Another Airline Gone

[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."
Copyrighted, CNNMoney. All Rights Reserved.

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