DFW to Chicago (ORD) - American - The Right Way to Handle a Melt Down

I'd like to think that I'm enough of a guy to know when I am wrong about things. I know I have been constantly critical of legacy carriers and their approach to delays. And I have spent a fair amount of time venting on American. But last night, at DFW, I want to particularly compliment the all female crew of American 2370.

Yesterday in Chicago was horrible to say the least. Bad storms, hail and the like most of the day. In fact when I did get here I could not believe how much high water lay on the streets with all kinds of tree limbs blown there.

Obviously, when this happens, ORD will melt down. I had been checking flights into ORD all day long and AA had canceled many of their trips.

But my flight showed "on time" most of the day, and of course, you can't believe that. The FAA delay site showed average delays into ORD running anywhere from 2 hours to 3 and a half hours. The radar showed big cells over the city, and sweeping in from the west which of course is right on the arrival from DFW.

Finally AA posted a departure time of 8 pm (the flight was scheduled for 6:50 pm).

So we boarded and right away I could tell this crew was different. The captain constantly came on the PA and spoke to us in very human tones about the weather and what could end up happening to us; long tarmac delay, possible deviation. She was very frank and a refreshing difference.

Then a few minutes later, she came on and told us that the FAA had issued a 9:40 PM wheels up time for us and of course it was just 8:10 pm. We all groaned knowing that we were going to have to sit there for 90 minutes before even taking off. She continued to come on the PA and apologize.

Then something happened that I had not experienced in almost 30 years of air travel; our wheels up time was moved to 8:40 pm and the cockpit was told this at 8:35!

She came on again and shared the good news but said, to be honest, no matter how fast we pushed back, no matter how fast she tried to taxi, we would not be in position for take off in just 5 minutes.

But she worked like heck to pull it off. It did take longer than 5 minutes, but we taxied right out to the departure end of 18L and we were off.

We arrived in the gate at ORD only 1 hour and 30 minutes late which was truly a good ending to a potentially horrible situation.

And when we deplaned at ORD; I walked past literally hundreds of passengers trying to sleep out in the open on city-of-Chicago-owned cots.

For anyone who never flies, this is the one situation that I have tried to avoid for almost thirty years, and I have managed to do it.

I wanted to take a pic of this but out of respect for the dignity of the people who actually paid an airline in order to sleep on a cot out in the open, I simply did not.

But again, I was completely impressed with the professionalism of that cockpit and how they felt it was imporant to keep the customers informed.

I recall all those nights sitting in DFW on Delta metal undergoing the same kind of delays and the cockpit was completely silent.

Great job ladies!

Knoxville to DFW - American Eagle

I've railed on American Eagle a lot on this blog, but since I moved to Chicago, I never fly on them. But today I did as they have nonstop service from TYS to DFW and even if they are late (and they were, one hour late!) at least you don't have to deal with the anxiety of a connection.

And almost everybody else on the ERJ had a connection and these people were becoming unglued. EGF has the same problem DL has; they can't find a jet bridge driver once you are in the gate. We waited at least 5 minutes to the point where my poor fellow East Tennesseans got abnormally upset.

Driving out of the rental area at DFW, one encounters more concrete and roads than I've seen at any US airport.

And there is a north-south tollway which splits the airport in two. So I dutifully prepared to hand over the $2 toll for the 5 mile drive. But some wonderful news for the traveler; if you are in a rental car the toll is waived! And it was! Completely unlike Chicago where the city fathers want to squeeze every dime out of anyone who goes into or out of ORD from the surrounding Illinois Tollways. Very refreshing.

I'll fly real AA metal on Friday back to ORD. I expect a delay

Harford to Knoxville - Delta

It's just the little things that seem to bug me so much about travel nowadays. It is so apparent to me that corporate America is satisfied to be just "average", nothing special. Yes, I'm talking again about Delta. I do wish the management of Delta would spend one month flying around on Southwest and they would see how average they really are.

When I lived here in Tennessee, TYS was a big MD88 operation for Delta. I was always upgraded and thought all was wonderful. Yesterday, in BDL, I sat in first of an MD88 for the first time in a long time. And it's lousy. Yes it is better than coach, but I know now that Southwest coach is just about as comfortable as first on an MD. These MDs are old and show it. Did I mention that the inbound from ATL was 30 minutes late? (which of course caused us to get to ATL 30 minutes late). No real reason given by anyone. Just a lot of verbal pressure put on the paying customers to get into their seats as quickly as possible.

And of course, the usual problem when we get to ATL; no jetway driver for a good five minutes. I have given up hoping for an explanation. All I can tell you is that having flown hundreds of SWA segments, this never happens with those guys.

Of course that extra five minutes agitated a lot of people who had close connections.

The connection to TYS was a CR9 which I love because of its very nice first class. This one was operated by Pinnacle, who used to be a big NW regional carrier, but now they are part of DL. This flight was 15 minutes early into TYS.

By the way, the captain kept calling Knoxville "KnoxVegas". When I lived here, you would occasionally hear people use this term.

Anybody who would use this term has never been to Knoxville, Vegas, or both as there are absolutely no similarities between the places. There is no gambling in Knoxville, and due to the extremely Southern Baptist nature of the place, not much drinking and hell raising.

On to Dallas later today. Via American Eagle. They don't screw up many nonstop flights. The only delay possibilities are caused by storms.

Orlando to Harford - Northwest/Delta

I have NEVER enjoyed traveling into or out of MCO. I find the place confusing and overwhelming. Now some of this is based on the fact that the place is loaded with tourists, but I think the signage is awful. Not helping are people like Avis who literally leave Preferred renters scratching their heads as to how to get to the Preferred booth. By the way "Avis Preferred" means nothing at MCO as the place is loaded with tourists who are clueless. When I finally got to the agent to get the keys, I diplomatically asked him why Avis has no display board at MCO. His answer: we have 1500 reservations a day. Uhh, I think you get that many at ORD and a lot of places and they all have boards. I'm pretty convinced that every service that exists at MCO is designed to be average due to the huge number of tourists; there's simply no incentive there to bust one's ass.

The flight out of MCO was an enlightening insight into the Delta/Northwest merger. I bought the ticket on Delta's web page. When I went to their kiosk to check in, the kiosk told me I was on an NW flight. The boarding pass was NW stock. The A319 was DL livery. The FAs wore DL uniforms. The beverages were all Pepsi products (the traditional beverage of choice at NW. You can bet that Virginia Avenue will change this to Coke). The meal served in first was definitely NW style food. The flight pulled into DL gates at BDL 5 minutes late.

Dallas is next.

Phoenix to Chicago

Thank you Southwest for getting me home 15 minutes early on a Friday night. I don't always understand Southwest's scheduling; in this case, two nonstop flights to MDW within 35 minutes of each other.

I was on the second flight which only carried about 30 passengers.

And that is always a wonderful feeling!

Yet, despite this, two "family members" sat in front of me and at times got so loud about which member of the family owed them money, well, I could hear them through the Bose headphones.

The other irritating issue occurred when we hit the gate at Midway, the Russian girl who ran over everybody trying to be the first out. When she could not pull that off, she started talking on her cell in loud Russian, only about one inch from some guy's head.

I just wish people knew that the world included others.

Enough of that. I'm home, it's summer, and I get a week in hot humid Florida next week, and I'm very happy!

Chicago to Phoenix (Skywest/Delta through SLC)

Two more uneventful, on time flights by a "connection" carrier. It is my opinion that of all the third parties flying under Delta colors, SkyWest does the best job. I particularly like their use of the CRJ900 with a nice first class.

Coming out here today I tried to recall the 10 worst things that have ever happened to me on the road. I'll do some more thinking about it and publish this soon.

But what got to me today was that my employer furnished Visa was rejected by the hotel here. Hint to employer: PAY THE DAMN BILL!

I get tired of tying up my own money.

I've also learned that the debris field has been found from the Air France flight that vanished in the Atlantic off the coast of Brazil. Hopefully they will find the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder.

Back to Chicago on Friday. Via Southwest.

Missing Air France Flight

Unless I'm just mistaken, it's been a pretty bad six month stretch for aviation disasters. Continental, Colgan, Turkish, and now Air France with fatalities. The Air France is again disturbing due to the high tech nature of the Airbus equipment.

I'll never speculate on this, but I do know that the area between Brazil and Senegal is immense. Here's a pic of the flight path from the BBC website. In the meantime, I'm sitting at O'Hare getting ready to ride Delta (ok, Skywest) out to Salt Lake and then on to Phoenix.