Just how bad is airline service

[bnold]

I think much of who your best service and favorite airline is based on your location…

Mine are American and Southwest because I live in Dallas area and far less drama if a flight change is required.

If I lived in Atlanta, my favorite would probably be Delta for the same reasons.

As my status is expiring with both American and Southwest (which I consider a great thing!!) I expect they will still be my goto.

 

[newbury]

Love these stories.
Before retirement in 2010 I was flying about 2 or 3 times a month and had been for decades. When I first got in the "high travel mode" flights were rarely packed, service was good, seats were generous. By the time I retired flights were packed, TSA was a pain and seats had shrunk.
Sort of glad to hear it's only gotten worse.

 

[caver]

Allegiant . When my folks were still snowbirding in the Clearwater FL area I tried them out of Belleville IL. A one horse airport with probably one flight a day? We take off and before we get to cruising altitude I see a steward carrying a fire extensisher. There was a slight haze in the air or maybe just an odor?? This is not good. Well the captain announce we are returning. Since TSA had gone home they told us if we depart the terminal we can't get back in. They had called a mechanic in. We wait, the snack machine gets cleaned out. Mechanic arrives...numerous run ups and it is finally determined they accidentally got de-icing into the engines. So I get to Clearwater after dark and get the shuttle cab to my folks place. I was watching airplane crash videos on YT and recall Allegient had a crash due to sloppy/cost cutting maintenance. Nice to know after the fact.

 

[BravoXray]

I've refused to fly anywhere for several years now. Too much of a hassle. And since I'm retired I have the time to drive, so I do. I've driven back to Pennsylvania where I grew up twice in the last 5 years (~6000 miles round trip), and to Kansas City every year (just over 3000 miles round trip) for a family gettogether. When I was in Kansas City last July some of my cousins flew in from Connecticut...it took 4 tries (3 cancellations) for them to get a flight back home.

I have flown on a commercial airline once in the last 40 years, to Phoenix and back for my son's wedding in 2012. Wanted to fly my plane, but it was awaiting it's annual inspection, and I really wasn't able to be away from my business for two weeks if I drove.
I flew on Allegiant on and MD80 I think. Seating of course sucks, and I'm a pretty big guy, and of course the two others seated in my row on the downbound trip were kind of hefty too. Coming back I lucked out and there was an empty seat in my row. The flights were okay, but I doubt I'll fly commercial again unless it's some kind of an emergency. My Town Car is a good traveling machine for me.

 

[bmg88201]

Several decades back, I flew from Albq to Roswell on a small commuter called Mesa Airline that sat about 20, I think. There was no door on the cockpit, you could see and hear the pilots. The pilot was a lady (stop a clock good looking too) and the co-pilot was a man. I could hear them arguing, it was a relationship type argument. Something about another woman. I thought to myself, oh crap she’s gonna take us all out just to get back at him.

 

[Citydude]

All we have here in the boonies is commuter planes. Fondly referred to as flying tin cans.

 

[jfsawatzky]

Not much of a flyer but my last trip was a doozy. My parents get booted off a cruise ship in Alaska due to my dad’s sudden serious illness. Short story, we got home to south Georgia from Bellingham WA in a Lear 35 or 36 (?) semi-converted for med flights. Dad was recovering by then and he enjoyed the ride too at 43,000 ft. Two pilots, two nurses, mom, dad, and me. A wee bit pricey way to fly though.

I hope they had the correct type of travel insurance.

 

[caver]

I used to do volunteer work at Carlsbad Caverns once or twice a year on long holidays. This was back in the late 90's. I flew Mesa several times into Carlsbad. So a fellow caver wanted to come out for one of the expeditions. No problems going out via ABQ. The holiday weekend is over and we say our goodbys. One of the volunteers gives us a lift back to the airport since she lived in ABQ. The park let us stay in old ranger cabins. She drops us off and the airport doors are locked. We find an unlocked outside door to a weather guy's office and he lets us in the lobby. Hmm Our first clue. Our flight time comes and goes and no employees or plane. I call their phone number on the pay phone... are you Mr Caver and Mr Schmuckatelly? How did she know who i was? Turns out I never gave a phone number as it's hard to get a hold of us at the park. Well your flight was cancelled and we tried to get a hold of you.will book you on the evening flight. So we knew we would not make our connecting flight to STL. Luckily my buddies sister lived in ABQ. We crashed at her place and they got us out on the red-eye flight next morning. After that I found out it was cheaper to fly to El Paso and get a rent a car. They ferried that plane to a place it would make more money on the holiday weekend.

 

[deserteagle71]

All we have here in the boonies is commuter planes. Fondly referred to as flying tin cans.

I preferred flying on those little planes! 17 passengers or so...very quick to load and unload passengers and get underway. Not having to wait for 300 people to stash their baggage and get settled in.

 

[Citydude]

I preferred flying on those little planes! 17 passengers or so...very quick to load and unload passengers and get underway. Not having to wait for 300 people to stash their baggage and get settled in.

Agree on the ease of flying however back in the day, ear plugs were necessary and in the winter, expect to freeze your feet off. Lol

 

[bmg88201]

Maybe my flight is delayed or cancelled, maybe not. Maybe my bags arrive, maybe not. Now days, I got better odds in Vegas.

Also, It is my belief that when you go through TSA screening, at that moment you give up all civil rights.

 

[oldtimer 66]

This is right after 911 maybe 2 weeks, I can't remember exactly. I was going to Vancouver I think thru Salt Lake City or maybe Seattle or Calgary. The Alaska Air to Vancouver was a 737. There was me and 2 other passengers. The other connection flights were equally no passengers maybe 20 people max on any of the flights. The air ports were a ghost town. Another time for my trips to Mexico I would always take the earliest flights possible. There were others in our group that couldn't get there butts out of bed. They then would leave noonish and 9 times out of 10 they would have connection problems and delays. And that's all you heard about from them how bad the airlines were. That was there own fault. I did make one major mistake and that was getting my wife and her sister first class to Phoenix with frequent flier miles years ago. My wife has never been in coach since. TaDa.

 

[kenmbz]

I always try for late morning flights, so I arrive in decent shape and get plenty of choices still for flights out if any cancels.

I hated doing red eyes and early mornings. Made for miserable travel even if the airlines were doing great.

Traveling long flights to asia and africa would have been miserable

 

[JethroB]

I hope they had the correct type of travel insurance.

Nope. My eyes bugged out at the quoted cost AND when my dad said to me “boy it doesn’t matter just get your mom and me home”. Okayyy dad.

 

[MossRoad]

Allegiant . When my folks were still snowbirding in the Clearwater FL area I tried them out of Belleville IL. A one horse airport with probably one flight a day? We take off and before we get to cruising altitude I see a steward carrying a fire extensisher. There was a slight haze in the air or maybe just an odor?? This is not good. Well the captain announce we are returning. Since TSA had gone home they told us if we depart the terminal we can't get back in. They had called a mechanic in. We wait, the snack machine gets cleaned out. Mechanic arrives...numerous run ups and it is finally determined they accidentally got de-icing into the engines. So I get to Clearwater after dark and get the shuttle cab to my folks place. I was watching airplane crash videos on YT and recall Allegient had a crash due to sloppy/cost cutting maintenance. Nice to know after the fact.

I found this one a bit amusing.... (since no one was injured).

• On July 23, 2015, an Allegiant aircraft attempted to fly to Hector International Airport in Fargo, North Dakota, which was at the time within a temporary flight restriction due to a rehearsal by the Blue Angelsflight team for an upcoming air show.[96] The pilots then declared a fuel emergency, stating, "Yeah, listen, we're bingo [empty] fuel here in about probably three to four minutes and I got to come in and land." The pilots were scolded by the airport's tower, who said, "Your company...should have been aware of this for a number of months," regarding the airspace restrictions. The pilots flying the aircraft were, at the time, the airline's vice president of flight operations and its director of flight safety.[97]

 

[Oaktree]

I preferred flying on those little planes! 17 passengers or so...very quick to load and unload passengers and get underway. Not having to wait for 300 people to stash their baggage and get settled in.

You can have 'em! The job I had in the 70s-mid 80s required considerable travel, and most of that time the airport for the city I worked in wasn't serviced by any "real" airlines, only a couple commuter lines. I get motion sickness quite easily, and every time one of those small planes so much as flew over someone's backyard BBQ you felt turbulence. Even though it was a relatively short flight to Boston, many a time I was at the verge of needing a barf bag.
No thanks. I took my chances with Boston drivers and drove to Logan.

 

[riptides]

I get motion sickness quite easily, and every time one of those small planes so much as flew over someone's backyard BBQ you felt turbulence.

So true. So funny. The plane, not the sickness.

Puddle jumpers comes to mind.

 

[Joel/ak]

Allegiant . When my folks were still snowbirding in the Clearwater FL area I tried them out of Belleville IL. A one horse airport with probably one flight a day? We take off and before we get to cruising altitude I see a steward carrying a fire extensisher. There was a slight haze in the air or maybe just an odor?? This is not good. Well the captain announce we are returning. Since TSA had gone home they told us if we depart the terminal we can't get back in. They had called a mechanic in. We wait, the snack machine gets cleaned out. Mechanic arrives...numerous run ups and it is finally determined they accidentally got de-icing into the engines. So I get to Clearwater after dark and get the shuttle cab to my folks place. I was watching airplane crash videos on YT and recall Allegient had a crash due to sloppy/cost cutting maintenance. Nice to know after the fact.

When a cargo 747's flight crew were being Dicks to the ground crew (happens alot) the crew deicing would shoot the glycol into the APU intake. You would see the cockpit windows open and smoke would roll out.

I laugh at it everytime I saw it.

I've gotten into it with flight crews more than once

 

[SwingOak]

Over the last few years I've been sticking with United. Delta has usually been the better airline, but I've had a bunch of flight credits from the pandemic I needed to use up. Lately, there seems to be a lot of canceled Delta flights in and out of my local airport, so I think I'll stick with United for now.

Best advice I ever got on travel was this - stick with one airline, one hotel, and one car rental company. They all will bend over backwards to help a loyal customer, not so much the person who isn't.

 

[dodge man]

Not really related but I’ll tell the story. We had a job our Chicago area office had and I drove up with our GPS system. This was right after 911. They needed a building location and elevation that was in the flight path of O‘hare even though it was going to be one story high. I setup our base on a known GPS point off the end of a runway at O’hare outside the fence, the heavies were coming in right over my head. I stayed with the base while my helper went to shoot the building. A van comes rolling up to me. I figure they are security and I’m in big trouble. Turns out O’hare has a full time survey crew and they were just curious what I was doing.