Cost of Airfare

No shillatry taken. I've visited, and heard good things about them.

 

Speaking of the Southwest cattle call, I've got to check-in online in 15 minutes for tomorrow's flight, lest I be stuck in the B group with all the losers.

Wish me luck!

 

Yee-hah.

 

actually it is their job.

i agree that the primary purpose of an airline is to transport you from place to place without killing or injuring you.

by and large close to 100 percent of flights actually accomplish this.

but i don't think it's too much to ask for a little decency and courtesy. or at least ask for something other than a miserable experience.

 

True.

But I think the people on here have mastered the art of exaggerating their woeful airline experiences. Next to the shitty pay it's become a badge of honor to bitch about air travel on here.

You're like the impossible high school parents. Only instead of bitching about your paper's treatment of little Johnny, you bitch about the airline's treatment of . . . you. The degree of irrationality and hostility and unreasonable expectations is eerily similar.

"A little decency and courtesy" I receive 100 percent of the time.

"A miserable experience" . . . I have experienced maybe a couple of times.

 

Bitching and exaggeration on an Interweb message board? Well, now I've seen everything!

 

It's one thing to deal with the hassles of air travel. That's expected.

It's quite another to deal with airline employees who are openly hostile and go out of their way to be a pain in the ass, and I've encountered that repeatedly on United. I'm a very easy-going guy, and I literally once had a United employee's coworkers rush over to restrain me as I went over the desk to strangle the son of a bitch. And he was the one who was hustled away while the others apologized to me.

I've dealt with remarkably incompetent people at US Airways, but at least they were polite about it.

I'll put it this way: If I was flying from Phoenix to L.A. and had to choose between flying direct on United or flying Southwest with a stopover in Detroit, I'd probably take Southwest.

 

I've seen the best and some of the worst that airlines have to offer over the years. I have discovered that in almost every case that I get back the courtesy that I give. Even from the otherwise execrable United and Air Canada.

As to the original point of the thread: Flying is too cheap anyway. The airlines weren't going to be able to sustain the current fare system. Southwest's fuel hedges are going expire at some point soon, and it will be forced to compete with everybody else. And yeah, I expect significant fare increases will force us to change the way we do business.

 

I like Southwest. It has the best rewards program by far, flies almost everywhere I need to go and normally gets you where you're going on time. I don't necessarily like the cattle call, but really I don't see what the big deal is with some people.

 

I looked into taking the LGA-DCA shuttle recently with a 2-week advance... They were asking $635 +

Wow, just wow.

 

Great job. Part of the problem was I was trying to go during the freakin' cherry blossoms.