So, was supposed to be Kaiserslautern this morning, instead, well, read for yourself. http://joelstransky.com/eine-odyssee...chland-teil-1/
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So, was supposed to be Kaiserslautern this morning, instead, well, read for yourself. http://joelstransky.com/eine-odyssee...chland-teil-1/
I always wonder why people are so...well...surprised when they encounter canceled/postponed flights, especially given the weather so far this winter. Don't get me wrong, I feel for you...and it sucks...but does this really come as a surprise to you or is your anger exacerbated by the fact that you've got baby in tow?
I don't believe I used the word surprised once in my post aside from describing an employee's reaction to common sense. Just because traveling is inherently error prone doesn't mean I understand why. My anger stems from the fact that I didn't want to leave my co-workers, childhood friends and family and I'm stressed enough about the involuntary move.
I feel for you J. Yeah, Hanratts, travel inherently sucks. Especially Chicago.
On my way back to Rochester from LAX earlier this month, had a layover in Chicago. Definitely not the bad experience you had, but annoying nonetheless. We got in about 30 minutes early from LAX, so that was pretty awesome, had a chance to grab something to eat and have plenty of time to get to the gate (which was on the other side of the airport)...15 minutes after we were supposed to board the plane, an announcement is made..."we'll be boarding soon, we're just waiting for the pilot to arrive from another flight, it'll be about 10-15 minutes.". Which is all well and good...except they made the SAME announcement for the next 2 hours. They couldn't find the freaking pilot! Seriously? Couldn't come up with a better excuse than that? How do you get delayed two hours because you can't find the pilot?!
Again. I know arriving 2 hours late is not bad, but it's just frustrating. Give me a direct flight any day.
Dude... that sucks.
But... good German btw.
Ouch.
That's pretty sh**ty that they knew the connecting flight was canceled before you left and didn't tell you.
I guess I've been pretty lucky in my travels so far.
No real horror stories to tell, except for the usual being 6'2" crammed in a seat that would be cozy for a 10yr old, and the one time that we misremembered our return date and showed up at the airport a day late. :(
See - I just completely disagree with this statement.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loyal Rogue
I travel fairly often for business and have learned to expect situations like this. Their responsibility (the airlines) is to make sense out of the mess that is the logistical nightmare of getting hundreds of thousands of people to their eventual destination each day, all while dealing with weather, de-icing planes, mechanical issues, terrorists and annoying passengers. Contrary to service industries, the customer is not always right. Airlines are a logisitics business, not a service one.
Had they told him his connecting flight was cancelled...then what? Does he stay in Vegas to pile himself and his family on an already overbooked flight tomorrow? No. At the end of the day, they need to get him a little further along his journey as time and resources permit. That's it.
Airlines are such a dicey industry as it is...there are simply too many variables and I've found that the inconveniences provided by the airlines are FAR outweighed by the ongoing complaining and nastiness of bitter infrequent passengers that simply don't 'get it' and simply need to hear their annoying voices be heard by everyone else who is in the same boat as them.
A little hint to all of you...this is exactly the reason that bars are in airports. Ease the pain, my friends. Ease the pain.
Yes there are a lot of ducks to put in a row, I understand that even 7-11 can't be perfect. But this is an old industry and simply making an announcement at the gate, sending me a text or email does not require a logistical rubix cube. At some point you should draw a line between customers and cargo.
This isn't one of those situation where I had options and chose to accept the hassles that go with flying. Was I supposed to take a boat?
But as I mentioned in the post, had I been more experienced I'd have done the checking myself and not doing so resulted in a two day inconvenience. Closing the goddamn baggage area without sending our stuff to the carousel was an all out f*ck up. Tell the women next to me freaking out because her medication was in one of those bags that she was the victim of logistics.
^well said.