Posted on 07/20/2004 11:20:08 AM PDT by EggsAckley
I hate flying. That's been the fact for quite a numbers of years. But after the events at O'Hare airport last Friday, July 16th, I vow that I will NEVER fly through that airport again, and what's more, I will NEVER EVER again fly on United Airlines. "Fly the friendly skies" my great aunt fanny! Their motto SHOULD be "We don't care, we don't have to. We're United."
On that day, dozens of planes were stuck on the tarmac, not allowed to take off. After the first hour had passed, our "friendly" pilot announced that there was a weather system holding up our takeoff. Weather? Where?
After four and a half hours of sitting on the tarmac we FINALLY departed. The explanation of "weather" was laughable; how could a weather system that no one saw hold up so many planes of so many sizes heading out for so many destinations?
I still have not been able to find out what the truth was, and I was away from computers for the subsequent four days, and had no way of researching what REALLY was going on that day. Was there a crisis at the airport? Controller shut-down? It was bad enough being trapped like sardines in that 707, with very little air, no water, and not allowed to get up and move around. What made it worse was that the crew simply didn't care how uncomfortable everyone was. It was a very unhealthy situation.
Anybody got any ideas?
I would like to know how you got stuck on a "707" when no domestic passenger carrier has used them in over 15 years. Were you in a time warp too?
I've flown into and out of O'Hare every month for 2 years. My flights are rarely on time. After a while, you just expect it.
Well, you really should address that question to the flight crew. THEY called it a 707. All I know is that it was rather small, seats 2 and 2 on the aisle, held about a hundred people. They seemed to have a whole fleet of them. Whatever they're called........that's what the crew called it.
Let me tell you my sorry tale about why the Mrs. and I will never fly United!
We were flying back to Harrisburg from the left coast. (This was back in summer of 1995.)
We were an hour late taking off from Portland Oregon (due to the weather!) and by the time we landed in O’Hare we had 20 minutes to get from one end of the airport to the other to make our connecting flight. Which the overhead monitors assured us was “on schedule”!
Well we made it, and arrived at the gate, huffing and puffing only to find out that our connecting flight was still circling high overhead and couldn’t land because there was a “disabled” plane at the gate. Why they couldn’t land our plane at another empty gate or tow the disabled plane somewhere else was anybody’s guess but that’s the story we were told by the gate attendant.
Finally, after 1 ½ hours, they towed the disabled plane to parts unknown and permitted our plane to land.
They un-boarded (it that a word?) the plane and then announced over the PA system that they would begin boarding as soon as they get the plane cleaned and re-stocked.
Another hour later, they finally announced that our flight was ready for boarding. It is now 11PM (Chicago time) and we were supposed to have landed in Harrisburg two hours ago.
We got settled into our seats and taxied out to the waiting line for take-off. The pilot announced that we were 14th in line and it should only be about a 30 minute wait. True to his word, 28 minutes later, he announced that we were next in line and would the flight attendants please be seated for take-off.
We then taxied out onto the runway, straightened out and just as you heard the engines start to rev up for take off….
The plane goes completely DEAD! no power, no engines, no lights, NO NUTHIN! The co-pilot comes back and announces that we have had a major power failure (no DUH!) and that a ground crew will arrive shortly to fix the problem. Meanwhile, there we are, dead on the runway, traffic building up behind us and not so much as a wisp of air circulating in the fully booked aircraft cabin.
The ground crew does indeed board the plane and proceed to “fix” the problem.
THREE HOURS LATER!!! (I’m not kidding!) The ground crew announces that they are unable to fix the problem and they will have to have this plane towed back to the gate. Amidst groans (and I’m sure plenty of cheers from the passengers in the planes behind us!) they proceed to do so. When we get back to the gate and are connected to gate power again, the flight attendant announces that we will unload from this plane and immediately board an identical plane at the very next gate.
Surprise! Surprise! We do so and in record time no less!
However, the attendant then announces that the flight crew from our old plane had to be “de-briefed” and would not be flying with us on to Harrisburg. Unfortunately, our replacement flight crew was “stuck in traffic” (At 3 in the morning!!!!!) and hadn’t arrived at the terminal yet! So we will have a “short” delay while we wait for the replacement crew to arrive.
Two hours later, our crew finally arrives, we pull away from the gate and taxi out to the waiting line. Then, the pilot announces that “due to a previously disabled plane, blocking the runway earlier this evening” (DUH, I wonder which plane that might have been) our wait in line may be as long an hour.
Finally, at 6:00 AM (Chicago time) we lift off the tarmac and land in Harrisburg an hour later at 6:00 AM (Harrisburg time.)
We were supposed to land in Harrisburg at 10:00 PM the previously evening and we finally made it 8 HOURS later.
What made matters even worse was the attitude of the United employees. No remorse, no apology, NO NUTHIN! It’s as if this was standard operating procedures for United Airlines!
Well, like I said, the Mrs. and I have NEVER flown on United since and we NEVER will!
I have never made it out of O'Hare on the United flight I was supposed to be on. And United Express out of Dulles really sucks. If I have a choice, I go ATA thru Midway.
Yes, you do get to expect it. Yes, it can suck. But, I've found that United is no worse than anyone else. Weather happens!
And start over again on a new seniority list? Heh. The pax think they're locked in... I think they all (the majors) just need to fire everybody who has a reserved parking space at HQ and assign those jobs to the regular employees for thirty days at a time, like jury duty or an unpleasant deployment.
"Hi hon. Got my bid sheet back and it's worse than I thought. I gotta be VP of Marketing for August. Dang! Well, it could be worse. Some new-hire A&P got stuck with CEO."
As long as you didn't have to qualify in the simulator, the pilots would probably go for it.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Air Carrier District Office.. they do standards and evaluations among other things for Airlines. nnot a bunch the air carriers enjoy seeing ..
Well, MY experience with United Airlines was most excellent.
We flew out of ORD to England and back. When we arrived at the airport, we were early, but I enjoy big airplanes and I had a good time waiting.
When we boarded, we were full. It was a little tight in the middle isle. But pushback, taxi, and launch! NO delays at all, and I was expecting at least a few minutes in line for a runway.
The food was excellent. We had steak. The coffee was excellent on the way to England but lousy on the way back. Makes sense as the suppliers in England probably had terrible coffee like we found everywhere we had it over there. The hot tea was excellent, however. There was also this stuff called clotted cream....Mmmmmm!
My flight back was even more comfortable as we got the emergency exit seats (lots of leg room). So I had a great time with United.
Your situation, while aggravating, was infinitely better than having a four hour delay in the air, no? Safety first, and economy as well. Like the above poster mentioned about all the planes circling ORD waiting for the weather, they now have them sit on the ground burning less fuel.
Also, there is so much traffic, sometimes if a destination airport is swamped, an aircraft is delayed at the departure airport. Safer, more economical.
Could have been weather in the mix as well. ONE airport having weather delays can screw up the whole country.
It might be a Chicago problem. The last two times I had Southwest flights delayed they were coming out of Chicago.
As a few others have already said, I wouldn't be suprised if there was a weather system that was out there impacting your flight. I had a similar experience, though, in the middle of summer at one of the airports in New York while flying Delta. In that case, we were on the tarmac, the plane was turning into an oven, and the stewardesses were up handing out water to the pax as fast as we could drink it. I wasn't too happy about the situation, but at least the crew left me with the impression that they weren't necessarily enjoying our suffering.
That having been said, the domestic carriers can't really even spell "customer service". If you want a real shock, travel into the country on an airline like Singapore Airlines, and then connect to a cross-US flight on, say, Delta. I was on Raffles/Business class for both legs, and while the Singapore Girls went out of their way to cater to my every need (for the 20+ hours we were cocooned in the plane), the only difference I could detect between Business/First class on Delta and the cattle class was that we got a larger seat and a free beer. Two free beers if you were lucky enough to get a stewardess to notice that you were trying to get her attention. Pathetic.
Part of that is that in most cases they have more seniority. That means that they might be burnt out, or wild-eyed union activists who hate their own airline -- but it usually means they're mature, that they wanted this particular route (even though Ernest K. Gann flew O'Hare to Scranton, that doesn't make it hip -- not that I'm bagging on "Eggs's" miserable experience. And it also means they usually have a lot more equanimity about company troubles or pending layoffs than pilots or FAs lower down the food chain.
I have often kicked around with friends the idea that 90% of the lines today are run by bozos. You would be hard pressed to do a worse job as an airline exec than, say, that crook Don Carty. The thing that keeps us from trying to start something is not the fear that we are bozos too, but that the economics of the business are rotten. Plus, the industry as constituted is a cartel, in the classic economic sense.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Sir, you're going to have to calm down.
This was also United.
YMMV
Fuel costs have gone through the roof -- for a round trip between two smaller cities, you got a good deal. In constant dollars (i.e. corrected for inflation) it's less than you would have paid twenty years ago (It's about $275 in 1984 dollars).
That explains why you can't get a direct flight, though. About the only way you are going to get there cheaper is to take Greyhound or FedEx yourself -- both of which will take longer, and I'm not sure about the savings in FedEx. If you do that, dress warm and pack plenty of oxygen.
As far as the food is concerned the lines can't win. If they serve food the pax bitch about quality, or more frequently these days, the portions. (The one thing your flight-from-hell is missing to be truly archetypal, is a 400 pound behemoth with terminal halitosis for a seatmate). Or those that packed their own lunch complain that they are getting ripped off because they didn't want the inflight meal "and have to pay for it anyway." (True enough). You can use the airline website to see what food service is available on each flight, although some airlines make it a hassle.
Ultimately they are selling transportation, not lunch. Did you know that due to a variety of regulations, it costs more to make those scuzzy little tray-borne airline meals, than it does to prepare a steak dinner in a restaurant? How much should the airline spend per passenger on food out of that very generous $125 per seat per leg? Should they raise the price by that amount, or take it out of maintenance?
Service with a sneer
Now, that is inexcusable. What particularly did they sneer at you about, apart from asking if you were drinking? Why did they ask that, do you think? Had you been? Did they ask everybody that complained if they were boozing?
I don't doubt that flight or cabin crew members sneered at you, understand. I've been on the receiving end of that myself. 98% of the time you can disarm the situation with a smile and a little charm. The other two percent of the time you have run into one of nature's own miserable sonsabitches having a bad day, and you do have a right (you could even say a duty) to turn him or her in to the line. Flying for an airline is a customer service job, whether you're rolling the cart in the aisle or rolling the heading bug on the flight director.
One thing crews can do in this situation is to make sure they explain the situation to the passengers. Some people forget that they are not freight pilots (indeed, one slang term for pax is "self-loading cargo" or "self-loading freight." You'll never see that one in an airline ad on TV). When you're sitting in the pit baking in the sun, remember that nothing drives Joe Public nuts more than not knowing what's going on.
Unfortunately, driven by the damn lawyers as much as anything, some lines plan to replace the flight crew PA with canned recordings and discourage the actual crew from getting on the PA. That is too retarded for words, so of course they're doing it.
It's hard to explain something like "flow control" and "ground holds" to lay people, but they should make an attempt. Because for every minute they sit there, the angry passenger is getting more angry, the timid one is getting more scared, etc.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Jeez. Did the other passengers react to any of this?
Greyhound.
One day, though, after the plane we were supposed to fly arrived very late, we begged the folks to just let us get on and take off because we could see the storm coming toward us. They said "no, we have to clean the plane." We all yelled "we don't care! Let's go! Do you see that big cloud coming at us?!"
Well, rules are rules. They cleaned the plane, delaying us an additional 20 minutes. We boarded, and sat there while the storm came overhead. They evacuated the tower and the ground crew, moved everyone away from the windows inside, and left us on the plane while a tornado marched across the tarmac. That took hours to unscrew.
Oh, yes, it was United. Government contract carrier.
O'Hare has the biggest on-time problem going. It got considerably worse when Daley closed Meigs. The little GA traffic went away (which he wanted) but the bizjets mostly had to go to Midway or O'Hare.
Nobody wants an airport close by, but nobody wants it too far away either.
One reason the gate situation is out of control there is that that, too, is under the control of the Daley crime family.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
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