Commercial Airline Did me Right!! (wow!)

[SkyHog]

For the first time in about 4 or 5 years, I had a completely uneventful commercial flight yesterday. No delays. No mechanical issues. No irritating FAs that think they're god's gift to the airplane.

Departed PHX on time, arrived DEN about 10 minutes early. I can once again give full support to US Airways for comfort. Its about time.

NOW, The TSA, that's a different story. I had 3 different problems with them yesterday, and actually wound up in my skivvies at one point. That was fun

 

[silver-eagle]

For the first time in about 4 or 5 years, I had a completely uneventful commercial flight yesterday. No delays. No mechanical issues. No irritating FAs that think they're god's gift to the airplane.

Departed PHX on time, arrived DEN about 10 minutes early. I can once again give full support to US Airways for comfort. Its about time.

NOW, The TSA, that's a different story. I had 3 different problems with them yesterday, and actually wound up in my skivvies at one point. That was fun

.... An image I'll have a hard time shaking.... Thank you!

 

[Cap'n Jack]

NOW, The TSA, that's a different story. I had 3 different problems with them yesterday, and actually wound up in my skivvies at one point. That was fun

You'd think that would punish them as much as the "customers". Some of those images are scary...

 

[Ghery]

There's got to be a story there somewhere. Or do we want to know? And I'll keep that image out of my mind, thank you.

 

[SkyHog]

Holy cow, good experience twice in a row!!

My return trip was excellent as well. Here's the stats on Commercial flight now for me:

Since I wrote off UAL for their horribly trained and irritable front line (after a series of bad experiences, I've stopped using them), I have started using USAirways about 3 years ago.

I don't fly often, maybe 2-3 times a year (sometimes slightly more, but on average, 2-3).

So - using the low end of the spectrum, 2 times a year, (that's 4 flights, always roundtrip), I've now had 12 bad flights and 2 good ones. But the 2 good ones were back to back, maybe things are changing?

By bad ones, I mean I haven't had an ontime departure or arrival on any airline (United included, believe it or not) since I was 16. I can handle some delay, provided the flight crew is honest about it, and nice about it. USAirways has had some doozies, from a tire change that took 3 hours to fix, to a jetway that wouldn't retract, to weather, to a missing flight crew, and in the past, they've usually made up some story along the lines of "ATC is holding us up right now, please be patient."

With United, I was usually told "Sir, we'll get you there, asking us what is wrong is not going to get us there any faster," with the most acidic tone you could imagine (this is FAs and later from the call center folks when I complained about the FAs).

But these 2 trips - nothing went wrong that USAir had any control over. TSA made me strip, but that was well before the ball was in USAir's court.

While USAir screwed my aunt recently, I was willing to give them one more shot before I moved, like everyone else, to Southwest Airlines. They have redeemed themselves in my eyes, and I heartily endorse their services.

 

[ScottM]

Our company switched to UAL at the beginning of the year and no one I know is liking it, me included. Well today we got our company travel newsletter and there was an article in there telling us to stop complaining the UAL employees about how poor their service is compared to AA. It appears that UAL told our company it was demoralizing their employees!!

 

[tonycondon]

god nick, now im destined to nightmares for weeks.

*nick in his skivvies* *shudder*

last time i flew commercial was with us airways out of myrtle beach back to minneapolis,t hrough charlotte. apparentlyt hey found a screw loose on preflight, so had maintenance take care of it, had to wait for the work order, or logbooks, or soemthing to be brought back to the airplane before we could depart. missed our connection in charlotte but they got us seats on northwest. all worked out i was in no hurry to get home so i really didnt care much. this mustve been in 2003 or so.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Interesting.

Generally, I'll take the cheapest tickets, unless I can get where I'm going on Midwest. They may not be the cheapest, but you cannot beat their all-first-class cabins (2x2 DC9/MD8x/717's!), fresh-baked (yes, in flight) cookies, etc. Oh, and since their hub is Milwaukee instead of Chicago, much less congestion and far fewer cancelled or delayed flights.

With the others, United's at the top of my list. They've always been friendly and helpful to me, and ya gotta love Channel 9. Delta? I've had pretty good luck with them, but avoid CVG. American? Blah, but OK. Northworst? Preferably not, even though they're the only company that flies anything bigger than an RJ out of Madison. Too many Airbussen, too many customer service gaffes, and that anti-GA jerk of a CEO who tried to mess with the MAC (not the computer, the Metropolitan Airports Commission) up in the MSP area. USAir? Never flew 'em, never will. All my friends who have call them "US Scareways" and have multiple horror stories each. Plus, they don't really serve my area well at all.

Frankly, tho, British Airways has all the US carriers except for Midwest beat hands down. On a 45-minute flight from Heathrow to Schipol, they served a meal and two additional beverages, all with the proper British manners all around. Too bad Heathrow is such a piece of **** airport!

 

[wsuffa]

With all due respect to Greg, I wrote off UA years ago when I was living in DC (UA hubs there) due to some huge customer service issues that unnecessarily left me stranded overnight when I could have been home. And I wrote off what is now US back in the days of Allegheny (aka Agony) airlines.... and I had been a huge fan of Piedmont before Allegheny bought it. From what I hear, USAir is making no fans among frequent flyers these days.

Midwest is tops in my book, but most of my time is spent on Delta, American, and Southwest. The attitude at Delta seems to have changed markedly for the better since US threatened to buy them. I hear rumors that there was a big employee/company party in Atlanta recently - and the CEO was up doing a version of YMCA on stage (!!!!). Southwest seems to always have a "can do" attitude. American is about like Chevrolet - not great, not rotten, just average.

Bottom line is that you can have good or bad experiences on any of the airlines. Some are better than others, and some do much better with very frequent flyers than others do. Generally, the folks that fly a LOT each year get much better treatment than the occasional flyer (cue the class warfare speech)... and in that regard, if you don't have status in the frequent flyer program of the airline you're on, you're as well off flying Southwest.

Just my opinion, of course.

 

[gismo]

god nick, now im destined to nightmares for weeks.

*nick in his skivvies* *shudder*

last time i flew commercial was with us airways out of myrtle beach back to minneapolis,t hrough charlotte. apparentlyt hey found a screw loose on preflight, so had maintenance take care of it, had to wait for the work order, or logbooks, or soemthing to be brought back to the airplane before we could depart. missed our connection in charlotte but they got us seats on northwest. all worked out i was in no hurry to get home so i really didnt care much. this mustve been in 2003 or so.

Well, I'll grant you that flying he airlines is generally faster than you'd get there in your glider.

 

[KennyFlys]

I hear rumors that there was a big employee/company party in Atlanta recently - and the CEO was up doing a version of YMCA on stage (!!!!).

Yep, he did. The party they had made some news in papers and a significant amount of time on local TV stations for a few days. Then, when Grinstein went off to the NYSE to ring the bell brought them some more news. A few days later, I saw something at the paper distributed to Hartsfield employees where all existing DAL employees were given a bonus that averaged $3600 each. All furloughed pilots were asked back.

Maybe things will turn around... perhaps king of airline service with some better management and profitability. We'll see.

 

[ScottM]

Just saw this nugget in the Trib today

United Airlines and Delta Air Lines, both of which restructured under Chapter 11 in recent years, ranked last and next-to-last, respectively, among airlines in terms of customer satisfaction in a survey to be released Tuesday by the University of Michigan.

No Duh!

 

[tonycondon]

Well, I'll grant you that flying he airlines is generally faster than you'd get there in your glider.

i dunno, my door to door time to many farmers fields in Iowa is probably better in the glider than the airlines

 

[Ghery]

Just saw this nugget in the Trib today

No Duh!

Delta, Continental and Lufthansa all suffer from the same problem - no leg room. They could have the best customer service on the planet and I still wouldn't want to fly them unless guaranteed an exit row seat. Too painful, otherwise.

At least UA has E+ (and channel 9).

 

[mikea]

Our company switched to UAL at the beginning of the year and no one I know is liking it, me included. Well today we got our company travel newsletter and there was an article in there telling us to stop complaining the UAL employees about how poor their service is compared to AA. It appears that UAL told our company it was demoralizing their employees!!

Rising, indeed.