4 years, 7 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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USAirways is utterly incompetent. That’s all I can conclude from my recent experience. First a baseline. I live in Louisville, Kentucky. Much of my business travel is to Baltimore and Chicago. All of these cities have a large Southwest Airlines presence. Ergo, much of my travel is on Southwest, especially to BWI, as the five nonstops between SDF and BWI can’t be beat by any other airline. With Southwest, I know what I’m getting: flights that are more often than not on time at both ends of the flight, reasonably cheap prices, and snarky flight crews that I happen to find entertaining (the singing flight attendants notwithstanding). I also know what I give up: first class cabins (which I don’t use anyway), meal service, reserved seating. Now that the “major” carriers have all but abandoned any pretense of service to coach passengers, the difference between the majors and Southwest disappears, at least for me. Of course, part of the reason Southwest is cheap is that it flies high-demand routes, and avoids airports where the costs are exorbitant, but that’s another issue altogether.
So the family needs to go from Louisville to Raleigh-Durham, and for various reasons decides that USAirways is preferable to Southwest, primarily scheduling. One tends to avoid three hour layovers when one is traveling with small children. USAirways has a flight with short layovers in Pittsburgh at a reasonable price, so we pick USAir. Big mistake. The flights are delayed repeatedly, and by airline incompetence, not weather. One flight was delayed because maintenance had to remove and rebolt a row of seats. The flights were also all oversold, and USAirways issued multiple boarding passes for the same seats, leading to passengers standing in the aisles while the flight attendants tried to sort it all out. Southwest’s boarding process is derided as a cattle call, but even if they oversell a flight, they don’t issue more boarding passes than there are seats. On the return leg, we tried to give up Baby’s seat in return for the offered vouchers once we were on the plane and saw the fiasco it had become, but were told that to do that, we would have to get off the plane and return to the counter at the gate because “I’m just the flight attendant, there’s nothing I can do for you.”
The topper was what the airline did to my luggage. Here are some pictures. You can see that the main compartment was largely ripped from the rest by the seams, the sides were shredded, a two-inch gash was left in another panel, and the whole thing looked like it had alternately been run over and burned. Everyone who saw it said “Oh my god, did the airline do that?” I didn’t pick up the bag from the baggage claim carousel, because my bag looked almost brand new and this was a piece ready for the Dumpster. So I go to the lost luggage office to submit my claim. At RDU, the baggage claim office for the airline is a tiny little office staffed by a single employee, with a big sign instructing passengers that they must wait outside the closed door until the attendant is free. After waiting at least 45 minutes, I get inside the promised land, and am told that to submit a claim, I must leave the bag to be sent off for repairs. The airline trashes my bag, and I’m expected to carry my possessions in my arms to the rental car bus so they can send it to be “repaired”? I say thanks but no thanks, ask the inlaws to lend me a bag for the return trip on Sunday, and show up two and a half hours early for my flight so I can check a full bag and carry an empty one to baggage claim, where I stood in line for another 45 minutes to drop off my empty bag, which the airline insists can be repaired. Can’t wait to get back the Frankenstein’s monster of a suitcase back from USAirways, which promised that the bag “would be expedited to my home address.”
To top it all off, when the flight arrived (late, of course) back in Louisville, the bags appeared on a luggage carousel with a totally different flight number above it, and the clueless airline personnel said they had no idea where or when the Pittsburgh bags would appear. Were it not for the kids’ bright purple rolling backpack, I wouldn’t have known that the bags were there for the taking. Luckily Funkhead found a nice man from Iowa to talk to, other states being the subject of the moment, although for reasons I’ve not fully grasped, a man from Mississippi would have been better.
Of course, I have a perfect market solution to this - next time, I deal with the layover and use Southwest. It also further convinced me that the real reason the airlines needed a massive government bailout is their own incompetence, not the fear of terrorism or some residual fallout from 9/11 (fallout which has somehow miraculously not affected Southwest or jetBlue).
UPDATE April 21, 2004: Added links to pictures of luggage.
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4 years, 7 months ago,,
by Fred (,
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Worst thing to happen to me this week: on Tuesday night, the power went out at the house for 10 hours or so, leaving The Wife, Funkhead (that’s what he calls himself, so that’s what I’ll call him) and Baby (ditto) in the dark while yours truly was attending a customer function at a local establishment. When the power went out, the alarm system went haywire, even though it is useless to us currently, the provider of alarm services to the former owners having demanded a three year contract. To top it off, said local establishment having dark paneled walls to interfere with cellular reception, yours truly did not receive the calls for help, until a waiter informed me of the troubles back at the ranch. Hop in the car, thankful I didn’t ask for a second Bookers, and drive to said ranch, where I find a squealing alarm box, and The Wife and Funkhead playing board games by candlelight, Funkhead being a bit put off by the dark. Baby, not being put off by much of anything (including pleas to Not Put That In Your Mouth) was sleeping soundly in her dark room. Stopped the alarm by appying a bit of Percussive Maintenance (i.e. yanking the power leads from the backup battery). Finished the board game and got Funkhead to sleep by lying with him in the Big Bed before carrying him upstairs to the Bunk Bed. Then off to sleep myself, to be awakened by the power coming back on at 0430. Quite the night.
Best thing to happen to me this week: no power means no way to watch the President’s press conference, relieving me of the obligation to actually have an opinion on whether W surpassed the low expectations some have of his performance (or, conversely, the impossible-to-meet expectations the W-haters have of his performance).
Funkhead’s board games are interesting products, being “Jr.” versions of games I remember playing back before we had newfangled things like Jr. versions (now I sound like Abe Simpson - Five Bees for a quarter!). Big favorite these days seems to be Sorry, although we also play Clue, Jr. (the case of the missing cake, doncha know) and Monopoly Jr. The changes the game manufacturers make are interesting sociological statements in themselves. Clue, of course, traded a search for murderers and weapons for the dastardly cake thief who ate the chocolate cake and the drink (s)he washed it down with. Monopoly dispenses with actual denominations of currency (using $1, $2, $3, $4 and $5 notes) and decisions about whether to invest in property. There’s something vaguely anti-liberty about Monopoly Jr., which not only forces one to purchase property when one lands on it (not actually property, per se, but booths and attractions at a carnival), but also awards property that otherwise would be freely tradable to players for free upon drawing Chance cards. Maybe I’m overthnking this.
Sorry Jr. is a good example of what’s wrong with Disney’s traditional animation these days. Sorry Jr is the “Disney Edition,” and each pawn is a character from a Disney feature. There are four categories: Heroes, Heroines, Villains, and Animals. Each category has four pawns. Some make good (i.e. classic) sense. So for Animals you get Simba (The Lion King), Pooh, Dumbo and Bambi. For Heroines you get Jessie (Toy Story 2), Ariel (The Little Mermaid), Cinderella and Snow White. All classic Disney, if you extend it to recent classics like the Lion King and Toy Story 2 (with the Pixar-Disney tiff, will we have to eliminate Jessie?). Evildoers, however, include Hades (Hercules) and Heroes include Tarzan and Hercules. Why does it matter? It doesn’t, really, but it is indicative of Disney’s strategy to try to shoehorn recent subpar features into the classic Disney pantheon through aggressive marketing rather than good animation, music and storytelling. Why Hercules and Tarzan? Even if heroes who are not animals are in short supply, villians certainly are not. The same is true of Disney CDs - both Volume 1 and Volume 2 of “Disney’s Greatest” include songs from Tarzan and Hercules. Funkead has a book of Easy-To-Read Disney Stories that includes Toy Story, Lion King, Little Mermaid, Lady and the Tramp, and Aladdin, but also Mulan, which no one will accuse of being in the same category as the other 5. Indicative of Michael Eisner’s recent strategy of “it may not be that good, but it’s Disney, so you have to watch/listen/read/buy it!”
Off to Williamsburg for the law school reunion this weekend. Too bad it conflicts with Thunder Over Louisville, though. Should be pictures here by next week, if there are any good ones. At least I’ll be back for the Chow Wagon, Bed Race and Balloon Race, not to mention Oaks and the Derby. As for why Oaks Day is an official holiday here, that’s a tale for another day.
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