Well that's kind of a drag

[moeman]

Quote

The airline also has a policy that requires flight attendants to ask for volunteers to leave the plane if it's overbooked.

News to me...

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, moeman said:

News to me...

I thought that was done at the gate before boarding by the agents.

[Airband]

Buckle-up...

Airline passenger bill of rights will go to Parliament this week

[boestar]

Never heard the FAs ask for volunteers but I have heard it at the gate

[moeman]

Quote

The airline also has a policy that requires staff to ask for volunteers to leave the plane if it's overbooked. It's not clear if that happened in this case.

Fixed.

[Guest]

Delta flight goes bad, but crew does good

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, Opinion columnist 11:39 a.m. ET May 15, 2017

     

When everyone does their job, and is polite and efficient, that’s not news.

At Los Angeles International Airport

(Photo: Robyn Beck, AFP/Getty Images)

123 CONNECTTWEETLINKEDIN 4 COMMENTEMAILMORE

Something happened to me last week that wasn’t at all newsworthy. And I think that’s worth talking about.

Like so many stories in the news lately, it’s the story of an airline flight, interrupted.

Returning from a business trip to New York, my wife and I were comfortably seated on a Delta jet that was about to push back from the gate. We’d made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare, breezed through security (at La Guardia!) with barely any line, and boarded our plane without incident. I had been a bit worried, because there wasn’t another nonstop from La Guardia to Knoxville until that night.

But as I sat relaxed, sipping a plastic cup of airline Chardonnay, it looked like we were going to make it on time. Then, as the flight attendant pushed the button to close the door, there was a grinding noise followed by a loud crash that shook the entire airplane. “Oh, that’s not good,” she muttered.

There were numerous muted consultations at the front of the plane, none of them sounding happy. Then, after a bit, the captain got on the PA and explained what had happened: The cable that is supposed to pull the door up for closing had broken. That had caused the door to flop downward, smashing against the pavement.

The wire didn’t have to be fixed immediately: They could still close the door manually. But they had to be sure that the door wasn’t damaged, leaving it unsafe. (You don’t want the cabin door to pop open, or even just spring a leak, at 35,000 feet.)

Naturally, this meant that we had to “deplane,” so everyone got off the plane, looking pretty unhappy. My wife and I bolted to the Sky Club, where they were nice enough to make us a backup reservation on the later flight.

We went back to the gate, where the gate agent, whose name was Roger, gave us periodic updates: They were looking for mechanics, they were inspecting the door, the door was safe but they wanted to fix the cable, they had to go find the part in Delta’s warehouse, etc. They distributed bottled water and snacks to the people waiting.

After a while, I got impatient and connected with Delta’s customer service via Twitter. I pointed out that the plane was safe to fly to Knoxville, and that by keeping it at La Guardia to do a fix instead of sending it to Knoxville and fixing it there they were keeping passengers waiting for Delta’s convenience, not for any reason of safety. They were very nice.

I doubt that my protestations did much, but someone at Delta must have had the same thought, because they found us another plane. Roger, the gate agent, called all the passengers together and explained another problem: The flight crew had been flying long enough that unless the new plane turned around very fast, they would “time out,” and Delta would have to find another crew, meaning more delays. He organized the passengers in advance so that when the plane emptied out, we were able to board much faster than usual.

We took off with minutes to spare, and wound up making it to Knoxville only a couple of hours late. So why is this news? Well, it isn’t.

It’s news when passengers are dragged off of planes, beaten up by flight crews, forced to pee on themselves because of restroom prohibitions — well, you’ve heard all those stories.

But those stories are news because they’re unusual. When everyone does their job, and is polite and efficient, that’s not news. But, even in today’s fairly crappy flight environment, that happens a lot more often than the newsworthy stuff.

From following the news, you might think that every airline flight is an abomination and an ordeal. Which, maybe, actually does make it newsworthy — or, at least, worth mentioning — when everything is handled properly.

As my fellow Knoxvillian Alex Haley once said, "find the good and praise it.” That’s not much of a formula for success as a pundit, but it’s worth pointing out that there’s more good out there than you might think from following the news. And that’s true whether you’re talking about airlines, or, well, pretty much anything else.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor and the author of The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself, is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

[Canoehead]

3 hours ago, moeman said:

Fixed.

I personally e-mailed Mr. Grabish (the CBC "journalist") this morning and called him out on his lousy story.  My two main points of contention were his inaccurate report on the "airline's policy" that some of you caught above, and also the fact that this passenger is an "ambulance chaser", and reporters (especially at the CBC) are tripping over themselves to report on this bull$#%& for the sake of selling sensationalist news.  My backup to that claim was how this pax claimed to have "travelled all over the world..." (ie: an experienced world traveller) , yet he was "Confused, lost and depressed" at a relatively minor travel glitch (never clearly explained because Mr. Grabish never collected nor reported ALL of the FACTS).  

I questioned Mr. Grabish as to how do I trust reporting in other areas of society (medical, education etc.) when I read this uninformed, incorrect and inaccurate reporting in my line of work....

The response I got back was "...thanks for reaching out..."

I'm about ready to delete the CBC News app off my devices.  I'm getting tired of this garbage.

 

[Guest]

Seems that some of the press is working hard to prove that travelers are not unhappy with airlines, I wonder if our Transport Minister is paying attention, I guess we will find out soon. http://kpcw.org/post/despite-viral-incidents-passengers-are-more-satisfied-airlines-ever#stream/0

Despite Viral Incidents, Passengers Are More Satisfied With Airlines Than Ever

By David Schaper • 47 minutes ago

Originally published on May 16, 2017 5:45 am

Another day and another conflict with airline employees goes viral.

This time, it's family getting kicked off a JetBlue flight because of a dispute with flight attendants over where they stored the birthday cake they brought on board. A video posted by the Washington Post and other outlets shows a young boy crying as a Port Authority police officer tries to reassure him. The airline says the passengers had become "agitated, cursed and yelled at the crew,  would you believe that despite this and other recent incidents in which airline employees appear to mistreat passengers, customer satisfaction overall with commercial airlines is at an all-time high? It's true.

According to the annual 2017 North America Airline Satisfaction Study by market research firm J.D. Power, overall customer satisfaction with airlines customers is up for the fifth consecutive year and has reached it's highest level ever in the 13 years the company has been conducting the survey.

"It's impossible to think about airline customer satisfaction without replaying the recent images of a passenger being dragged from a seat, but our data shows that, as a whole, the airline industry has been making marked improvements in customer satisfaction across a variety of metrics, from ticket cost to flight crew," said Michael Taylor, travel practice lead at J.D. Power.

Lower air fares, better on-time performance, fewer lost bags and fewer passengers being bumped from over-booked flights have all contributed to the better customer satisfaction ratings.

J.D. Power interviewed about 11,000 travelers about their experience with airlines between April of 2016 through March of 2017. That's before several videos of passengers' negative experiences with the airlines went viral, but the survey still offers a window into passengers' day-to-day experience with the airlines. It rates the carriers on issues such as cost and fees, comfort of seats, on-time performance and losing luggage, among other measures.

Those measures are weighted based on their importance to the traveler on a 1,000 point scale. And for 2017, the airlines collectively scored 756, up 30 points from last year.

"One of the biggest weights on satisfaction is actually your ticket price, how much value you think you're getting for your money," said Taylor. "And that's been improving year over year."

The average North American air fares fell 8.5 percent in 2016, to $349, and even when adding in travelers' distaste for fees for checked baggage and other extras, most people are quite happy with the cost of air travel these days. "It's been the highest satisfaction level that we've ever recorded in the 13 years we've been doing this study," Taylor said.

Another driver of passenger satisfaction is in-flight entertainment, which Taylor says is getting much better than in years past. "You can surf the net, you can check your email, you can download a movie, you can watch a movie on demand..." he said. "And that kind of thing makes your whole airline experience a lot more pleasant because you're passing the time being entertained rather than staring at several hundred other passengers in a small metal tube flying in the air."

To be sure, airline passengers still have plenty of complaints. Number one is comfort of the seat, as the seats and the distance between them get smaller and airlines pack more rows of seat onto planes.

The second biggest complaint is a lack of space for carry-on luggage in the overhead bin.

And even though the involuntarily bumping of passengers is reaching historic lows across the industry, bumping tends to create the greatest negative influence on customer satisfaction. Incidents of passengers getting bumped off planes have also earned the airlines the negative press lately.

Though the airlines are doing better overall, "they still have a long way to go," said Taylor, who notes airlines still "rank very far below some of the travel (industries) we measure for customer satisfaction, such as hotel experience and your rental car."

[boestar]

We can make everyone happy but we will have to charge 50% more for the ticket.  This eliminates a lot of issues.  The only person that will be unhappy is the guy looking for the best service for the cheapest possible fare.

You either pay RynaAir prices for Ryan Air Service or pay the full service fare for the full service.  you cant get full service for a Ryanair price.  it is not possible.

 

[boestar]

Quote

The second biggest complaint is a lack of space for carry-on luggage in the overhead bin.

Really???  An this is the airlines fault that cheap passengers don't want to pony up the $25 to check a bag?  

Again we can address this....for a price.

 

[Lakelad]

.

Couple 'flabbergasted' after Air Canada suspends tickets, costing them $6K to return from Portugal

Airline forwarded settlement offer shortly after being contacted about situation by CBC

Tue May 16, 2017 - CBC News
By Jen White

A Newfoundland couple travelling home from Portugal was shocked to discover at the airport that Air Canada had suspended their tickets — and the only way to get back to St. John's was to book new one-way fares for almost three times what they had originally paid for the entire trip.

"I was flabbergasted. My wife said she thought I was going to have a stroke," said Randell Earle, a retired lawyer.

"We ended up having to spend $6,100 to get a flight back to St. John's."

Earle was later told that the problem related to a "fraud detection technique" — something he didn't understand, given the fact the same credit card had been used to book the outbound flight, without any problems.

Within hours of CBC News contacting Air Canada for comment on Friday, the Earles said the airline contacted themwith a proposal to settle out of court, offering to pay the full amount for the tickets which Earle expects to receive by the end of the week.

In an emailed statement to CBC, Air Canada said: "We have been in contact with the Earle family, however as this is before the courts, it would be inappropriate for us to comment."

Suspended tickets

In December, Earle and his wife Claudia booked a five-week round trip from St. John's to Portugal through Air Canada's website for about $2,400. They paid by credit card.

The couple travelled to Portugal on Feb. 13. Earle said they had a wonderful time in Lisbon and Porto, until their return to the airport on March 21.

"We go to check in, and we were told, 'Air Canada has cancelled your ticket. You have to go to customer care,'" he said.

Earle said they spent the next three hours getting the runaround from airport agents. Multiple calls on a pay phone to Air Canada and Star Alliance's customer care lines didn't resolve matters.

The couple was told their only option to get home was to book a new flight online.

The next day, the Earles boarded the expensive flight, and arrived in St. John's 23 hours later.

"They tried to tough it out and hope that we'd go away."

.

[Guest]

Let's see, knowing the rules, push the limit and then get **bleep** or and press when you don't like the result. Maybe he should have flown standby on a military jet. 

 

Too bad, too sad. 

National Guard soldier claims United

Quote

Benefits for members of the U.S. military United would like to extend our sincere thank you to members of our U.S. military for everything they do for us, and we would like to do everything we can to make your travel with us as easy and comfortable as possible. We are pleased to offer a variety of benefits to active duty military members, including those who have been discharged from the military within 7 days of the date of travel. These benefits are available to members of the U.S. Army®, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, U.S. Marines, U.S. Coast Guard and National Guard, and cadets of the Air Force Academy, West Point, Naval Academy, Merchant Marine Academy and Coast Guard Academy. Baggage acceptance allowance Active duty military personnel traveling on official orders or for pleasure are invited to check extra baggage free of charge. In some cases, military dependents will also be included. Please visit our Checked baggage and Changed bag rules and optional services pages for more information. Veterans Advantage discounts United has teamed up with Veterans Advantage to offer up to a 5 percent discount on our fares. See the Veterans Advantage discount page for more information. Military and State Department pet exceptions United allows active duty U.S. military members, State Department Foreign Service Personnel, personnel holding Foreign Service passports or documentation identifying their assignment to an embassy, consulate or mission, and their spouses, to transport their pet dogs or cats as checked baggage to and from international destinations on United-operated flights. Visit the Military and State Department pet exceptions page to learn more about our PetSafe® program. United Club℠ invitation We are pleased to invite active duty military members to visit our United Club locations on the same day they are traveling on a United- or United Express®-operated flight. Please present your military ID and your boarding pass for entry. Access is available to active duty military members only (guests are not included), and is subject to each location’s capacity and seating availability. For more information about our United Club locations, please see the Club and Lounge Access page.

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Airlines charged $200 for overweight bag

Published May 17, 2017

 (Courtesy FOX 7)

After being deployed in Afghanistan for almost two years, First Lieutenant John Rader just wanted to go home.

 

 

But as he was preparing to board the final leg of his trip, a United Airlines flight from El Paso, Texas to Austin on Monday, he was told that his bag—a military issued duffel filled with combat gear—was too heavy and that he’d have to pay a hefty fine to get his luggage on the plane. 

"I was told point blank that I'd have to pay $200 for the overage or find another bag to siphon stuff off with,” Rader told FOX 7. “Well, I didn't have another bag so I was caught in a bind, do I go home without my stuff or without it?"

United permits active military personnel to check up to five bags free as long as each item is under 70 pounds.  

UNITED PASSENGER DRAGGED OFF FLIGHT SETTLES WITH AIRLINE FOR UNDISCLOSED AMOUNT

Rader says he tried to reason with the ticket agent but was told his bag, in which he had packed a Kevlar vest, two helmets and boots (all items worn overseas), was too heavy to qualify for the airline perk.

 

"There was no empathy to the situation. I'm not looking for sympathy, but some form of empathy in the situation. There was none of that. It was just cold. I had to either pay or leave the bag,” Rader said, adding that another soldier traveling on the same flight was forced to pay an extra fee, too.

Though this isn’t the first time he’s flown with some extra weight, Rader said it is the first time he has encountered an agent who was unwilling to be flexible.

"In the past airlines have been very flexible to soldiers whether it’s upgrading us in our seating arrangements helping us with numerous bags we travel with often,” said Rader.

“This is the first time and an isolated case in my history where it's actually occurred. It became upsetting when all you want to do is get home and you have a $200 charge thrown on top.”

The First Lieutenant was originally set to serve just nine months but decided to double his time overseas because he says he enjoys serving his country.

On Tuesday, United Airlines released the following statement to FOX 7: "We are disappointed anytime a customer has an experience that doesn't meet their expectations, and our customer care team is reaching out to this customer to issue a refund for his oversized bag as a gesture of goodwill."

Other airlines, like Southwest and American, permit active duty personnel to check multiple bags under 100 pounds free of charge.

But Rader says United has lost his business and he’s encouraging others to follow suit.

Said the soldier, “"As I civilian traveling, I would not fly United after this situation.”

A representative for United Airlines was not immediately available for comment. 

 

[mo32a]

I guess he could have put his kevlar vest and helmet on to board the flight, he then would have made the weight requirements and would be better protected if he had to be "re-accommodated."

[Jaydee]

This is exactly what we knew was coming....United will regret the day they wimped out.

" He just wanted United to do something, anything, that would allow him to sue them — he even said so more than once,” said Aulenbach, who was flying home to Pennsylvania."

 

http://globalnews.ca/news/3475369/passengers-chant-lock-him-up-as-disruptive-man-delays-united-flight-by-8-hours/?utm_source=GlobalNews&utm_medium=Facebook

[Guest]

The crazies are out and FA's are def. underpaid.  

May 26, 2017, 11:50 AM

American Airlines passenger jumps off plane at airport, feds say

Tun Lon Sein is seen in a police booking photo the Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office in North Carolina provided to CBS Charlotte affiliate WBTV.

Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office

An American Airlines passenger allegedly attempted to bite a flight attendant and then jumped off a plane after it pushed back from a gate at a North Carolina airport, CBS Charlotte affiliate WBTV reports.

According to a federal criminal complaint, Tun Lon Sein refused to return to his seat on American Airlines Flight 5242 Thursday morning and attempted to bite the flight attendant's hand in order to reach a door on the plane.

The flight to New Bern, North Carolina, was holding on the tarmac after pushing back from its gate at Charlotte Douglas International Airport.

"Sein spoke little or no English during these events," the criminal complaint says. "However, circumstances surrounding his actions show that Sein understood the directions of the F/A, as well as the safety requirements of commercial air travel."

American said in a statement that Sein was apprehended by law enforcement. He could be sentenced to 20 years in prison if he's convicted of interfering with flight crew members.

The flight was operated by PSA Airlines, an American subsidiary. After the incident, the plane returned to the gate and was rescreened while passengers waited in the terminal, American said.

The flight arrived in New Bern about an hour and a half late.