travelGOO - The trial and tribulations of frequent fliers

Bin dividers

2008-03-14T09:44:00.001-05:00

Here is a simple solution to one overhead bin issue. Put dividers in the nuns so that wheels up and put us the only way a bag can go in. If it doesn't fit then check it. Then comes the trickledown economics: checked bag = new luggage purchase.

Brannif

2008-03-02T23:13:00.000-06:00

A brief blast from the past. On my flight out of Green Bay tonight there was a wonderful chap in the cabin tonight, Edward. Very friendly, had his passenger names memorized, offered us drinks while we were boarding, shook our hands and thanked us for flying with Northwest. So it begged the question, was this just Edward or part of Northwest's impending front-line training to improve customer satisfaction. Edward explained it was just him :( It goes back to the days when he was trained as a Purser when they that role at Braniff's.

Mrs. 11F

2008-02-12T19:49:00.000-06:00

7:15pm Flight from Minne to Green Bay

Well I did something tonight I swore to myself I never would. I put a lady's (I use this loosely and will get back this momentarily) bag in the overhead for her. I just finished swapping seats to get a family situated and then Mrs. 11F asked if I would throw her bag up above me, so now one with all the jumbling would get hit. I fell for it. A lady is someone with manners and this person clearly did not have any. One of the last persons onto the plane and barely situated in her seat and out comes the cell phone so we could all hear what a great sales person she is. She was so great and important that she kept on for minutes after the door was closed and the announcement to shut up had been made. She was so obnoxious that the flight attendant pointed out to me that there was space in the back of the plane and I could go sit there if I wanted. So here is a hint to you who is in 11F, get some manners and then you might get some sales and not have 200,000 pounds of goods just laying around costing your boss money!

Grandma perfume

2008-02-12T15:01:00.003-06:00

It's bad enough in open public spaces, but in confined areas without fresh air it is completely obnoxious to spray it. What is she thinking to be dousing herself in perfume mid-flight.

LAS Insecurity

2008-02-12T15:01:00.001-06:00

Flying out of Vegas today, there was quite the lacking of security for Terminal D. After being in DC for so long and getting used to their obstinate policies regarding making sure you didn't misplace your boarding pass while in line at security, Vegas didn't even bother to check our boarding passes once we got through the magnetometer. This wasn't so strange, the bigger thing was there was no one warning you of the 3-1-1 issues. No one yelling at you about liquids, computers or anything. Then to boot, once we got through my wife was trying to remember if they said anything or checked us for liquids, my recollection was that they didn't. Then once we got on the tram to head to the terminal, my wife noticed that our sun still had his half a bottle of vitamin water in the side pouch of has back pack. So much for "No Liquids" through security.

Miss Pink Sandals

2008-02-12T15:00:00.001-06:00

Oh how in your own world you are. Next time pack a bag that you can actually lift and fit in the overheard, or do the honorable thing and check the luggage. So in your own world that you didn't even see your soda go flying down the aisle during take off and not a single thanks to any of the people that caught it while it was flying to the back and sent it back up to you. Shame on you little snot. Then throwing your garbage in the aisle from Cinnabon and not giving a singe concern or notice to it. My goodness are you in our own little bubble. What is it like going through life without any concern or notice for the people around you? Did your parents not teach you any manners or common decencies?

Lake Havasu City

2008-02-08T15:00:00.000-06:00

We took a quick trip over to Lake Havasu City to visit some relatives. I must say, this is one of those places that is not all that easy to get to. You can't fly commercial airlines into Lake Havasu. The closest you can get is within three hours. Yikes, talk about a lot of driving back and forth to the airport!

Not a good start to the flying year

2008-02-07T23:59:00.000-06:00

I haven't flown in a while, business has been slow. So we decided to take some time off and fly and visit some relatives. The initial flight was on the new Embraer E-175, it's always exciting to fly a new aircraft. Just not when it seems that these new planes are having nothing but troubles. The inbound flight the night before had mechanical issues, so the flight landed about three hours late. So the crew needed their rest, good thing we know how to use the web, we found out ahead of time that the outbound flight in the morning would be delayed due to crew rest. The delay would have us mis-connect by eight minutes. Needless to say, they would prefer to re-book us on another airline with extra connections much later in the day, rather than delay our original connection by a mere 20 minutes.

We eventually made it to Vegas really late that night, we headed to a hotel to grab a nap then hookup with our original ride in the morning, eventually making it to Lake Havasu the following day. A slight delay to the start of our holiday, but a good one none the less.

As a note the Merger that NWA is going through and the continual cost savings measures are really driving customer service to an all new low for Northwest. The platinum line doesn't even know which rows on the plane are exit rows. A very sad state they are in.

Bags...

2008-01-16T14:26:00.000-06:00

Today on my mid afternoon flight from LGA to DTW everyone seems to be bag challenged. I first noticed it at security, when I looked up at the conveyor belt after putting my shoes down and I noticed this huge garment bag just came through. I don't know how it fit through. Then I get on my flight and there are several of these huge wide garment bags in the overhead long ways. Then I see small roll-a-boards and they are sideway, but I think that is because the one was bright pink, it needed space so nothing around it would catch on fire. Then I see backpacks with their huge padded straps strewn to the side taking up twice as much room as they needed to along side briefcases placed in wide ways. Once again a general lack of consideration for fellow travelers. It's just mind boggling to me.

Back to flying and blogging - Middle Seat Man

2008-01-16T13:05:00.000-06:00

I'm slumming it in coach again and remember why I call it slumming. The chap next to me really enjoyed his salami or whatever the heck it was that is radiating from his body. Then I really do enjoy his elbow in me for the entire flight. Middle Seat Man thinks he gets both arm rests and not too mention my shoulder space. I really don't get why everyone has such a general lack of consideration towards others. iPods. Steve Jobs I have a request for you, lock everyone's ipod at the factory at a max volume so that I can't hear what other people are listening to; then make them sign an agreement that it is bad for them and rude to others to crank their tunes before giving them the unlock code. Innovation!

A new travel year and I will try and keep up with it.

If you mess up, you're getting attitude

2007-07-30T15:09:00.000-05:00

We were descending to land, and the cabin announcement that "All personal electronics should be turned off and stowed" had been made. When the flight attendant making her check got several rows behind me I could hear "Oh, you're still using yours? The announcement for EVERYBODY ELSE was made 5 minutes ago, now, this time the message is for you."

Jim

Exit Row Saftey

2007-04-04T09:33:00.000-05:00

It seems there is a backing off from that Exit row safety and acknowledgment to the flight crew that you know you are in an exit row by means of eye contact. No longer do you have to let them know that you are capable of pulling the handles to get the door open and get the heck out of the way for the next guy.

I'm not certain if this is a change in the airlines or FAA regulations, but it is one that I can live with for the most part, just so long the flight crew makes some time of visual assessment of the people sitting there to make sure they can communicate and that at least appear to have the ability to open the door.

3B + 2C = Cause for Concern

2007-03-10T09:29:00.000-06:00

It has been quite some time since I have been to DCA as my regular route. The past few weeks I had. I noticed a few changes in the security procedures. There is no longer a 30 minute out policy, you used to have to stay in your seats for the 30 minutes into and out of DC. Up until my flight out today, I thought they hand changed the Air Marshal policy, but they haven't. I find this quite distressing and of cause for concern for the safety of the Air Marshals. What a disadvantage it is to not be covert and have people know who you are. Add this to the fact that 100 of the 120 passengers on the plane have a birds eye view of the Air Marshals, and the Air Marshals only have a view of 10 of the 120 passengers on the plane; quite the disadvantage.

Snowy day

2007-01-23T08:45:00.000-06:00

This weekend we finally got a taste of winter in Wisconsin. A good 4-6 inches stacked up around my house, the kids loved it. Most of it stopped falling by Sunday night, but a quick check of the weather showed that more was supposed to be coming in the morning. Better get up early and add some extra travel time to the airport. The roads were fine, not big problems, a few people going under the speed limit.

When I finally got to the airport, there was quite a line at the counter and none at security. Didn't really look like any NWA canceled flights on the monitor. The gate area was pretty empty, but then low an behold, the 6am flight was canceled, so they were trying to fit everyone on my flight. There was an aircraft change, so new seat assignments, all this added up to pushing back late, then some de-icing.

My connecting flight from Detroit was already showing a delay, waiting for the inbound aircraft, which was late due to scheduled crew rest. This pushed us back some, so when I did make it to Hartford, we were about one hour late. Then Hertz messed up my reservation, so I had to wait in the queue to get a car. I was behind this lady who was trying to return the car she had, with an invalid contract, seems she got in the car, drove out and no one ever compared the contract to her drivers license. You can image how difficult it is for Hertz to try and understand and rectify this. However, the girl at the Gold desk was very adept at helping with issues, if she didn't want to deal with it, she just sent you to the main desk rather than try and help you out. How nice to see this is how they handle their regular customers.

Northwest Elite Lane boarding

2007-01-23T08:27:00.000-06:00

What's up with Northwest's special red carpet for their elite lane boarding? What a bloody waste of money, especially during these financially strapped times. Each gate now has a red carpet, a sign and a queue divider to keep the Elite passengers from the other passengers ;) Not that this is anything new, but it's finally gotten on my nerves as something totally stupid! These are in place at the major hubs and the smaller airports. Here is the best thing about them, they are never ever used! Why? You wonder, quite simply the make no sense for anyone. The elite side is always the farthest from the gate agents and where their scanner is, so it becomes an impossible situation for the gate agent. Next, the line divider isn't long enough, there are at least 16 people on each flight that could easily use this lane, and it is only 3 people long, so as queuing goes, not a very good implementation. Add to that the fact they don't get used, so there is no seeing them used so that everyone can learn from watching. This being said, quite a poor implementation and waste of fundage.

Here is what it would take to make these work.

* They could double up on the ticket scanners and gate agents so that you could actually process two lines side by side, but this would be rather expensive, however with two agents assigned to each gate, you might be able to increase the level of customer service to something that was acceptable.
* You could make the lines longer, add some additional signage and more labeling on the floor (I'm a big fan of putting directions and signals on the floor for where people are supposed to stand, etc.), and then perhaps stagger the lines. The idea behind the staggering would be to move the elite lane right next to the scanner and increase it's length, then the lane for the "others" would feed into the elite line about halfway up the line, so that when they got up to the ticket counter they would be where the elite's were, right next to the gate agent.
* You could overall increase the queue length to roughly 50-100 feet this way, you could give customers guidance on how to stand in the hallway / aisle and not block other customers who are walking from gate to gate.

If you can't find a way to make them so employees and customers want to use them because the make for a better experience, then hopefully they came with a satisfaction money back guarantee and you can recoup your poorly spent dollars!

Airstrips that even experienced pilots would consider a challenge

2007-01-19T22:40:00.000-06:00

http://archibase.net/archinews/13712.html#

Saving Fuel

2007-01-15T19:58:00.000-06:00

Thursday return flight home... The fuel in Detroit is cheaper than the fuel in Green Bay, so flight ops made the grand money saving call to put enough fuel in the plane for our flight to Green Bay and the return flight back to Detroit in an effort to save money. A grand idea if it were executed correctly. However, the guy that puts the fuel in the plane, or perhaps the person that told him how much to put in got the numbers wrong. They ended up putting in over 500 pounds too many, which now put the plane over it's maximum weight for landing in Green Bay. Now comes the high tech, environmentally friendly and completely economical process of returning to a legal weight; get out of line for take off and sit on the tarmac and wait for the plane to burn the extra fuel. This will take some time, plus we then need to get back into line for take off once again. Talk about burning time and money.

Weary travel morning

2007-01-15T12:42:00.000-06:00

This morning was a weary travel morning. Last night started the first real snow fall for the Green Bay area. The drive into the airport wasn't too bad, everyone must have been running late or stayed home, the roads were mostly empty.

The weather didn't seem to be causing any issues at the airport, other than my socks gettting wet going through security ;)

Once we got on the plane, all was fine until a little after we were supposed to be pushing back. Finally after some arbitrary time had expired we got an update from the cockpit that the Primary radio had failed. They were on the horn with operations and they were going to try and "reboot" the plane to get the radio / navigation back on line. This did not work, so they were going to ring up the contracted off-site maintenance guy and have him do the all famed five minutes to swap the secondary and primary radios so that we would then be "legal" to fly. Which we all know, it never takes just five minutes, it takes 20 minutes to do the paperwork alone.

Once that was finally fixed, we pushed back, with the warning about deicing. However, there was one extra caveat once we go to the deicing area, we had to wait for the one and only deicing truck to finish with the other planes. We were second or third in line. It would be 20-30 minutes before the truck would make it to us. Then once we got sprayed we would have to hurry up and take off before the deicing expired.

While waiting for the whole deicing process we were finally offered beverages on the RJ, quite unusual. We were offered complementary "Adult Drinks" first thing in the morning. Most people took coffee, a few people took them up on the "Adult Drinks".

We finally made it to Detroit a goold couple of hours late, which now seems to be an issue for Hertz. The voided out my reservation, so when I got to the Gold Board, my name wasn't on it; though the driver had my name in his gizmo. I had to go into the building and find out what was going on. The ladies at the desk were agrevated that the "system" had voided it out already and had pulled the vehicle out of the parking spot. So we started the process over from the start.

Once I was on the road from the airport, it was pretty smooth sailing all the way to the customer site.

Read the story - Get the T-Shirt

2006-12-11T15:47:00.000-06:00

http://www.kiphawleyisanidiot.com/

Jim

Busy Airport

2006-11-29T10:42:00.000-06:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/superlocal/273964362/

Tagging passengers

2006-10-16T18:26:00.000-05:00

How tagging passengers could improve airport security

http://travel.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1921420,00.html

I think there are a lot more marketing and time & motion study aspects to this idea than security aspects.

The writer in this article didn't convince me of the increased security factor. RFID tagging could be used to match

checked baggage to passengers on board - but we have that now. Heck, I fly a major-regional airline that doesn't even have electronic boarding pass readers/scanners at the gates in their hub city. A gate agent still manually checks the boarding passes collected against a passenger manifest.

Jim Marshall

Too good for the lav

2006-10-13T20:42:00.000-05:00

Just towards the end of baord this all done up young thing decides to
heade into the lave with all her precious things. She was out so fast it
looked rather suspiscious, then withone fabulous loopk on her face I
figured it out. I don't think I have ever seen any turn there nose so
high up and make such a face in all my life, other than on over done
shows. She was too good to do her business in the lav. What on earth did
she expect to find in that tiny little 1970's water closet?

--
Rich
_______________________
Sent from my crackberry

Oh, I can go in the overhead during flight?

2006-10-13T20:39:00.000-05:00

What a bizarre response. Has this person never been on a plain before?
Then how did she end up in the bulkhead of first class? She did not
want to depart with her purse and bag, she was afraid she would never
have access to them.
--
Rich
_______________________
Sent from my crackberry

Too far back

2006-10-13T18:41:00.000-05:00

It's nice to be in firstclass. But on a Northwest A319/20 things can get
too close for comfort. The rake on these seats when put all the way back
clearly puts the person in front of you in your lap. Litterally over
your tray so you can't eat your meal, don't even think of trying to use
your computer or get out of your seat there is no room.

On the other hand, you are now in the position to fully annoy the
uncaring person in front of you by repeatedly trying to do all the
things there is no room for. With this trip I have affirmed that the
French really don't give a rip about other people around them.

--
Rich
_______________________
Sent from my crackberry

Leaving it all behind?

2006-10-09T15:48:00.000-05:00

"Attention in Concourse D. Will the person leaving a pair of sunglasses at the Security Checkpoint, please return and claim them."

"Attention in Concourse D. Will the person leaving a belt at the Security Checkpoint, please return and claim it."

"Attention in Concourse D. Will the person leaving a cell phone at the Security Checkpoint, please return and claim it."

(Overheard in the space of 5 minutes.)

Jim Marshall