• There seems to be an uptick in Political comments in recent months. Those of us who are long time members of the site know that Political and Religious content has been banned for years. Nothing has changed. Please leave all political and religious comments out of the forums.

    If you recently joined the forums you were not presented with this restriction in the terms of service. This was due to a conversion error when we went from vBulletin to Xenforo. We have updated our terms of service to reflect these corrections.

    Please note any post refering to a politician will be considered political even if it is intended to be humor. Our experience is these topics have a way of dividing the forums and causing deep resentment among members. It is a poison to the community. We appreciate compliance with the rules.

    The Staff of SOH

  • Server side Maintenance is done. We still have an update to the forum software to run but that one will have to wait for a better time.

The joys of commercial air travel

R

rayrey10

Charter Member 2012
<style>@font-face { font-family: "ＭＳ 明朝"; }@font-face { font-family: "ＭＳ 明朝"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Cambria; }.MsoChpDefault { font-family: Cambria; }div.WordSection1 { page: WordSection1; }</style> The joys of airline flying. What a scam this has become. I am sitting at the airport waiting for my flight from Miami to D.C….I am heading up there to attend a friend’s retirement ceremony in Quantico, VA. After 23 years of faithful service he is hanging up his boots. He was my Gunny at my last duty station in the Marine Corps. We have remained very close friends, so I wouldn’t miss this for the world.

I arrived at the airport 4 hours early because that’s the only time I could get a ride. My wife works in the total opposite direction of the airport so it would too much of a pain for her to bring me. I could have driven my car to the airport and parked for the bargain price of $12 per day plus tax. When did parking become a taxable item? That would have been $50 to leave my car unattended in a parking lot over the weekend. Really?!!

I attempt to check-in curbside so that I don’t have to stand in that never-ending line at the counter, but I can’t check-in curbside because I have to go inside in order to pay $25 for my luggage. $25 to put a piece of luggage on plane! Does it really cost the airline $25 more dollars to operate the plane per piece of luggage? First class passengers don’t have to pay for luggage, I guess their suitcase have a lower operating cost.

Curb-side my suitcase weighs in at a hefty 32 pounds…I always pack last minute so I end up bringing way more stuff than what I really need. Anyways, some how my suitcase goes from 32 pounds on the scale outside to 40 pounds on the scale inside. How did that happen? How did my suitcase gain 8 pounds in 30 yards? I don’t know, but I mentioned it to the agent at the counter who seemed genuinely offended when I questioned the accuracy of his scale. His reply was that the scale outside my off by a few pounds, to which I replied that from now on I would pre-pay for the luggage fee and check in outside since their scales are about 8 pounds slimmer…you know in case I’m flying heavy.

Next comes the joy going through the security screeners of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). I won’t say too much about them because they are just doing their job. So I empty my pockets, take off my watch, take off my belt, and take off my shoes. Put everything on the tray with my laptop bag. I go through the metal detector. Grab all of my stuff, and get dressed again. Don’t really feel any safer! …Oh well.

I’m hungry since I didn’t have time to eat breakfast because I had to get up very early. I go to McDonald’s to grab some “hotcakes and sausage” with a small OJ. “That comes to $8.35, sir.” Really?!! That cost like $4 at best at any other McDonalds. Then I grab a bottle of water and a pack of gum that cost me another $5. I’ve already dished out $38.35 and I have not left Miami.

I haven’t really been around the Outhouse much the last couple of day because I have worked double shifts back to back to back. Tuesday morning I managed 4 hours of sleep before I got called in to work, and last night I got 4 hours and 55 minutes of sleep. So I breakout the MacBook and try to get on SOH, and they want me to pay $4.95 for 30 minutes of WiFi or $7.95 for 24 hours. Who the heck needs 24 hours of WiFi at an airport? Maybe the guy from the movie “The Terminal”. Wait, who needs only 30 minutes? Well, I’ll pass for now, I love the Outhouse but not that much. Guess I’ll have to post this when I get to my buddy’s house…it’s too much of a hassle to try to post from my cellphone.

I did save about a “buck fifty” by buying today’s edition of USA Today on my Barnes & Noble Nook for 75 cents paying instead of $2.25. Victory!!!

P.S. – there’s WiFi on the plane for the bargain price of….you guessed it $7.95. I wonder how that became the standard rate for WiFi?

P.S. #2 - my buddy didn’t have WiFi at his house. So I am posting this from my house.
 
Air travel has become such a hassle and fee trap that my wife and I just stopped flying. If we can't drive there in a reasonable amount of time, we just don't go at all. Oh, and parking became a taxable item when the economy crashed and governments need every nickel and dime they can squeeze out of the population.
 
Ah yes. it was so much better 'back in the day'!

Check out the timetable here: http://www.timetableimages.com/ttimages/complete/ea54/

In 1954 you could fly from MIA to Washington on Eastern Airlines (remember them?). The first non-stop flight left at a comfortable 10:10am and arrived at 2:20pm (Super-C Constellation) in pressurized comfort. The listed fare was $63.30 one-way or approx $114.00 return (you got a discount if you bought a return ticket right off). The drive to the airport was probably 30 minutes at each end for a 5 hr 10 minute total time. Certainly, you paid less for gas (did you?) and parking -if you had a car in 1954 (many people didn't). The first 40# bag was free and you did get "lunch" onboard (remember all the jokes about 'airline food?).

Now, that looks pretty darn good! However, to use the U.S. Dept.of Labor Consumer Price Index Inflation Calculator http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm
we get these values:

$114 in 1954 = $937.89 in 2011
that $8.35 breakfast would be $1.01 back when (seems about right)
$12.00 a day for parking would calculate out to $1.50 a day (bet that's close)
1954 Wi-fi would have meant standing at a payphone, feeding in coins and still unable to post on a forum (but you could call a spouse or a politician and complain)

Now the $8.35 McD's and the $5 water are nasty, but the airport traveler is a "captive audience" (and trapped by those TSA "safety rules") so the free-enterprise system can certainly be expected to charge what the market will bear, even allowing for the higher rent of a fancy terminal building compared to a stand-alone building. Of course, in 1954 we drank for free out of a 'water fountain' or sacrificed our health with a $0.15 Coke in a glass bottle.

All the sundries being roughly equal, there's that airfare... today only business travelers would pay $935 RT for that flight - most casual fliers would wait for a seat-sale and pay a lot less -
- I just checked for the weekend of April 15-18 (assuming one plans ahead) and found a RT on American for a few pennies more than $250 (27% of the equivalent 1954 airfare) on a plane that cost probably 40 times as much as that fancy new L-1049C.

I'm just sayin'...
 
rayrey,....I couldn't agree with you more. I'm taking an econo-airline to FLL next month. The ticket is fairly cheap......$215 round trip from Ohare. Of course it costs 30 bucks each time you toss your luggage piece into the overhead rack. Ha ha. Plus the hassle and a half and rip offs you stated above while trying to get onto your plane. Yes,...it's a real bite the bullet time when one flies today.
 
I agree. Mom and I went to Phoenix last Christmas. We have to throw away our unopened-sealed bottles of Fiji water (that's what my Mom drinks) and purchase a $5/tap water bottled water. I felt my Mom's weird look on her face, but she did not complain. Then we ate at a McD's in the airport and I ordered a plain hamburger sandwich with just ketchup and a drink and it cost almost 10 bucks. (Mom received a change for less than a dollar). Her iPhone did not work at the airports, only Verizon wireless does, not even the 3G connectivity. The trip to Phoenix was just five hours, but the waiting at the airport is very tireing (it won't spell right what is the other word for tired? can I say boring? My Mom would not approve the word boring!!) So I read my book Shiloh, all the way from Orlando to Phoenix. We had 2 check in luggages and 2 each of carry on. The carry on we did not pay. But the luggage we checked in cost $25 a piece. On our next trip, Mom said we will not carry anything, just a few clothes and we will just buy stuff at the mall. Then we will not bring our clothes back to Orlando. Less hassle waiting on line to claim your luggage, that is not a major issue, but paying $25 per luggage is. Please be patient in reading my long post. I tried to make it brief! From Hannah. :wavey:
 
Well, I will say that it was money well spent since it was for a friend's retirement ceremony. I know that airlines are a business and that they are trying to maximize their profits but it gets a little ridiculous. Today I saw a billboard for Jet Blue that said "unlimited free snacks". Really?!! I'll fly them just because I can get all of the free pretzels I want.

We used to drive everywhere when I was in the military because we couldn't afford 4 plane tickets, but now a days I would rather fly than drive 8-12 hours to go visit family and friends. So I'll keep paying $25 for luggage fees, and paying $2 at the airport for an item that cost $1 any where else.

What can you do?!!! :jump:

P.S. Hannah - you can post as long as you want. I love to read your post. And one day you'll realize why your Mom is so upset for having to pay so much!
 
I have not flown in Many years, and as it stands now I may never fly again..
I don't understand why it has to be such a RIP Off..
I do feel very sorry for anyone who has to do this very often..
 
I usta travel a lot, figure that for a while, I had average of 1.5 business trips per week or three flights. September 11 screwed things up a bit. This latest is just plain stupid. Who needs two full body X-Rays per trip?

Until the security folks figure out things, I won't be flying unless it is absolutely necessary. No discretionary travel.

- Ivan.
 
Last Tuesday, my brother flew here from Greenville NC, landing at Memphis airport. His plan was to rent a car there and make the 2 hour drive here from KMEM. His car was reserved before he left NC. Once he got to Memphis Tuesday afternoon, the rental car company told him that all their cars were rented out and he was #31 on the waiting list to possibly get one on Friday. According to Advantage, there was some kind of winter storm up north and crowds of people were flying into Memphis and rented out every car they had there, including the reserved ones.

I ended up driving to Memphis to pick him up and then driving him back Sunday morning for his return flight.
 
I enjoyed flying commercial back in the day when the airlines treated you like a valued customer and not like cattle. My flights going home on leave and returning from same were always fun, I flew in uniform and was treated great by the stews - oh, excuse me, flight attendants. ;) I usually got my drinks before they even broke out the cart.
 
When I was a kid, PSA was still in business and they were a great airline. I remember going on trips as an unattended minor between SF and Burbank iin their MD-80s, the flight attendants looked after me but were very friendly and fun. The Asian airlines were very good too. AmericaWest was kind of funky at first but they got their stuff together and were quite good until they merged.

aye those were the days
MD-80-004.jpg
 
Flying is a necessity in both my professional and personal life so I have to put with it until I win the lottery and hire one of you guys to fly me around, or we can safely teleport.

demorier said:
You mean the plane was on time !!??
Click to expand...

The northbound flight was on time, actually had a little tail wind so the flight was 15 minutes shorter than schedule :jump:.

The southbound flight was delayed by an hour, then another hour because of a mechanical problem.

So I bellied up to a bar and had a few :icon29:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top