Another Airline Gone

[jons1077]

Steve,

My gosh you know alot about airlines! No wonder Tony was entertained all those hours at Mark's warehouse while I played around with the various stuff there. Heck...he still laughs about you telling him to keep his feet off the floor when we started filling that old GE up with water. You know he'll always know what a boot is because of that. (he didn't have a clue until I explained it to him in the car on the way home.)

For the past three years or so I've been doing alot of flying. Some of it alone but mostly with Tony. I will say from personal experience that, hands down, the British and the Americans win the award for being the most arrogant and rude. I've only been to France, Germany, The Netherlands, and England several times and to a large amount of cities in the US. There really is such a thing as the ugly American and it has embarrased us many times when visiting other countries. Yup, having a lovely French meal one night overlooking the Eiffel Tower, we were interrupted by the sounds of a couple arguing with the waiter over a bill. With our broken French we had to translate the best we could to help that poor waiter out when he did nothing wrong.

Anyways, on with airlines... I will recollect on two different flights for you all. Might be fun to read over coffee this morning or something. Hang on...I'mm going to refill mine really quick.

I was on a flight from Portland, OR to San Franisco that Tony was working purser one morning. I was sitting up in the first class cabin with 11 other people. There were a couple of business men in front, an older couple behind me, and so forth. Tony had to remain at the cockpit door because he was doing a safety briefing with the pilots as well as both doors in the front open (boarding and a galley change). He had to remain up front when all of this is going on because the FAA requires that of him. Of course with staffing only at 3 F/A's that means those poor, helpless passengers in rows 1-3 had to WAIT for their predeparture beverage AND...ANNNND no one was available to take their coats and hang them. (The hangers are on the wall right behind us mind you.) Another pass rider finally got tired of the complaining and took the coats himself. For the next half hour I got to sit and hear these fat, lazy jerks talk about how LAZY that purser is because he didn't serve them right away when they boarded. Of course I went to told Tony all of this so, needless to say, service had ended for that flight. (You never know who's listening folks!)

My second airplane story has to do with a trip I went on with Tony to Amsterdam. If you haven't been there before, it's actually quite nice. I remember this particular plane (a 767) was really hagged out. Mold on the ceilings, a huge list of broken items, and just an overall dump...boarded and ready to go. Anyways, we had a great day in The Netherlands and were heading back the next morning. Boarded our lovely 767 again (this time a different one but you'd never know because they all look the same...like crap). I was sitting front-row center so I could overhear some conversation from the crew. I knew we were taking a delay for some kind of aircraft servicing and the captain made an announcement basically saying ONLY that. A few minutes later Tony came up to me and explained to me what was going on. The F/O had done a walk-around of the plane outside and noticed a panel was missing. He called maintenance and they responded by saying "You don't need that part. The plane made it here didn't it?" After a closer inpection, he found that missing panel...IN THE ENGINE right in front of the blades. "It must have fallen in there when it landed." said maintenance.

Low fares and outsourcing. We are very much overdue for another major airline catastrophy. I'm going to put my money on a 747 or 767 to be one of the first.



Jon

 

[speed_queen75]

I hate to bust your bubble

Charger, but yes we Americans are spoiled rotten, why, well fact is we want every thing to go our way, instantly, i mean look at our lifestyles, we want everything cheap and now. And yes i will say that SOME Americans are hard workers, but if we were really that hard of workers, do you honestly think all our jobs would be going to, nasty and disease infested China? Not to mention all our household, clothing, electronics, being made over there, plus our consumption of oil has quadrupled over the past 20years, this coming for the major oil company's, where as Europe's consumption has remained the same as it was 20 years ago, and Europe is three times our size, in population, why is that? Well because over here, we want our HUGE suv's that get 10MPG, and our ENORMOUS dully pickups that get even less, not to mention, it has been statistically proven, that WE consume the most ENERGY in the world per year compared to Europe that consumes more than half of what we do, and remember, they have more people than we do over here. This mentality of instant gratification, and wanting it NOW, and wanting it CHEAP, has come back to BITE US IN THE ASS!!!!! Why do you think walmart is as HUGE as it is today? Thanks to us wanting CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP, and wanting it all under one roof, cause we are too LAZY to go to different places to get all that we need, cause it's "too much of a hassle". I could get into the divorce rate being the highest in the world than any other country on the PLANET, but I'll save that for another thread. In closing, yes charger we are SPOILED ROTTEN, face it, look at how we have been blessed, cheap oil, huge homes and cars, great paying jobs, cheap energy, and now that it is being used all up, by US!!!! We are crying about it, cause our little spoiled rotten world around us is collapsing, and we cannot deal with it, so we blame everyone else, we can only blame ourselves for, the situation we are currently in, just like the airlines being shitty, we wanted CHEAP fares, well to accommodate they had to compromise service to give us those cheap fares.

 

[speed_queen75]

Jon you are right.

When my mother worked at TWA, she always used to tell us that if there was a problem, the plane was grounded, and the problem was fixed, and the passengers we happy to know they were safe, of course that was back when the airline was REGULATED, by the Federal Government, and fares were not so cheap. Nowadays, fares are cheap, and Airlines to make up for it have to compromise, on service, maintenance, and overall management, the maintenance part is what scares me the most, my father is a mechanic for Delta, and the stories i hear and the things that are told by upper management to be "Left Alone", really scare the SHIT out of me. Especially when the lives of hundreds of people are in THEIR hands. I come from a family of Airline Employees, going as far back as my great Grandfather, who worked for and with Juan Tripp, so i know all about the airline industry of yesteryear and today, most of the crap in the industry of today is OUR OWN FAULT, wanting CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP. As my dad tell me, in order to give the customers cheap fares, they have to cut out several thing, 2 of them being, service and maintenance. So Jon my hart goes out to Tony, and the shit he has to deal with in todays ROTTEN Airline Industry, and that is why i SWORE not to EVER become part of that ROTTEN Industry, which BTW i am the ONLY member of the family who has not had a career in the Airline Industry, and refuses to have any part of it, i also swore to NEVER EVER, date or marry anyone in that ROTTEN industry. And i hope and pry that Tony will be out if that ROTTEN industry SOON, best of luck to both of you.

Cheers Lee

 

[jons1077]

Thanks Lee,

I think you made a good choice staying away from that industry. Back when Tony first started pre 9/11 he said it was actually fun and not so bad. That was before he was laid off twice and the rest is history. He just did a flight from Orange County, CA to Chicago and is now delayed to Laguardia and then Dulles. He'll have done almost a 14-hour work day if they actually leave Chicago. Glam huh? I am at least glad that your family members for the most part got to fly when it still had some glamour left in it. It's a shame...

Jon

 

[whirlcool]

I remember Muse Air. I took them once out of LAX-HOU. We had three male flight attendants on the new MD-83. They were more like football players than flight attendants. But the service was great and the flight on-time. Eventually, Muse Air was bought out by Southwest Airlines with the idea that Southwest would be the economy class carrier and Muse Air (renamed TranStar) would be their premium class carrier. But Continental drove them out of business by matching fares and schedules out of HOU. When Southwest shut down TranStar, Continental pulled completely out of HOU. (Hobby Airport). What's kind of ironic is that CO bought most of the old TranStar planes. For many years afterwards in August the former employees of Muse Air would hold a reunion at the Cockpit Bar & Grill across the street from the airport. I don't know if they still do that though.
On I-45 there is a rather large white mid-rise building that now houses a law firm. That used to be Muse Air's Houston headquarters.
Back when the airline industry was regulated by the CAB, everyone had to charge the same price between two destinations. So service was the only thing that differentiated the carriers from one another. So you would see steak dinners in coach, flight attendants dressed in far out uniforms, etc. When the industry was deregulated the at the time president of United said that by the year 2000 we'll have only one airline, one run by the government just like Amtrak. I think he was only off by a few years.
Fortunately in less than three years I reach mandatory retirement age. But it really depends on what happens to me with this merger with Delta. I originally started out with North Central Airlines and have been through two mergers since.
And there is still resentment here over the merger with Repubic over twenty years ago! At least I got to fly during the end of the golden age of aviation. Since the late 80's it's been hell. If I don't like what Delta offers, I may just retire now and start a second career.
As stated many times above in this thread a large part of the problem is over scheduling of the airports. Airlines want to fly people at the times they want to travel. By purchasing all those Regional Jets, they overcrowded the airport and air traffic control facilities. Most people don't know that one of those Regional Jets takes up the same amount of airspace that a 747 does in terms of separation of aircraft. So by flooding the airports with those little devils, they overloaded the system.
But I think the worst is yet to come!

 

[gyrafoam]

Panthera----I'd love some torte!

Jon- I have known waiters/waitresses at (W)Affle House that are pulling down close to $300.00 a day in cash on busy days. If they choose to work extra hours you can just imagine what they are raking in and they have full insurance and retirement benefits. (A friend back in Atlanta works as a waiter in an exclusive Atlanta Steakhouse and he can pull in well over 1K a night and regularly does so. He has steady hours regular days off and sleeps in his own bed---- most of the time.)

If the clientele gets too obnoxious they just 911 and the cops come in and collect the trash.

Oh yeah, there is certainly no glamor in being a flight attendant nowadays.
The very same people who squawk over hanging up a coat are the very ones who ignore the briefing for using the doors and windows for an emergency---won't even look up or glance at the card. Don't even have a clue what type of aircraft they are on, where the engines, wings (fuel) etc. are located in relationship to their seat. But if the s%$t hits the fan it is the flight attendants who are the ones who must put their lives on the line to get everyone the hell out of there FAST!

Up untill at least the mid-1960's the first line of EVERY United Airlines Emergency Evacuation Card had underlined in red: "Know how to exit this aircraft fast!".

United was the only company in the industry to do such a brazen act! (Back before the 1960's even the word "saftey" was almost NEVER used in airline advertising of any kind!) American used to mention it just to needle the other carriers but the truth was---- in the old days commercial airliners crashed with alarming regularity. Very few airlines could really use the term "safe" safely. Qantas of Australia and TAP of Portugal are two that come to mind as being VERY safe in the old days. The bad ones were----VERY baaaaad!

Whircool----I believe you are exactly right----the worst has yet to come and after the "shakedown" a completely new system of air transportation is going to rise from the ashes and its 'gonna be expensive for EVERYBODY!

Do you wish you were back holding a 580 line with Herman?

 

[museairboy]

Wow wirlcool, you know quite a bit about Muse Air. As a matter of fact I was invited to the Muse Air/ TranStar 20 year reunion in Austin last year but I was unable to make it. It's funny that you mention how Continental basically moved a chunk of their operations to HOU in order to drive Muse/Transtar out of business. I remember that! I remember going on a flight from HOU-LAX my dad was working and seeing a CO flight going to LAX as well only to leave about 15 min. earlier.

I have to agree with speed_queen75 on what he wrote earlier. We pretty much have done this to ourselves. We are so caught up in instant gratification and we all want everything right here right now. After reading some of the previous posts, it really does concern me when I hear about the mechanics saying that something needs to be replaced and upper management saying to ingore it because of course they are trying to cut corners to keep costs low. It is sort of like damned if you do and damned if you don't.
Anyways, I could go on and on. It is just hard having to put everything I want to say in one post.

Stephen aka MuseAirBoy

 

[johnb300m]

Well, it sounds like negative comments can be said about any of the airlines. Also, take comfort in knowing that it's shit to work anywhere right now. It's a battle to get a job today, and once your there, you're beaten down constantly.

The last time I flew was in 2006 when I was doing volunteer work on the east coast. I'd fly United every time from ORD to BOS on a monthly basis for most of 2006.

To be honest, all of the seldom delays were not United's fault but due to weather. There was one instance where we had to be switched to another plane because a row of seats was broken. They had us switched and in the air in 1.5hrs. If you ask me, as much bullshit that's involved in aviation, 1.5hrs to move all the passengers and luggage to another plane was fantastic.
I get a kick out of people....as we were waiting again in the terminal, people were on their phones letting others in Chicago that we'd be late. One lady was was in a fervor, saying on the phone that "it's utter utter chaos! they kicked us off the plane! bla bla bla bla it's terrible, it's like a madhouse!"

I looked around after hearing this, and everyone was just sitting and standing around talking...I didn't see any chaos.
One of the little perks of United was entertainment in flight, as well as Economy Plus where they still have seats with more legroom for 40 bucks. Well worth it after a long work weekend in Boston.
United is also the only airline I've ever flown where my luggage was not molested or missing on the other end. In some cases, my bag was in Boston before me.

BUT, that was all back in 2006. It sounds like everyone's gone to hell in a hand-basket.

The U.S. will never have a proper mass transit system for two reasons:
1. It's too big of a nation. We're last in widespread infrastructure because of our size. It's too expensive to cover the area.
2. the car is what this economy is still based on. Until that changes or people start demanding better mass transit, and are willing to pay for it, then we'll never see a great train system like France or Japan.

 

[panthera]

uh, john,

The US led the rest of the world in profitable, cross country train service right up until the decision was made to kill it off.
Sorry to disagree, but there it is - and what you could do in the early 20th century, you can do again.
Also, the area covered by high speed trains in Europe is not exactly small, you don't use a 250-400kmp train to get from Brooklyn to the Bronx.
What is true is that people, for some absurd reason, have bought the bullshit that you can either have trains or cars, not both. Anyone who has been to Europe in the last 60+ years knows the answer to that. I wish folks in the US weren't so darned isolated from the modern world. Last time I was in the 'States, a young kid was all excited about texting. We call it SMS and got over the excitement back in the last century, hell even my parents used it when they visited me back in the 1990s.
Digital Free to Air TV? Yawn, same stupid commercials, only in Dolby surround. And now you can see the pancake makeup on the idiots who host Deutschland Trascht den Superstar or whatever you call it.
Of course, I do have to admit my conversion from ISDN + ADSL to 20,000M DSL didn't happen until recently, I'd been limping along with 6,000M since 2001. But who cares - my VoiP plus cell phone (unlimited flat rate including USA and DSL) are 29€/month.
You know, every single country that has pushed renewable energy and associated technologies in Europe is hiring US engineers right out of College. They are well trained, bright and creative. The also have a future...here. The money and time wasted is such a loss -just think how independent and free the US could be if a Manhattan Project were coupled with real capitalization and market openings for these new technologies in the US.
You have the brains and the skills, but your priorities aree way out of line with the challenges you face.

 

[whirlcool]

Well the problem right now is $115.00 per barrel oil. All the airlines are trying to just break even at this price level. They have done all they can figure out they can do to the employees. Furloughs, Pay Cuts, Cutting Benefits, etc. There is no more left!
So now the airlines are turning to the customer for more money. First they started charging for bags over 50lbs. Now some airlines are charging for a second bag. On Northwest they charge a surcharge for an emergency row seat and on some flights an aisle or window seat. On most airlines meals have disappeared and bags of cookies and biscoffs have taken their place. It's sad to see how on a transcon some of the major airlines are only offering cocktail service. Continental has still been able to maintain some kind of meal service, some have gone to those horrible "Buy On Board" menus where they charge you $7.00 for a turkey wrap. But in my opinion nothing was worse than American's "Bistro Bag". You walked past a refrigerator in the jetway and picked one up on the way into the aircraft. They usually were ham sandwiches on hard rolls so hard you could play baseball with them. Fortunately, those disappeared through budget cuts.
It used to be that the crew would get meals of their own. Then they told us that we could only eat if there were enough meals declined during the flight. I have seen an F/A or two eating leftovers.
We have actually had passengers come onboard with McDonalds or Burger King sandwiches for the crew. What we really like are those bags of trail mix, still sealed. I usually try to have a large meal before a trip, but after a 12 hour duty day you do get hungry.
And management is now filled with people who have learned that the bottom line is all that matters. The days of the "family feel" working for an airline are long gone. At Northwest CEO Doug Streenland would sell his own mother if the price was right.
End of rant....

 

[nasadowsk]

My continental flight featured a can of soda or two.

For a 4 hour flight, I can go without eating, but drinks, I'd like.

My parents have flown South African in recent years, and found it to be very nice. Good service (even in steerage class), and on time. FWIW, they're also the only African carrier you should ever fly...

I think the US public's attitude towards airlines is the same as everything else: Cheaper and more 'bling'. Nobody gives a shit about quality anymore

 

[neptunebob]

That sounds as bad as Delta Sky Deli, where the gate agent would unlock a chest freezer and let people take the packets and then slam the lid shut and lock it again (now really, would anyone want to steal what was in there?). I looked and felt like something from the Soviet Union.

I don't understand why they are still serving drinks on an airplane. Mary Shiavo is a lawyer and a pilot who used to be the Inspector General who wrote a book about "Flying Blind, Flying Safe". She says that alcohol should be banned in airplanes and airports becuase "you don't need people buzzed when you need to get 100 people out of a plane in 90 seconds".

 

[mayken4now]

They aint nothing but a bus in the air. Nothing special this day and time. Just cost a lot more to get you there "Quickly" specially with the W in office.

S

 

[charger]

THANKS for popping my buble speed_queen75 !!!!!

The Airlines have it RIGHT and I was WRONG!!!!!!! who knew???

Here I was under the crazy impression that when I underbid a job I was expected to deliver a quality product regardless.... Now thanks to my popped bubble I UNDERSTAND THAT ITS OK TO DO A CRAPPY JOB IF YOU HAVE PRICE CONSCIOUS BUYERS (and gawd knows I do)

Say this could save the Ford Motor Company!! ... here they are loosing there ass because they were not prepared for the possibility of high gas prices in spite of all the warnings from their own economist, so now thanks to tough market conditions and price conscious buyers its OK if the doors fall off and the air bag does not deploy for sure... and heck if you wanted the brakes to work EVERY TIME! you should have gotten the deluxe model!!!! and to think that they are wasting time with long overdue quality improvements that almost challenge Toyota, what are they thinking!!!

So remember when business is tough it OK to do a crappy job!!! because it is the price conscious spoiled and hated customers fault!!!!!

THANKS speed_queen75 The Future is looking good!!!!

If you miss TWA like I do the link below will be extra depressing....

 

[panthera]

James,

That link brought tears to my eyes. Four seats in the middle aisle?
I keep waiting for the day they shoe-horn us in.

It's true, flying is really no longer much fun. I appreciate the lower prices, money is very tight - but, gosh.

If you will forgive my forwardness, most folks around here don't set things in caps. I am one of the very few who, occassionally, will set things in italics.

My dad is a GM fan. Have to say, the quality has improved recently. My 1998 Malibu is doing fine at 115,000miles but my brother's Lincoln died at 75,000 and his current car, a 2003 Malibu has had a new engine, new transmission and been recalled so often - the kind of recall where the local dealer doesn't just send a letter, but telephones and guilts you into making an appointment - you do have young children, don't you? - that it's scary.
My partner's Cadillac is a pretty thing (and a great big boat), but when I compare the quality of work under the hood to a BMW or Audi, well...
Anyway, glad for your insights - but no more pictures of the old days when I am trying to book a flight in coach, ok? I swain, they'd put four seats in the sides if they could and six in the center. Who says you have to face forward?

 

[speed_queen75]

LOOK CHARGER

Obviously you not getting what i am saying, i am sorry i cant draw you a picture on here but i will say it again, My father who works for Delta,(that's an Airline based in Atlanta) wants to do a good job and cares about his work, and the safety of the flying public, he is pressured by upper management to "IGNORE IT", because, they, (The Airline) are cutting corners to give people like YOU, and me the cheaper fares. Now as far as doing a quality job, i own my own beauty shop, and to compete with, other salons like Smart Style, Regis, Great Clips etc i do quality work and yes i am CONSTANTLY fixing the messups, of the CHEAP chains, that people in the town SWEAR by, once they see the shitty work the do to their hair, then i gain a client and thy are willing to pay for the price i am charging, even if it's more. That is what service is all about, but when you are FORCED by a company's upper management to cut corners and forfeit service, then you have angry clients, who whine and complain, cause they expected cheap and IMPECCABLE service at the same time. Hate to tell you but cheap and service NEVER went had to hand. That is why Whirlpool now makes shitty washers, and the public wonders why, well it's cause they wanted, CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP, so the company to make cheap had to sacrifice quality. In closing you really don't have to be a SMART ASS about all this. All i am saying is it's our own fault we have done this to ourselves, so please don't make me explain it again, i don't like to repeat myself, if you don't get it by now, next time, I'll post you a picture, and maybe that will help you.

 

[speed_queen75]

Oh and another thing, i never said it's ok for the quality to go down, but to get CHEAP, you have to compromise on something and most American capitalist compromise, Quality and Service, to give YOU!!!! That product CHEAP

 

[speed_queen75]

Oh and one more thing charger, you mentioned you have been to Europe in the 5 times in 2 years, HUN i lived there for 11 months and have been going there since i was 3 years old, this last trip was very challenging, yes they were nice to me too but get into a political or whatever discussion with them and it's a whole different ball game. I should know i have family that live there and, and my mother is FULL Italian...

 

[gyrafoam]

SQ---

Your father must be completely disgusted by now. I know things really started to go downhill with the "Allen" regieme and now there is all kind of outsourcing and corner-cutting going on. The only thing that is saving everybodies a$$es right now is that the aircraft of today are not as trouble-prone by design as some of the previous aircraft were.

But the "Mad-Dogs" are 'gettin old, and the 75's and (some of the) 763's ain't too young either. And during the Allen years do you recall when the company was painting aircraft without primer! After a few years the paint started to wear off but Allen kept on flying them years after year untill some of them were just awful looking----especially some of the old L10's. MR.C.E. must have been rolling in his grave.

I'm from Atlanta and just moved here to Virginia last fall. I grew up with DL. And back in the day "If your heart was in Dixie then Delta was the airline of the South", so I do remember the mentality of the DL of old.

Just like the Atlanta of old, the Delta of old (and all the other "grandfather carriers AA,UA,NW,CO,US, etc.) have truly
"Gone With the Wind".
They are mere shells of their old selves. They have carefully kept the facades in place that the public sees, but behind the hanger door is just a skeleton of once was.

It is scary.Of course the "tombstone agency" FAA isn't going to do a thing about it untill there is a major maintenance-related crash somewhere and then like a good government agency they will suddenly come to life and pretend they are really concerned with doing their job----kind of like they did with AA recently---over the banding of wire-bundles on "Mad-Dogs".

I have the utmost sympathy for your fathers plight. It is a bad place to be when you know what is the correct and proper way to do something and some a$$ hole supervisor comes along and demands you do things in a slip-shod way----or else! Oh, and just wait untill the merger really starts to set in! NW has been leading the industry in out-sourcing.

Oh well, the people wanted cheap and now we've got it.
We just "get on the bus Gus" and hope we get there!

 

[surgilator1]

if passengers only knew

if passengers only knew the maintenance and repair items that are deliberately overlooked; it would definitely unnerve them. speed queen is right! safety should be first

 

[whirlcool]

Well, safety is first. If there is any question as to the safety of the operation of the aircraft I can deny accepting it until it's repaired. Fortunately, that's only happened twice in over 30 years of airline flying.
Now there is the MEL, or Minimum Equipment list for each aircraft type. Sure you can fly an aircraft without some equipment functioning. For example if we are going to be flying on a clear day we can leave with an inop generator (We have multiples). But if we are expecting weather, we would want it fixed before we left. There are hundreds of things that can be inop and you are still good to go. But these are things that don't directly affect the operation of the aircraft. There is a lot of redundancy in aircraft systems.

 

[speed_queen75]

And here is another reason why we dug our own pit

Despite daily headlines bemoaning record gas prices, the U.S. is actually one of the cheaper places to fill up in the world.

Out of 155 countries surveyed, U.S. gas prices were the 45th cheapest, according to a recent study from AIRINC, a research firm that tracks cost of living data.

The difference is staggering. As of late March, U.S. gas prices averaged $3.45 a gallon. That compares to over $8 a gallon across much of Europe.

The U.S. has always fought to keep gas prices low, and the current debate among presidential candidates on how to keep them that way has been fierce.

More from CNNMoney.com:

• Americans: It's Still the Economy, Stupid

• More Signs the World Isn't Ending

• Culprits of the Food Price Runup

But those cheap gas prices - which Americans have gotten used to - mean they feel price spikes like the ones we're experiencing now more acutely than citizens from other nations which have had historically more expensive fuel.

Cheap gas prices have also lulled Americans into a cycle of buying bigger cars and bigger houses further away from their work - leaving them more exposed to rising prices, some experts say.

Price comparisons are not all created equal. Comparing gas prices across nations is always difficult. For starters, the AIRINC numbers don't take into account different salaries in different countries, or the different exchange rates. The dollar has lost considerable ground to the euro recently. Because oil is priced in dollars, rising oil prices aren't as hard on people paying with currencies which are stronger than the dollar, as they can essentially buy more oil with their money as the dollar falls in value.

And then there's the varying distances people drive, the public transportation options available, and the different services people get in exchange for high gas prices. For example, Europe's stronger social safety net, including cheaper health care and higher education, is paid for partly through gas taxes.

Gas price: It's all about government policy. Gasoline costs roughly the same to make no matter where in the world it's produced, according to John Felmy, chief economist for the American Petroleum Institute. The difference in retail costs, he said, is that some governments subsidize gas while others tax it heavily.

Bogged Down
Most expensive places to buy gas
Rank Country Price/gal
1. Bosnia-Herzegovina $10.86
2. Eritrea $9.58
3. Norway $8.73
4. United Kingdom $8.38
5. Netherlands $8.37
6. Monaco $8.31
7. Iceland $8.28
8. Belgium $8.22
9. France $8.07
10. Germany $7.86
111. United States $3.45
Source: AIRINC

In many oil producing nations gas is absurdly cheap. In Venezuela it's 12 cents a gallon. In Saudi Arabia it's 45.

The governments there forego the money from selling that oil on the open market - instead using the money to make their people happy and encourage their nations' development.

Subsidies, many analysts say, are encouraging rampant demand in these countries, pushing up the price of oil worldwide.

In the U.S., the federal tax on gas is about 18 cents a gallon, pretty low by international standards.

But those relatively low gas taxes make it hard now for Americans to deal with gas prices that have risen from around $1 to over $3 a gallon in the last seven years.

"Everybody pays more, but the U.S. pays more in absolute terms," said Lee Shipper, a visiting scholar at the University of California Berkeley's Transportation Center. If you're already paying $4 in taxes, said Schipper, then an extra $2 a gallon isn't that big of a deal.

Revenues from Europe's high gas taxes are used to fund a variety of things. One thing they have built is better public transportation, said Peter Tertzakian, chief energy economist at ARC Financial, a Calgary-based private equity firm.

They gave people an alternative to driving, something we don't have in North America," said Tertzakian.

Low fuel taxes and prices sprung out of a national love for mobility going back generations, said Robert Lang, director of the urban planning think tank Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech.

Cruisin'
Where gasoline is cheapest
Rank Country Price/gal
1. Venezuela 12 cents
2. Iran 40 cents
3. Saudi Arabia 45 cents
4. Libya 50 cents
5. Swaziland 54 cents
6. Qatar 73 cents
7. Bahrain 81 cents
8. Egypt 89 cents
9. Kuwait 90 cents
10. Seychelles 98 cents
45. United States $3.45
155 countries surveyed between March 17 and April 1, 2008. Prices not adjusted for cost of living or exchange rates.
Source: AIRINC

In fact, the U.S. could not have had the western expansion it did without the cheap mobility railroads and horse carriages afforded long before it became an auto-obsessed culture, said Lang.

"You couldn't have Manifest Destiny unless you could move," he said.

The automobile, and its promise of personal mobility, only deepened the nation's love affair with travel.

"Nobody sang 'She'll have fun fun fun until her daddy takes the tokens away,'" said Lang. 'It's totally romanticized."

Gas consumption Europe vs. U.S. There is some evidence Europe's high gas taxes have capped its oil consumption.

Oil use in the United Kingdom has basically stayed flat from 1980 to now, while in France it's dropped 17%, according to figures from the Energy Information Administration.

In the U.S., meanwhile, oil use is up 21% over the same period, although the country has added more people and seen its economy grow slightly faster.

Americans have taken advantage of cheap gas prices to do other things - like buy bigger cars and bigger houses further away from city centers, said Schipper.

On a per capita basis, Americans use three times more oil than Europeans, he said. That means Americans are more exposed to rising gas prices than their counterparts across the Atlantic.

"Five-thousand square feet in the suburbs, that's much rarer in Europe," said Schipper, referring to big homes. "We dug our hole."
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So there you have it, that is why our country is in the shit it's in today thanks to us and our love for Huge homes Huge cars, and wasteful mentality...

 

[conate]

all these talk about gas prices...

...don't tell the story.

What is the cost of a litre of fuel versus the coast of a kilogram of local bread? How many hours must the 'average' wage earner work to buy a litre of fuel?

Assuming the average hourly wage of $15 in USA (I think that is what it is? Maybe more?) and 3.50 for gas, then you must work for about 15 minutes, pre tax, to buy a gallon of gas.

BUT you also must factor in percentage of salary that fuel consumes. If you make not-a-lot and have a long drive, it is huge. Etc.

With the dollar so low, I question some of these 'horrible' numbers. What is it like in the economy in question, not comparisons between US and this country.

Nate