The Cockpit Always Tells the Truth, Right?

When you are seated in that metal hull, wondering why the plane is not moving anywhere, most pilots will make some kind of announcement.

My favorite is:

"Ladies and gentlemen, please remain seated with your seat belts fastened. We're just a little bit short of the gate here, and we're letting our ground crew move some equipment".

Which is code for:

"We're sitting here but our ramp guys are inside on break/eating lunch/playing cards/watching TV/you name it, meaning they can't walk us in the final few feet. They will show up when they show up".

I'm amazed at how often this gets said. And when you sit up front, you can always tell; you simply see a gate with no one around. Of course, eventually they do show up. I've even blown a connection in ATL from this kind of stuff once.

I'll put up another post soon about something that the legacy carriers seem to have great problems with; finding someone who knows we have actually arrived and will therefore put the jetway on for us. This happens very frequently as well. Hard to believe you pay all this money for this experience. The details count (but not to legacy airlines).

Average Third Quarter Domestic Airfares

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics, part of DOT, released on Wednesday their report concerning air fares. This is an interesting document that certainly confirms the obvious; small markets and markets dominated by one airline really get blasted by high airfares. I have already alluded to my former home of Knoxville (TYS). Note they have zoomed to number 2 on the basis of their very high fares. Cincinnati (CVG) is at number one, and all Cincy and northern Kentucky fliers know why - your friends on Virginia Avenue in Atlanta at Delta have really put it to you. You can find the document on the Bureau of Transportation Statistics site.

Now they are putting it to you again by de hubbing CVG, but at least that will get your fares down. Then my former hometown of Knoxville will go to number one. I sent this report to the Metropolitan Knoxville Airport Authority today. Of course, no reply.

If you are a casual traveler you may not care about this too much, but when you are running a business and customers are demanding responsible travel pricing, this report helps justify your pricing.

Knoxville, Tennessee

Despite all my lowered expectations, American Eagle got me here only 10 mins late out of ORD. This was probably due to the fact that the folks who were supposed to dump the lav took a while to show up, but that is minor. So far the year is lucky. Let's just see.

American Eagle - **sigh**

I have to fly these guys to TYS tomorrow afternoon. It's a non stop flight. No problems right? I remember a couple of years ago flying from Knoxville to ORD on these guys and we took the usual 30 min "flow control delay" in TYS for sequencing into ORD. No big deal. The weather in Chicago, and en route to Chicago was not bad, but it was not perfect as well, high overcast. What I am trying to say is that this is pretty normal, and a 30 minute delay into ORD is not that terrible. We never entered holding as we approached Chicago. To my knowledge, we never experienced an enroute speed restriction as well.

But while enroute, somewhere around Louisville, the pilot came on and said that we had not boarded enough fuel in TYS and we were going to divert to IND(y) for gas. Now keep in mind that things had been progessing nicely to that point. We were not running the engines in TYS waiting out the saturation delay. Instead we sat inside the gate.

If anybody is a pilot for a legacy carrier, I'm all ears if you can explain this to me. Of course, the "customers" on board can be told anything, because we just have to live with it.

Upon our arrival at IND for fuel, we took another flow delay, this time of 45 mins. Please explain how you can't fuel plan for a 1 hour 40 minute flight.

Today, more magic from your friends at Eagle. At Dallas (DFW) these guys asked the FAA to impose a ground stop into DFW just for their flights. The official FAA delay page noted that the delay was "at the request of EGF and not to be reported as an "official" ATC delay". Can somebody please explain this one as well? You can imagine the "innovative stories" (i.e. "lies") that were being passed out to Eagle customers flying inbound to DFW today.

Thank God I was not one of them. But tomorrow . . . fingers crossed

The Aviation Consumer Protection Division of DOT

One reason I wanted to start this blog was to be able to share with you what a high mileage air traveler often has to endure. So far 2009 has been kind to me, and I've had a few clients cancel their work with me, so I have been home a lot. But this will change. So you will be reading first hand some of the outrageous things that can happen when one is at the mercy of the legacy carriers in particular.

The US Department of Transportation operates many web sites which are designed to unveil the statistics associated with air travel. One of the more telling documents comes out every month, the Air Travel Consumer Report. Look at this if you fly frequently. You will have to admit that these guys are all over the statistics concerning flight delays.

For example, it becomes evident quickly that flying some third party outfit like Atlantic Southeast Airlines (part of the Delta Connection) will increase your chance of delay much greater than someone like Southwest who does not utilize a hub and spoke system. When this report appears you can bet the big six legacy carriers with their mouthpiece (the Air Transport Association) have the spin masters all lined up to blame it on weather, ATC, or both. But face it, the goal is to get where you are going and back with minimal hassle. So they can explain all they want, savvy travelers employ steps to minimize risks of delay.

Use this tool along with some of the others I have suggested and you will certainly increase the chance of getting home tonight on time.

Waiting for the Next Trip

Typically I don't get most of a week off, but due to a cancellation this week, I'm home until Thursday night. It's at that time I will fly to Knoxville, TN., a place I lived for many years until recently. One of the benefits of living in Chicago is that you have a tremendous number of flights, carriers, and fares to chose from. And all this competition can keep fares in check (somewhat)

When I ran my consulting practice out of Knoxville, I used to get occasional complaints about the cost of airfares. Customers were polite, but they let me know that fares from TYS could get excessive.

One of my biggest training clients used to go round and round with me about these fares. And then one day I came across a website that ranks cities according to fares. And Knoxville (TYS) where I spent all those years is consistently in the top 5. I even wrote an email to the Metropolitan Knoxville Airport Authority telling them how fares were running off business in TYS - two years later, I've never received an answer.

In any event if you are concerned about your city, and how it ranks, visit the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. It's interesting reading.

Airline Passenger Bill of Rights Act - 2009

Usually I would not post anything between trips but this one caught my eye. For quite some time now, Kate Hanni has been pushing an Airline Passenger Bill of Rights. I don't have all the details of her past efforts, but of course we have no bill at this point. And I'm not sure we will ever get one. You can bet that those lawyers over at the Air Transport Association have every bullet in the gun loaded to make sure this never happens.

I'm sorry to say that I am not familiar with all of Ms. Hanni's efforts, but apparently her bill of rights is being proposed again this year. Before I moved to Chicago and flew more legacy carriers, I prayed for the day we would get a bill of rights. I'm just sorry to say that you can not legislate morality to the hub and spoke carriers. You have to hit them in the wallet. It is the only thing they will ever understand.

A Good Year for Delays - So Far

I'm back home in Chicago; the meeting ended early so I jumped on Southwest direct to MDW. You have to love SWA, no change fees, and none of the hassles the legacy carriers give you when getting to the airport early.

23 days into the new year and no real delays yet, beyond 30 mins. But I think that is all about to change as I have to start flying more on legacy hub-and-spoke operations soon. The next trip is to Knoxville, TN (TYS) a place I lived for over 38 years. It will be nice to go back there; they have mild winters!

PS, thanks again SWA

Hotel Etiquette - Part I

Good morning from the Embassy Suites at the St. Louis airport. Embassy Suites are one of my favorite brands (in fact I like the entire Hilton system) because it is a hotel that seems to cater to the business traveler. Weekends will be another story; many of them are full of casual travelers, so beware!

It is not that I am against casual travelers at all. However, having lived the better part of the last 19 years in hotels, there are a couple of things that I will bring up here that really bother me. Other posts will follow.

1) Do not walk through the halls at night conducting a loud, or even normal conversation with others. I am amazed at how often this happens. The noise penetrates your room and shows me that people simply don't think about others. This would be the equivalent of having strangers in your home who suddenly show up outside your bedroom door and just start talking, certainly not caring if you are asleep.

2) Manage the door to your room; don't let it slam behind you, ever! This is more of an irritant in the morning. I think many travelers feel that they can let it slam on the day they check out because their arms are full of luggage and their possessions. In my opinion this is never acceptable!. It takes effort to close the door gently. When that door slams the noise certainly gets inside the nearby rooms, typically at 5 AM. As I post this, I am drinking two little cups of coffee from the Embassy breakfast. In order to open my door when I came back here, I had to put one of them on the floor, and then gently closed the door. It was 6:45 AM. It took effort, but I'd like to think that I respected the fellow traveler.

And I'm sure if you have spent any time on the road, your space has been "invaded" by these events.

One more night here, then back home to Chicago

Telling the Truth About Flight Delays

Here's some advice:

The airlines can only tell you what is shown on their computer screen when it comes to flight delays. And you may notice that when a delay starts to build, it seems to build in increments of 15 minutes. This is because if you are already at the gate, the carriers do not want you to leave. No matter how absurdly late things can get, this seems to be the case. This leads to extreme frustration and the perception that the carrier is either lying to you or has no idea or both.

The most definitive source of delay information is from the FAA. The government has no reason to lie to you and frankly, the FAA does not care if you get home tonight at all.

But at least they are truthful.

Check out Flight Delay Information from the Air Traffic Control System Command Center. Is is always accurate. Want to know why you are not allowed to board even though the equipment is in the gate and the crew is onboard? Trust the government if possible. They won't lie about the weather, or the fact that the carriers have scheduled too much metal onto too little concrete (known as traffic saturation). Soon, I'll post an even better site for delays, but it is written in air traffic control jargon.

Taking a Risk to Get There

It's Monday and I'm doing something today that I should never do - fly to St. Louis when I have to be at work there at 12:30 pm. Flying on the day that you have to show up is always risky because if the trip cancels, you really don't get much of a Plan B. And in today's modern approach to commercial air travel, you always need Plan B! So I hope that Southwest again does their magic by getting me into STL at 9:45 AM for a meeting that starts later. Plan B on SWA would not get me there until 11:35 AM, too close for comfort!

If this trip were not on SWA, I would never try this with a hub and spoke legacy carrier. Driving out to MDW early on Monday will not help the stress level much either, but it lets me stay home all day today and watch the NFL playoffs, lol.

Update, made it!

I tempted fate again, but when the weather is good, you can get there on the same day as the job. Thanks again Southwest!

Now I'm off to one of the nicer things about travel, the Embassy Suites manager's reception.

Seat Guru - An Enlightened Guide To Airline Seating

During the last several years I've found several websites which provide excellent advice to the air traveler. One of them is Seat Guru.

I've found their charts to be quite accurate and their advice to be precise. The site is constantly updated with new carriers and new configurations. Lately an "In Flight Ameneties" box has been added to each configuration. Look at it the next time you're trying to get a better seat, particularly in coach.

Another Great Site if you Like Jets

If you just can't get enough pics of jets, both commercial and military, visit Airliners.net.

You'll find a huge inventory of pics of all types of metal, in flight, on the ground, cabins, cockpits.

Here's a pic taken from a Delta arrival into SFO (San Francisco). This shot is about as cool as it gets - the "heads up display" (HUD) that some of the more modern aircraft employ. Enjoy the pics, the site is outstanding!

Back Home in Chicago - For All of Two Days

Thank you Southwest for your usual excellent service, getting me from SDF back to MDW. We were 30 minutes late, but compared to legacy carriers, Southwest is still the best in my mind at overall hustle and turning an airplane around fast. St. Louis (STL) all next week!

Flight Memory - A Cool Way to Keep Up With Your Travels

Take a look at:

FlightMemory

This site allows you to enter your segments, dates, carriers, seats, cabins and other data. The site produces a map which shows your routes. I'm attaching my map from 2008. In 08 I flew 114376 miles and spent a cumulative total of 12.1 days in airplane hulls!

You'll enjoy this if you fly a lot. These guys will even send you a poster or a shirt with your map on it.

US Airways - NYC Incident

As a guy who flies to work every day, this kind of thing alarms me of course. I would never even speculate, or pretend to have knowledge of the possible cause. For the uninitiated, I never think about this stuff at all when I'm in a plane. I probably will tomorrow night when I leave SDF to go back to MDW.

But it would seem at this point that the flight crew did a very professional job of managing this. My faith in their training has been strengthened. The emergency responders handled things in a professional manner as well.

I'm not so sure I have the same level of confidence in the GE engines. The FAA is considering a bird strike.

Here's an image of the actual ship, taken at San Diego.

Slydial

As promised, for the person who wishes to avoid confrontation, here's a service that allows you to go right into voicemail, and the person you are calling does not even hear the phone ring!

But it only works with cellular phones, no landlines. The free version forces you to listen to about 15 seconds of advertising.

Take a look at: Slydial

The Map that Got Me Into All of This

I remember many years ago, probably around 1960, my father returned from a trip to Puerto Rico. He sold Philco appliances in those days and won a trip there! In any event, he brought home one of those free ESSO maps that you could get in the old gas stations. What intrigued me so much was the fact that the map was printed in English and Spanish. It was at this point I really wanted to learn Spanish (yo entiendo, pero no puedo hablar). More importantly my eyes opened up to the enticement of travel; I learned that the world does stretch beyond the horizon.

Recently, playing around on Ebay, I located a copy of the same map that caught my attention years ago. I was determined to win it and I did! It wasn't all that expensive, but the sentimental value is now priceless to me. So I'm posting an image of it here.

Today's map isn't free anymore; it's a GPS or some high tech device!


On to a more prosaic issue; I'm supposed to fly tonight to a small town near Evansville, Indiana. I've worked for this customer all over the US for a number of years and they always try to control the travel (book my flights, tell me which ones, etc). I never allow a customer to do this for me as I just feel like I've seen too many bad things happen with this kind of arrangement.

In any event, I yielded to their pressure and bought a ticket on American (AA) non stop from O'hare (ORD) down to Evansville (EVV). Yesterday I started getting concerned about the weather here in Chicago and even called the guy and left a message, telling him that I was considering plan B; Southwest from Midway (MDW) to Louisville (SDF) then a drive.

Well, this morning he calls me back and tells me how he thinks all will be fine, etc. Thank goodness I had bought the ticket on SWA, for AA did cancel the trip about 3 hours ago due to weather at ORD. It was my pleasure to call him back and tell him (sort of diplomatically) that if we had stuck with his plans, we would have had to cancel the meeting.

That's enough for today; I've got to get out to MDW and then to SDF and then onward.

But there are moments when you love leaving voice mail and this was one of them.

Coming tomorrow (if I can get online from the hotel in EVV), how to call into someone's voice mail without having to even talk to them. A wonderful tool for the person who wishes to avoid confrontation!

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog. I hope you enjoy it!

Wonder what it is like to be a true "road warrior"? In this case, someone who lives in hotels approximately 300 nights a year?

Wonder what it is really like to be an "elite member" in the eyes of the airlines?

If all of this sounds a bit pretentious, let me assure you that life on the road is NOT glamorous!

I remember years ago when I worked for Delta Airlines on the ticket counter. I used to be so envious of flyers jetting off to exotic places. I would read the paper tickets (they rarely exist now!) and wish I were going.

Little did I know that I would take a job that would give me over 4,000,000 frequent flyer miles with Delta alone.

People always ask me what I will do with those miles; how about stay at home for a few days lol. Seriously, I am fortunate to have seen a lot of places.

My father, whom I dearly miss now that he is deceased taught me years ago that travel is one of the best educations you will ever obtain. Thank you Dad, and I love and miss you. I think you are smiling, watching from up there!

Again, welcome. I'll try not to vent too much here about delayed flights, blown connections, hub meltdowns, blown rental car reservations, and the concept known as "walking" a hotel guest (meaning, they gave your room away even though you had a confirmed reservation).

PS - The picture you see was taken between Christmas and New Year's in Puerto Rico. Yes, I do use those miles when I need a little time off.