meetings. It has saved me a lot of frustration.

I didn't make brownie points when I pointed that fact out Tuesday morning. Common sense will tell you when your flying from NC to Arizona the same day to make a meeting that the odds of something delaying you is very real.

As I asked my boss, how enthused do you think I'm going to be at a 3 o'clock afternoon meeting when I'm leaving my house at 0430 to catch a flight to that meeting? He pointed out that I could sleep on the plane.

The attendant at the gate in Charlotte was however nice enough to give me two food vouchers for my trouble. She pointed out I was very nice to deal with given the circumstances (everyone at the gate was blaming the poor saps working the gate when they were just the bearers of bad news). Glad I got the horrible salmon for $21 basically free as the food they serve at the school cafateria most likely would of tasted better then at this airport "restaurant".

Will say there is brewery pub at the airport in Phoenix that had a salmon BLT for $14 that kicked Charlotte's butt food wise.

 

[Sigarms]

As to people hurrying to get off the aircraft or not. You would be surprised how many folks drag getting off until the last possible point. Inside the industry the joke is "Do they want to live on the airplane. Don't they have anywhere else to go." The crew stops getting paid when the doors open under most airline contracts. They either have another flight they have to go board and/or fly or they are going home at the end of a very long day.
Folks dawdling getting off the aircraft, teaching their kid how to walk while coming up the aisle, slowing everyone else down or just being inconsiderate is not cool. I agree jumping into the aisle just to stand and wait is not necessary but when it is your turn, get moving as there are folks behind you that have places to go and flights they might be trying to make and it might be the last flight to that point that day and you cause them to miss it. Courtesy goes a long way.

I agree.

I learned alot about human behavior when I had to work the church "parking lot" a couple of years ago for a charity event. Big empty field was the "parking lot". You would think common sense tells you when you're parking in a big field and there are LOTS of people behind you, you take the furthest corner, then someone pulls next to you, and so on and so on until another row is formed (with enough room to let people back out to drive to an exit). This is FAR from the case. I couldn't believe how many people had to be told where to park.

I thought the Army was pretty screwed up, but as I'm older and seeing what happens when you deal with a crap load of people together who have no order, they (military) kind of makes more sense on the way they do things.

 

[newbury]

<snip> Common sense will tell you when your flying from NC to Arizona the same day to make a meeting that the odds of something delaying you is very real.<snip>

We were based in Ft Belvoir, Va and our prime CONUS "demo area" for the system we were fielding was Ft. Lewis, WA. Just south of Seattle, WA. Many a time in the late '80's early '90's I'd fly from National in the morning and take a red eye back to work the next day. Just had to be done. Rarely got delayed, usually all on time.

 

[lpigott]

I work and have been working overseas on 28 day rotations for the last 15 years. I have logged over 2 million actual miles flown with United not counting numerous other carriers. You experience is nothing far outside of normal. Most times everything goes as planned but if you fly enough you will run into delays, weather issues, last minute cancelations, overbooking, lost luggage, equipment failures, aborted landings, scary weather in flight and severe turbulence. Given the amount of aircraft in the sky at any given point is is amazing how well things generally go and not surprising at all when anything goes wrong. Just remember your odds are really good all will go as planned but don't be surprised when they don't. It is out of our control anyway.

 

[check]

I'd like flying, and rarely if ever have any problems. One time, however, we got to the airport in Toronto on our way to Hawaii, and they did not have our tickets. We were flying on Aeroplan points and someone forgot to send the right message to United Airlines.

All turned out well, however, because Air Canada flew us out the next morning without an overnight stop. Just saved us having to spend the night in San Francisco and then waking up real early to head over to Hawaii.

 

[John Fitzgerald]

I think with the current technology most corporations have in place, a lot of face to face meetings that would have taken place only a few years ago are now done remotely via high speed internet. Probably, this will get more and more prevalent in the future.

 

[two_bit_score]

My experiences flying have been mostly pleasant and trouble free. I don’t fly as much as I used to but that’s mostly by my choice.

My used to be favorite trip was every other Friday for a little over a year I flew from San Antonio early AM to El Paso and back to San Antonio around 3pm. A lot of people did the same flight pattern. Once you got used to it and the one hour time difference it was easy and pleasant. I didn’t have to dress up and only carried a cell phone and laptop. Where I went was less than 5 miles from the airport so I never even had to put gas in the rental. Met a lot of good people and really enjoyed those trips.

 

[RSKY]

Had a flight delayed a couple years ago while they waited for a part, hydraulic pump I believe, to be flown in from somewhere. When we boarded the plane we could see the engine cover off and there were three mechanics hanging on a fifteen foot cheater bar trying to get the pump in. All the passengers could see the engine being worked on as we boarded. That was the quietest bunch of passengers I've ever seen....until the plane landed. Then it was the loudest.

RSKY

 

[Sigarms]

My experiences flying have been mostly pleasant and trouble free. I don’t fly as much as I used to but that’s mostly by my choice.

Ditto.

I've been flying since I've been born (started traveling with lifer father in military). Never really had any major issues (perhaps a flight bumped or missed, which caused a couple or more hour delay) until this past week.

Ultimatley I could say it was my own doing. I could of flown out of the airport I wanted to (much closer and easier to get and out of IMO), but I was trying to save money and go from the larger airport and get the cheapest tickets that included connecting flights, while at the same time hitting the destination by 12 noon. Talking with some of my co-workers, they all paid more money for direct flights. Normally I don't book my own flight reservations, but was requested to do so for this meeting. I'm smart enough to learn from my mistakes and try not to make the same mistake twice

 

[Mace Canute]

I have rarely flown and it's been over 35 years since I last flew but back in 1972 I flew from Vancouver BC to Clinton Creek (a mining town) in the Yukon. From Vancouver to Whitehorse it was on a 737 but from Whitehorse to Clinton Creek it was on a DC3 with a few stops in between. One was at "Mayo International Airport" as the sign said and we had to deplane and wait about an hour while the pilots did some minor adjustments on one engine. The airport terminal I recall was about the size of a 14" by 16" granary.