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Recent Comments:
Southwest Airlines decides actor Kevin Smith is "too fat" to fly with them - kicks him off plane {Gadling}
Feb 14th 2010 11:38AM I don't have a problem with the Southwest policy in principle - having had other people's flab crammed up against me for hours at a time, I have little tolerance for "overflow".
However, Southwest does seem to have problems with the policy in practice - the recent episode with the gentleman who missed his uncle's funeral was simply ridiculous...a simple gate announcement asking for a volunteer would have solved the problem. And in this instance, playing the "safety" card when the passenger met the objective standard - putting both armrests down, not requiring a belt extender - makes the application even more questionable.
@Kid Vicous (btw, what does "Vicous" mean?) - while it's commendable that you fly first class to deal with the space issue, what does BMI have to do with anything? If you extend beyond your seat, you extend beyond your seat - whether it's fat or muscle is irrelevant. And as for your "make the seats bigger" idea, the vast majority of passengers fit in the current seats - why should we have to pay more (bigger seats = less people on plane = higher fares) 'cause a few people are large?
Galley Gossip: A flight attendant responds to Senator Schumer's outburst {Gadling}
Dec 17th 2009 1:36PM Heather - I certainly don't think it's okay for a passenger to call a FA a bitch. But I've heard FAs call passengers bitches, bastards, a$$holes, and so on - not to their face, but behind the galley curtain (why do some FAs seem to think those curtains have some sort of magical sound absorption properties?) As you point out, we're all human.
I definitely agree with you that there is a problem - and a growing one - with passenger disrespect towards FAs, and as I said, I'm not sure what the answer is. I do think a lot of it just comes from the frustration and annoyance of modern air travel, and that FAs are the last person on the "other side" of the process the traveler comes in contact with before the flight, and thus they take a lot of "attitude" from passengers that they realistically shouldn't have to.
Again, not sure what the answer is, other than just encouraging people to remember the Golden Rule. Heather, we need to get you on Oprah or Ellen or something so these stories get a wider audience!
Gadling giveaway - super travel gadget swag bag! {Gadling}
Dec 17th 2009 12:26PM I love it because it lets me think about where I want to go next (great on a cold, nasty day!), lets me keep up on the news, Gadlinks - for articles from other sources I don't read every day, and because you have several great writers, particularly Heather Poole and Ken Wien.
Galley Gossip: A flight attendant responds to Senator Schumer's outburst {Gadling}
Dec 17th 2009 11:57AM Heather, there's one problem with your statement - by all press accounts I've seen of the incident - including Sharkey's - Senator Schumer was NOT in violation of the cellphone rules when the FA told him to turn the phone off. The cabin door was, by all accounts, still open.
Does this justify Schumer's remark? Of course not. But really, how many of us have not uttered a choice expletive or two under our breath when walking away from an incident like this?
And at the same time, as Sharkey points out, lately we are seeing a lot of these incidents where FAs are making up rules as they go along, and falling back on the "you have to obey uniformed crew member instructions" rule when it's pointed out that the customer is actually, per airline policy and/or FAA rules, in the right. The "obey instructions" rule is there to give crew, including the FAs, flexibility to deal with truly unusual circumstances, not to rewrite airline/FAA policy on a whim.
And at the same, same, time, as you point out, there's also rampant disrespect toward FAs, and that seems to be getting worse as well.
I'm not sure what the answer is - I think part of it is just the general coarsening of our society, and part of it is just the way the average citizen is constantly bombarded these days with what seems to be an ever-expanding thicket of rules and regulations and people harping at him, multiplied tenfold the moment you arrive at an airport, and then you take it from FAs as well...the people, more than anyone else, who (from the customer's perspective) are supposed to be the ones making your flight as pleasant as being sealed up in a metal tube can be.
And at the same time, the FAs are expected to enforce these rules, maintain order, get the passengers on the plane quickly, and all in an environment where the passenger is already stressed out and frequently annoyed before they even see the FAs.
Answer? All I can suggest is that we - passengers, FAs, all of us - take a deep cleansing breath, remember the other side are people too, and that even if your dealings with the airline that day may have been less-than-satisfactory, that's not the FA's fault. Other than that, I'm not sure what to do.
Oh, and vote against Schumer next time...he really is a pompous git.
A memo to airline passengers {Gadling}
Dec 4th 2009 4:54PM Just a couple of observations:
First off, "what it's worth" and "how much it costs to provide" are two completely unrelated events - this is just Econ 101. A consumer bases his view of something's "value" on its perceived utility - in the case of business travelers, the value of the trip to the business' profitability, in the case of leisure travelers, the subjective value of the experience. If the price is too high. The only "correct" price of anything is what someone is willing to pay.
And a lot of the talk around airline employees taking pay cuts starts from the presumption that the pre-cut wages were the "correct" wages - wages are just a price for labour. There's a presumption, particularly in the union mentality, that there's only one correct direction for wages - up, that wages can never come down. In economics, it's sometimes called the "ratchet" theory, just as a ratchet wrench moves freely in one direction but doesn't move in another, so should wages. In the real world, if wages can't come down, what usually happens is the employer simply finds a way to live without the employee (outsourcing to lower-cost countries, etc.) and the employee takes a pay cut...to zero.
The inflation analogy isn't quite true - one also has to consider that many products have had prices that have kept pace with inflation, but the product has qualitatively changed...a 1979 Pinto can't be compared to a modern economy car, which is built to a higher standard (that's how Hyundai can offer a 100,000 mile warranty, while the warranty on a Pinto was for what, 12,000?), pollutes much less, is more comfortable, has more amenities as standard equipment, and is far safer in a collision.
As for CEO pay, I'm not sure if Mr. Hobica's statement was that airline CEOs are paid too much, or CEOs in our society are paid too much in general. If the latter, a fair point, but if the former...compared to CEOs in comparable firms (based on revenue, assets, employees, etc.) most airline executives are paid less than average.
All that said, though, I do agree with your point that given all these realities there is a disconnect between expectation and reality - to use a retail analogy, the public sometimes expects Nordstrom service and Walmart prices. Air travel is largely a commodity these days - there isn't really that much difference between a seat on one or another.
The frustrating part is that no one seems to be able to come up with a solution for the airlines - consumers are very resistant to price increases. Attempts to offer a higher level of service to differentiate the coach product (MRTC on American, for example) or offer a service level somewhere between coach and first class at a premium (the original Signature Service on Midwest) have failed.
What's the answer? I have no idea. All I can do is give my business to the airlines that give me the best experience, but keep my expectations reasonable, and thus the whinging to a minimum.
German tourist arrested for bomb threat at Disney World {Gadling}
Dec 4th 2009 4:11PM And actually, it's "Disneyland" - one word, not two. :-)
Europeans complain about U.S. travel fees {Gadling}
Nov 9th 2009 10:20AM The reason the Europeans are so worked up about this - which this post pretty much ignored - has nothing to do with the amount, or even a "tourist tax". It's the way this particular tax (fee, whatever) is being imposed - through the ESTA system.
Right now, foreigners (mainly Europeans, but including some other countries) visiting under the Visa Waiver program have to go on a website and complete the "ESTA", involving a lot of questions about their trip, then also have to fill out the I-94W form in transit to the US, which pretty much duplicates the ESTA questions.
By comparison, Americans visiting these countries (with the exception of Australia) only either fill out a simple landing card to be presented on arrival (e.g. the UK) or no form at all (e.g. Spain.)
Now what the US government is proposing is imposing the $10 fee not as a tax on tickets or an arrival tax, but a fee for using the ESTA website. The Europeans' objection to this is that the combination of the fee and the advance-completion requirement for the ESTA makes the ESTA, in effect, a visa, which violates the principle of reciprocal visa-waiver.
It also adds insult to injury by only imposing the "tourist-promotion fund fee" on our closest international partners (which is why we have visa-waiver with them.)
If it was just simply a ticket tax, there wouldn't have been anything other than mild grumbling, which we could easily counter by pointing to, for example, the extravagant air taxes imposed on visitors to the UK by the travel-hating Gordon Brown's government.
And if this new travel-promotion agency is really going to benefit the US by increasing international visitors, why shouldn't Americans pay for it through the general fund?
The $10 airline peak "surcharge" is here to stay {Gadling}
Oct 8th 2009 10:40AM Oh, gods, more whinging about the "hidden fees" and the evil airlines.
Let's get this straight - all this is is a fare increase on peak days, nothing more, nothing less. The airlines have discovered that they can use a "fee" rather than have to go back and amend fares already filed with the GDS services to add blackout dates and then file new fares for the days with the fare increase - it saves them a little hassle and a little money, as they have to pay the GDS operators when they file new fares.
The "surcharge" is Iincluded in fare searches you run on Orbitz, Kayak, etc., just as the fuel surcharges were during the fuel price crisis. US law requires that all non-optional expenses (as opposed to optional ones, like baggage fees) be included in quoted and advertised fares, except for the security fee and the PFC. (Most online quotes include those too, but in print ads the PFC can be left out because it's routing-specific.)
Nothing is being "hidden" from the consumer...it's not an evil plot, it's just a fare increase, supply and demand.
As Mr. Spock would say, "a difference which makes no difference IS no difference."
An open letter to the soon-to-be new owners of the Travel Channel {Gadling}
Aug 26th 2009 1:55PM Actually, I can cut Travel Channel a little slack about the poker - they had managed to land the WPT rights before the height of the Texas Hold-em craze and they make decent money off it, and as TC was (and still is) like so many cable specialty channels, a financial gamble to begin with, I can't blame them for wanting to milk the cash cow, which back in TC's earlier days probably helped subsidize the rest of the network's offerings.
That said, I can't understand why the hell they'd be showing "Spy Game"...viewers looking for a move to watch are unlikely to look at TC's listings. Makes no sense at all.
Don't be "that" tourist - things to avoid when you are abroad {Gadling}
Aug 19th 2009 11:40AM At the risk of being politically incorrect, enough already of the whole "America means this, not that" business...99% of the people in the world know that the common use of the word "America" means "the United States." "United Statesians" just sounds ridiculous. I have NEVER heard anyone from Brazil, or Belize, or...well, anywhere else say "oh, I'm an 'American' too", because in the real world it's quite rare for anyone other than Americans wanting to sound "global" or "enlightened" to refer to the entirety of the North and South American continents (yes, two continents, not one) as "America", unless they're talking about the history of European exploration of the Americas in general. Even "North American" is relatively rare - I do know many Canadians get really annoyed at the tendency of some Latin Americans to use the term "North America" when they mean "United States.") "South Americans", "Central Americans", or "Latin Americans" where appropriate, is more common, but usually people just call themselves by their country name.
Blame the founders for giving our country such a clumsy name... :-)
Also, one more bit of political incorrectness - Americans are always going on about having to "show respect" and such, but for some reason many travel writers seem to think it's wrong to ask visitors to the US to do the same. A few of the commenters here have touched on this (such as the Speedos), but you would be amazed at just how many foreign visitors show a total disregard for our personal space customs, or that we believe in this substance called 'deodorant' - yes, Americans are unusually fastidious by world standards, but "when in Rome", no?
That out of my system, I do agree with most of these points, especially the one about learning a few phrases in the local language, at least "excuse me", "please", "thank you", a couple of greetings, and "do you speak English?" It's just polite (and fun, to me at least!) And knowing how to ask "where's the toilet" can be a lifesaver!
On food, I agree to an extent, but those who look down their nose at Americans (or Brits, Aussies, etc.) going to McDonalds or KFC should keep in mind a few things - a lot of the time, global fast food chains are the cheapest alternative, at least for those with a limited grasp of the local language (and don't forget, many people have food allergies.) A lot of tourists hit fast food for breakfast and/or lunch to save money for nice, local dinners, especially since many cultures don't seem to do breakfast as a substantial meal. Sorry, but the 'continental breakfast' doesn't get the job done for me...I need something more substantial, preferably involving meat. Finally, many of us are diabetic, and when you're traveling, having fun, jet-lagged, etc., it's common for diabetics to lose track of meal timing and find themselves at a point where they need to eat something NOW - as a diabetic, I can tell you that having an option where you know exactly what you'll get, and will get it quickly, is very useful.
A little sensational on the "counterfeit goods" - CBP is usually looking for resale quantities and for goods that are being passed as the real thing, not the obvious fakes like a "Bolex" watch that most people buy for the humor value anyway.
And on the whole "things are better at home", again I'm going to point out how much Americans get criticized for this yet everyone else seems to get a free pass. I have heard visitors to the US complain long and loud about how things are better at home, that you're expected to tip in the US too much, that American food portions are too big, that so many Americans are fat, etc. I've had Europeans go out of their way to lecture me about how our train system is so bad and how much better and cleaner theirs are. But how many times do you see travel writers (pro or amateurs like us Gadling commenters!) call visitors to the US on it? Not nearly as much as we Americans are lectured on how we need to be more polite. Again, what's good for the goose...
And to some extent, it's only natural to compare how things are done at home versus elsewhere. If done in the right spirit - understanding, sometimes even for a laugh, but not to be mean or with a sense of 'superiority' - it can even be good.
To clarify (and correct) Patricia's remarks on backpacks, it's simply not true that backpacks "are not allowed in all restaurants and stores since 9/11", unless you're referring to the really big ones. I live in New York City, and you can take a backpack (even a larger "daypack" sized one), messenger bag, large duffel bag, etc., into virtually any store or restaurant. (Outside large cities where people don't walk as much and have cars to leave things in, larger "daypacks" are not as welcome.) It's very common to carry such a bag in NYC, Boston, Chicago, etc., since it's not like you can go put stuff in your car as you go through your day.
That said, fanny packs are practical, and if worn in the front are more secure than a backpack. But keep in mind you do look silly.
On the subject of looking foolish, I have one word to say to my fellow Americans: "Crocs". It is impossible for an adult male to wear Crocs without looking like a complete, unmitigated tool. Even if they aren't orange or lime green. Even for adult women, it's borderline at best. Just wear sandals, if appropriate where you're visiting.
And for men visiting the US from certain European countries: men in the US do not wear capri pants. The only possible exception is subtly coloured ones in New England seaside communities, where you can get away with calling them "clamdiggers." Other than that, if you wear them in the US you will get made fun of, even openly laughed at, and you must accept this and not get angry about it, as I saw a male tourist wearing bright orange capri pants at San Francisco airport do once when a child said "look, Mommy, he's wearing your pants!"
