Apparently this story has been going around, so I suspect many people will have seen it already.
In that regard it makes me think of the story that went around last year about the man who was arrested after trying to deposit a tax refund at Chase. In both cases I expect the story will get enough attention that the people involved will get generous compensation of some sort -- which is good, but doesn't excuse them from generally having terrible service.
Are there any airlines that aren't like this? My experience is that there's perhaps a 5% chance they completely mess something up, and that 80% line employees don't care to fix it, even if it's something that would be trivial for them to handle. If you escalate to a higher level employee, you can get it fixed, but you have to know how to reach one of them.
I'm not sure why airlines even bother employing humans as first-line employees when they choose people who don't do anything a kiosk couldn't do.
2: I've heard vaguely good things about JetBlue and Virgin America.
Are there any airlines that aren't like this?
Yes, but losing an unaccompanied minor seems like a pretty serious category of screw-up.
I'm not sure why airlines even bother employing humans as first-line employees when they choose people who don't do anything a kiosk couldn't do.
In my experience the kiosks almost never work properly and the humans' job is to figure out how to make the computer believe you are in fact a registered passenger and human being.
Isn't this the exact plot of Home Alone 2?
United employees at O'Hare are at another level of customer unfriendliness. I was recently told at the front counter in the middle of a busy day that they couldn't help because "nobody trained in ticketing" was on duty.
Also, how were these people unable to get a direct flight from San Francisco to Chicago?
Oh, she was transfering in Chicago, with Grand Rapids as her final destination. It all makes sense now.
I don't like O'Hare even when everything goes right. Their Nebraska flights all go from the very end of the F concourse and then you have to trek across to the end of C or B to get to your connection.
O'Hare itself is at another level of customer unfriendliness. I once had to catch a connecting flight through gate D2F (something like that) which did not appear on the map anywhere. It turned out that I had to go to gate D2, go down a staircase into the mildewy concrete bowels of the airport and wait outside for a questionable-looking plain white van to give me a ride across the tarmac to a tiny plane.
On the other hand, O'Hare has the subterranean acid trip tunnel, so thinking of it as anything less than the nation's finest airport is just shortsighted and wrong.
The tunnel with the funky lights between B and C is great it its dedication to presenting the world of tomorrow as seen in 1986.
How the fuck did I get pwned on a random brain fart?
12/13: That would be "The Terminal of Tomorrow." I sing "It's a Small World" to myself there while I ride the sidewalk.
When I traveled on my own as a kid there was always a flight attendant accompanying me when I was outside of the plane, plus I was required to wear a big bright pouch around my neck with my documents, labeled UM. I guess they don't do this anymore?
My most infuriating O'Hare story was when our flight was marked "On Time" while they were setting up cots nearby for some poor saps. Then, right on time to begin pre-boarding, they told us that we were the poor saps, and our flight would leave in the morning.
The reason is that the pilots/crew had reached their max hours of flights in a 24 window. What's galling to me is that they clearly had more advance notice than they gave us, and they may have had several hours of advance notice. I would have visited family for the extra evening instead of popping a squat on a cot.
Also, when you're stuck on a cot for the night, they wake you up and put away the cots by 5 am (IIRC) so that your presence does not make them look bad to the new day's travellers. So our flight left at 8 or something, but we have to wake up at 4:45 am. Fuck you.
Does the acid trip tunnel play "Rhapsody in Blue"?
I had an experience in O'Hare so off-putting that I didn't fly again for 2 years. (It wasn't even only the airline's fault, just humanity in general showing the worst of itself during a blizzard.) BUT! on another occasion I had kind of an awesome time getting loaded by myself in their enormous Admirals Club waiting for an infinitely postponed flight.
Worst airport: Heathrow, by far. They're about fifty fifty on losing my luggage during transfers, the place is horribly organized, they make you go through zillions of security checks even when transferring from one international flight to another, and getting to inaugurate Terminal 5 really, really sucked.
Worst customer service experience: Air France at CDG. A rainstorm knocked out the rail service to the airport, costing me an hour, I arrived at the check in an hour ahead of the flight and not only did they refuse to let me on, they said I needed to buy a new ticket. Lots of arguing with customer service led to them just putting me on another flight, and then drafting me as a translator for all the other poor schmucks in the same situation. Turns out nobody in their customer service office spoke anything except French.
popping a squat
I am astonished that this is a slang term for anything but taking a shit.
Wait, you didn't actually crap on their cot in protest, did you??
17: This is what I remember. I was sort of aggressively chaperoned even though I didn't want to be and didn't think I needed it.
When I was 4 or 5, I flew unaccompanied and they were so helpful, giving me wings. I also flew when I was a bit older. On that trip I had to change planes, and someone met me and accompanied me to my connecting flight. I thought that you paid extra for kids now just so that they can get that kind of help.
Worst airport: Heathrow, by far. They're about fifty fifty on losing my luggage during transfers . . .
They have a reputation to maintain.
I also flew alone as a minor and was tightly monitored.
I picked up my younger sister as a UM in O'Hare in 2003; they were pretty with her, even though I was an hour late (traffic.)
We paid extra, I believe, and it wasn't a 3rd-party looking after her.
The last time I said that United was particularly bad everyone was all like oh no no no they're just another airlline. Nope, they suck. Unfortunately, American, the pedestal for my rapidly crumbling tower of miles, has been headed in United's direction for many years now. At least United beats US Air (the worst).
When I traveled along as minor, the flight attendants asked me if I needed accompaniment, I said no, and then they left me alone to read, which is which I preferred.
At least one of those times was Alaska Airlines, so maybe I'm lucky they didn't push me out onto an ice floe or into a bear fishery.
I flew unaccompanied at least 2x/year from about age 5 on. Today, is inconceivable to me that I would just give my 5 year old over to United Airlines and be like "have fun with Grandma!" And, indeed, you very very rarely see unaccompanied minors these days, IME.
17: I picked up an unaccompanied minor a few weeks ago, and he was indeed delivered directly to me by a flight attendant who checked my ID against the paperwork in a big pouch around the kid's neck. Direct flight though, no transfer involved. And when I was looking for tickets, noticed that at least one airline (Southwest?) had a no-transfers-for-unaccompanied-minors policy, presumably to avoid having to deal with this kind of thing.
The last time I said that United was particularly bad everyone was all like oh no no no they're just another airlline. Nope, they suck. Unfortunately, American, the pedestal for my rapidly crumbling tower of miles, has been headed in United's direction for many years now. At least United beats US Air (the worst).
I think "they're just another airline" is perfectly compatible with "slightly better than US Air and slightly worse than American".
I did not realize that UM could include a five year old. I was thinking it was kids ten and up or something.
All my flights as a UM were international ones with a transfer somewhere in Europe. By the time I was fourteen the airlines decided that I no longer needed the hand holding.
I was 13 or 14 the first time I ever took a plane.
34: The airline gives them all to me. No, really. I've written about this here before, but when I was in my early 30s, I was very frequently asked by the check-in people if I would be willing to sit next to an UM and keep an eye on them. And of course I said yes and of course I ended up personally delivering these kids to their parents/grandparents rather than just blowing them off as we got off the plane.
My second flight ever was to London. The guy next to me was from Wales and convinced that the Irish Catholics needed converting to whatever he was. I drank until I feel asleep.
At least United beats US Air (the worst)
Funny the effect Section 1113 of the Bankruptcy Code can have on the quality and morale of your workforce.
40 I got some assigned to me a couple times back in my twenties, but it was just for the duration of the flight.
I don't think I was ever assigned an unaccompanied minor, ever. Must be my "To Catch a Predator" look.
This list of airline customer satisfaction looks about right to me.
Note that the worst "discount" airline beats the best major carrier. And that US Air is at the bottom.
Although the WORST are the regional air connectors operated under airline names by others. Don't fly American Eagle or anything with the words "Mesa" "Pinnacle" "Colgan" in them if you want to keep your bag.
Though, IIRC, "Republic Airlines" was pretty good.
Many of the short regional flights are operated by contractor airlines even though they say that they're MAJOR CARRIER Flight X. The pilots on those airlines sometimes have as little as 200 hours of flying experience.
Scariest flight: San Pedro Sula to Roatan in a tiny, fucking ancient prop plane whose signage was all Cyrillic.
I flew several flights on Lao Airlines, which at the time had an ancient Chinese fleet and was totally blacklisted by the FAA and the EU as super unsafe. But hey guess what it was totally fine and delay free and way more pleasant than USAir.
My brother-in-law has a story about talking to some bigwig in the Macedonian state airline, and that guy saying "We save money by not spending much on airplane maintenance."
I swore off USAir years ago, after a couple of times when it seemed *very* likely that they were cancelling flights because they hadn't sold enough tickets. United is crappy, and I try to avoid them, but having been recruited to use up some of the wife's expiring miles, I'll have the pleasure soon.
I've had pretty good luck with Delta over the years. Travel sucks, in general, but they've nearly always been a net positive.
I did that! The cabin filled up with smoke and the aisle was full of freshly killed (warm) buffalo in plastic bags. Carrion luggage, ah ha ha ha.
57 to 54. The tower was an old SAM missile radar vehicle, which was also disturbing. Bar Lock, IIRC.
Carrion luggage, ah ha ha ha.
That's great.
United is really pissing me off lately, as they've taken my clicking on "unsubscribe me from emails" to mean "I actually read emails, so send me more!" I finally actually signed in to check on my profile, which apparently hadn't been updated in ages, and so at least now the spam should be going to my spam account. On the other hand, I felt bad that they were doubtless sending snail-mail spam to my parents' old house, so I changed that address to my current one, and I'm sure they're going to ignore the "please don't send me any mail" as hard as they've ignored the "please don't send me email" request.
I take United when I go to Denver. It was better than Jet Blue. Jet Blue damaged the firm ski case and only offered us $50 off of another flight.
A friend of mine took some Kirghiz airline in the early nineties from the capital into the mountain area to do some backpacking. There were live chickens, a plane that wasn't capable of flying over the mountains so it was going through narrow passes, and a pilot celebrating his birthday by inviting the passengers to do shots with him. (She decided that under the circumstances getting herself drunk was the way to go) On the plus side the mountains were apparently gorgeous. I occasionally wonder why there are so few plane crashes.
For international flights I _strongly_ recommend flying foreign carriers. They even give you free booze.
The mention of anything Kyrgyz will reliably delurk me.
I flew within Kyrgyzstan last winter, 3 days after the plane on that route had flipped over on the runway and landed upside-down, somehow. My flight was uneventful.
For international flights I _strongly_ recommend flying foreign carriers that are not Alitalia.
I thought my TWA international flight was fine. More people should try that one.
64: Stop me if I've told this one before. I was on an Alitalia flight once that was massively delayed because the Italian air traffic contollers were working to rule. The flight attendant on my flight was fuming. She said something along the lines of, "Those bastards are working slow and getting paid for it. When we flight attendants go on strike, we do the honorable thing and walk off the job."
Several things make me irrationally angry when I leave the US, and flying experiences is one of them. What I don't understand is how every other country in the world manages far superior customer service, comfort, food, and entertainment for the same price as a US airline ticket, OR treats you similarly for a fraction of the cost. I mean, yes, treat me like cattle if I'm paying 20 euros to go from Italy to Germany, but for hundreds to thousands of dollars per ticket, can't you manage a private screen, free alcohol, or at least adequate staff compensation so employees don't hate life so much they take it out on the customers? (BTW, my best United flight attendant experience was where the guy read the little "welcome to United, the customer is always first" spiel in a sarcastic tone, and then had the plane cracking up with witty jokes about how crappy everything was, managing to unite flight attendants and passengers in solidarity against United.)
Also most of my long haul flights are on the government dime, which means, thanks to the "fly America act," I have to pick an American carrier. I get an ulcer thinking that I have to pay almost double the price to fly United to China over Air Nippon.
re. 64, 66:
Oh, I was once flying from Milan to Philly with an over 2 hour layover in Paris, and Alitalia didn't unload our luggage fast enough to get it on the Air France flight.
It's possible the luggage bribed somebody in order to avoid Philly.
For international flights I _strongly_ recommend flying foreign carriers.
Just make sure your flight is actually operated by the foreign carrier and isn't just a codeshare with a domestic one.
70: Do they do that the other way around too? There is a direct flight from Boston to Tokyo on Japan Air. continental, I believe, is listed for the same flight. Only they charge about $40 less. Is it a JapanAir flight or a Continental one? How do I tell?
64: I have heard terrible things about AlItalia.
71 They do. On my most recent trip I flew 'United' on Swiss. They generally say someplace that it's operated by someone else.
You're all a bunch of cranky misanthropes who undoubtedly bring trouble on yourselves. I am sitting in DFW even now, having just gotten off a flight where a flight attendant found me a spot in the first class baggage rack for my somewhat fragile* cargo.
Flying sucks because there's no legroom and security is a pain in the ass and the airlines have laid off all the baggage handlers, but my experience with airline and TSA employees is usually neutral to very positive. (The number of exit row seats I have sweet talked my way into, let me show them to you.) Then again, I don't fly through places like ORD or LAX very often.
*A witch's and a pirate's hat from Salem Witch Village.
Also, 20% of passengers are selfish twits and another 15% are oblivious to the laws of physics and geometry. The rest are OK.
and another 15% are oblivious to the laws of physics and geometry
What kind of special relativity, interdimensional airline are you flying there, Kraab?
I didn't say the natural laws don't apply, just that people have whimsical notions of what will fit into what kind of space and don't seem to be aware that stopping dead in the middle of a crowded terminal will force 12 people to suddenly alter their trajectories to avoid collisions.
And they can't calculate the force if the collision, even if you let them use a calculator!
TSA is always unhappy with me, because I make their lives harder. I get picked out for secondary screening and then opt out which means that they have to pat me down. I hate flying for this reason.
51: this was a big issue a few years ago with that plane that crashed in Buffalo. A cousin of mine was killed in the crash (he was a jazz guitarist on his way to play a regular gig with a well known musician) and his parents have been very involved with a survivors group looking for better regulation.
The first time I flew as a UM was from Trenton to Providence on Ransome Airlines. My folks loved that.
77: This drives me crazy.
I hate US Airways because the baggage people stole my husband's laptop when he checked his bag gateside.
I'm okay with Delta and Southwest. They generally leave on time and haven't lost my luggage.
My brother and I regularly flew as unaccompanied minors to visit our grandparents. Piedmont I believe, always a transfer in Charlotte. One time we sat next to the guy who played spider man on the Electric Company. We didn't watch that so we had no idea who he was but we were polite and pretended to be impressed and asked for his autograph.
Ah, Piedmont was the first airline I ever flew on, to Richmond. It was so exciting!
The last time I said that United was particularly bad everyone was all like oh no no no they're just another airlline.
I don't know which thread that was, but I'm with you.
Or at least, I was with you. Now I almost always fly United because I was always flying Continental out of Newark for a few years and then they merged. In the last year, I've had no serious issues with United except when going through O'Hare. I think maybe it's the United-O'Hare synergy that's particularly awful.
For international flights I _strongly_ recommend flying foreign carriers unless you want to get reimbursed from a grant that comes from the US government. Sigh.
88- I made that mistake, but hooray for discretionary funds. Also code shares.
Just flew Delta, as usual, since everything else in MSP is rinky-dink carriers. It was in a real Delta plane, but a tiny one. Wasn't too bad though. In fact, it was probably the smoothest landing I've ever experienced. And the security theater only took a few minutes, and I didn't have to get patted down. Hopefully the return flight is just as good.
Y'know that scene in Airplane in the cockpit with the boy?
Also, when I was a UM they always offered a tour of the cockpit, I guess they don't do that any more.
Cape Air is pretty cool- no security and they need to balance the weight on the plane so sometimes you're asked to sit up in the copilots seat with a nice little printed label on the console that says "Please do not touch the control stick."
I love flying Cape, San Juan to Charlotte Amalie.
Yup, I remember my tour of an Allegheny cockpit when I was in 1st or 2nd grade.
I also remember looking out the window and not having the scale come into focus. Are those puddles or lakes?
Less fondly do I recall watching TV a few weeks later (the TV show Twelve O'Clock High) and seeing a plane crash on landing. That really bothered me.
More nostalgia. Watching PBA's DC-3s cross low over South Boston coming into Logan.
We just flew frontier. They're generally good.
Also, when I was a UM they always offered a tour of the cockpit, I guess they don't do that any more.
Terror babies!
92: "Timmy, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?"
In 1980, not only could children visit the cockpit, but you could make jokes about child molestation.
Also, nobody worried about having a Turkish warden sue for slander.
95: Yup, I remember my tour of an Allegheny cockpit when I was in 1st or 2nd grade.
Art Buchwald: The tendency today in this country is to wring our hands and say everything is rotten, but I don't feel that way. I am basically and optimist-- otherwise I would never fly Allegheny Airlines.
But I basically agree with Kraab in 74 (You're all a bunch of cranky misanthropes who undoubtedly bring trouble on yourselves). I also suspect you would all *really* suck as airline/airport workers. Stay off my flights.
I got a couple cockpit tours as a kid on Lot and Lufthansa. I loved them.
I got a cockpit tour once on East African Airways. Does that count? It was a Dakota, and I actually sat and steered it for a minute.
I think I still have a pair of wings from Eastern Airlines.
Best airline: I think, all things considered, BA. Yes, the service isn't as servile as Emirates or SQ, the food isn't as good as SQ, unlike Virgin they don't want to make you imagine you're Tony Blair, but not all of those things are bad. Also, everyone loves SQ until they leave you for five hours waiting in an un-airconditioned gate room in Changi - they handed round letters on their headed notepaper saying sorry, but I found this unsatisfactory.
They're usually on time. Unlike Qantas or ANZ they go other places than Australia. Unlike Virgin they don't try to convince you that you might be Tony Blair. I can't imagine them losing an unaccompanied kid (!) and even when they lost both engines of a 777 on short finals to Heathrow they got it onto the grass.
And they recruit UK wide - coming home from a long trip it's nice that everyone on the plane has a different funny accent.
Mind you, they also hand out exclusively horrible British newspapers. Either the Daily Hell or the Murdoch Times. Fortunately they code-share with Lufthansa, for me there's a good chance of a free FAZ.
Worst: "SN Brussels" aka Zombie Sabena, the only line that a) went bankrupt while I was in the air, b) unrelatedly, years later, botched a connection c) offered to book me on a Lufthansa hours later when one of their aircraft was earlier d) rebooked me on their own aircraft e) didn't do the same for my baggage.
Special mention: Iberia. Nothing's specifically wrong but everything's vaguely shit.
Also, I flew into Heathrow the other week and it worked as well as, say, Zurich. Weirdly, the Olympic Park exclusion zone seemed to make the approach more efficient - it's the only time I've ever been there without holding for even a minute. Take-off to the west out of TXL, climb on course to 380 to get over a thunderstorm, direct-to all the way to LAM, not even one turn until the Olympic thing, a dogleg over my house to dodge it, great view of the place, 10 mile final. Bags beat me to the belt.
Later, in the pub, it was determined that they'd hired enough fucking people at last, and the airspace had been taken over by the public sector (i.e. the RAF). funny that!
Nothing's specifically wrong but everything's vaguely shit.
This is a nice characterization of almost everything in the world.
I loathe the non-budget US airlines and would love to fly an Asian airline when going US-Singapore, but for whatever reason United has always been the cheapest for me (although China Eastern is cheaper if you fly from JFK). Maybe because their flights within Asia always seem to be under-subscribed---there were about 20 people on my last United flight from Singapore to Hong Kong, and their Tokyo-Singapore flights are usually half empty.
One of the most worrying proposals to come out of the Olympics was (and this popped up in several newspapers) that the army were doing such a good job on security that they should take over airport security too.
Well, if you want to reduce the size of the army through lots of voluntary redundancy, that'd do the trick.
Daily Mash-like, we were wondering if it would be possible to declare that George Osborne had failed to deliver the required level of service, and have him replaced by, say, 3 Para Mortar Platoon, on a shift basis. ("Sgt MacDougall will be running the UK's economic policy from now until 2200, then he'll hand over to Cpl Adams and Cpl Price until 0200 tomorrow").