Tag Archives: air travel

Oh American, You Let Me Down!

Posted on by | 4 Comments

“The World’s Greatest Flyers Fly American” Just ask American!

Yes I’m talking about American Airlines. In recent posts I’ve said how impressed I’ve been with their customer service and friendly manner. My friends who have had ( in their opinion) the misfortune to fly American , have disagreed with me, promising that American will show its true colors and that it won’t be Red, White and Blue.

Well I’m sorry to say that day arrived when I attempted to have a pleasant flight back from Washington DC to Logan Airport in Boston.

Let’s start with the day before check in. All the airlines seem to do that and unless you pay extra when you check in will affect when you get to board, you’re “Zone”, if you will. I usually bite the bullet and pay an upgrade fee to get priority boarding.

Are you Handicapped?

I am not truly handicapped. I don’t have a sticker but I do use a cane if I need to walk a lot because my hip will definitely act up causing painful muscle spasms down to my knee. Experience has shown that as awkward as a cane can be, it does keep me mobile and helps prevent the muscle spasms. Because I’m juggling luggage, a purse (my personal item) and the cane I like to board early.

I checked in right on time on my phone since I was in the middle of the tour. After I returned to my hotel I logged into the American Web site  to purchase a priority upgrade. I was declined. The message was that it would have to be done at the airport. OK, no problem ( I thought).

In Terminal American Assistance

Next morning after a nice breakfast I made my way to the Metro. My stop even turned out to be close to my terminal. I zipped through security and found my gate.  I waited until the gate area had emptied before I approached the attendant with my request for pre-boarding or priority upgrade. To my surprise she first told me she couldn’t help me because it wasn’t her flight!

She must have had 2nd thoughts because she asked for my ticket and tried to enter an upgrade. The computer wouldn’t let her. She told me I would have to go to customer service and pointed out the direction. At least she tried.

I headed over to stand in line there. After several other passengers cut the line I finally reached the customer service attendant who cut me off in mid-sentence. She told me  “they” didn’t handle upgrades anymore and pointed me to a kiosk. I limped over to where she pointed. Out of order. So I went in search of a kiosk that worked.

Once I found one there was no pre-board or priority boarding option. So much for getting help.

I decided to accept my fate, limped back to the gate and with a sigh found a seat.

Once we began boarding I noticed there was no call for soldiers in uniform, no families with children, no one in wheel chairs. In fact zone 3 was boarding before an attendant took a wheelchair person down the sky way!

To Be Continued…

What was going on???? But wait, it’s going to get even worse.

Never a Dull Moment

Posted on by

I was about to tell you that except for last minute flight changes travel with American airlines was uneventful. I received timely text messages with flight changes, happy smiling faces answered questions willingly, got priority boarding because my back was hurting and they even offered me a wheelchair. I assured them that wasn’t necessary.

american

The flights were on time and landed early at each leg of the journey. The longest layover was at LAX. Our flight from Philly arrived almost an hour early. Our flight from LAX to Maui had been changed from 2:30 pm to 5 pm so we had a long wait.

Finally our flight was called. It was a full flight since 2 other flights had landed late causing passengers to miss connections so they were crammed onto our flight until every seat was taken.

We took off on time and everything seemed to be business as usual until about the middle of the flight.

The window passenger in my row wanted to sit with her husband who was seated several rows back. The flight attendant went to ask if the other window passenger would swap seats but both the husband and his seat mate were sound asleep. That should have been the end of it but noooo. I had just fallen asleep when the attendant returned to say  the husband and his seatmate had woken up and the seatmate agreed to swap with our window passenger. It didn’t matter that I’d just fallen asleep, The flight attendant woke me up so that my whole row could get out and allow the window passenger to swap seats. Finally everyone got settled in their new seats and I resumed my attempt to get a nap in.

sick-passenger3

I had just dozed off again when the announcement came in. Is there a doctor on board? Actually they asked if there were any licensed medical professionals who could lend a had with a sick passenger. Of course that got everyone’s attention. The cabin lights, which had been dimmed, were back on full. There was a commotion in the aisle. Apparently the passenger had passed out or fallen. She was eventually moved to the exit seats as there was more room and several doctors were attending to her. The airline was lucky. There was a doctors convention in Maui so they had ample assistance.

drthumb

I saw them administer oxygen and a saline drip. Once we landed in Maui we stayed seated until the EMT’s met the plane had helped the patient disembark.

Luggage claim was very quick and picking up the rental car was also a breeze.

The only remaining snag was locating the resort. A 25 minute drive turned into a 1.5 hour search. My great directions were to look for a pink hotel but it was pitch black and nothing had any color!

4

After several frantic phone calls we finally found the hotel and got checked in. That bed felt so good! I was definitely down for the count but the travel part was over for now. We were on Maui!

 

 

The Friendly Skies of American Airlines

Posted on by

Hi everyone!

wave

I’ve been absent from this space because I’ve been off exploring the world again but before I tell you all about the latest adventures I’d like to talk about the airline industry.

For example, the poor beleaguered airlines are so broke that some don’t offer snacks unless you pay, others love charging for your luggage. Do you know an overweight bag can run to over $100! Better to take 2 smaller bags and pay for the extra luggage.

They love to raise rates and I could understand that when fuel prices were high but prices have been falling yet Delta recently quietly raised prices quickly followed by American, Continental, Southwest and Jet Blue.

The price hike comes at a precarious time for the industry, which is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for potentially conspiring to limit flights and keep fares high.

As if that wasn’t enough shrinking legroom on flights and narrower airline seats have prompted complaints by squeezed travelers all over. But what can be done about it, besides paying for an upgrade?

American-Airlines-787-Main-Cabin

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., has introduced a bill in Congress aimed at setting minimum seat sizes for airline passengers.

We flew American Airlines to Las Vegas this week. American is not usually my airline of choice as you can see it ranks 7 out of 8 with 8 being the worst.

Rank Overall rank
1 Alaska
2 Virgin Amer.
3 Delta
4 jetBlue
5 Southwest
6 Frontier
7 American
8 United

We had a pretty comfortable flight down, on time , comfortable seats and nice flight attendant. We even discussed how comfortable and pleasant the flight was. But the return flight wasn’t quite up to par.

We boarded on time but then the gate attendant came on board and started removing stand-by passengers. There was some snafu so they all had to leave the plane. The resulting on, off and on again process delayed take off by almost 40 minutes. Then once we were in the air we were plagued by turbulence. Of course that’s mother nature and the airline can’t be blamed for that but as a result our 2 hour layover shrunk to 30 minutes.

That still would have been ok except we landed at terminal B and our connecting flight was in terminal F.  That required a mad dash through  terminals C & D  then out to the tarmac to catch a shuttle past terminal E, finally reaching Terminal F with only 5 minutes to spare. No time for dinner before we were squeezed onto a tiny plane with only 12 rows and the tiniest overhead bins I’ve ever seen!

1-AA-new-Bombardier-CRJ900-NextGen-plane-5-20-14-Sheryl-Jean

At least the flight crew and attendants were nice on all flights but  the delay was inexcusable. No wonder American was  ranked 7th out of 8 in overall service.

What do you think? What experiences (good and bad) have you had on any airline?

Airports can be fun

Posted on by

I was just thinking how much air travel has changed in the last 30+ years. Yes that’s how long I’ve been flying the friendly skies. But I didn’t always travel for fun so I don’t think of those business trips as “travel”. “Travel” to me is a vacation, an exploration of my choosing.

But anyway, “back in the day”  they didn’t have security, x-ray machines, body scans and pat-downs. Oh occasionally there was a hijacking but it was to get to Cuba or some such thing. Because gates weren’t locked away the duty-free shops and restaurants were all along the concourse.

Since we didn’t have to take our shoes off and belts were ok, travelers dressed up. Flying was a “Big Deal”. I know I always felt very important. Jet ways were rare if at all. Most of the time you crossed the tarmac and climbed the stairs. The planes were small but they weren’t crowded. I seldom had to share a row with anyone unlike today where we sit on top of each other.

But in spite of the  modern inconveniences of air travel there are some nice trade offs.

CAM00063

The airports are much fancier. Some have the moving sidewalks like flat escalators. Many have shuttles to take you from concourse to concourse . Good thing because the airports are so big now that we’d never make our connections if we had to walk and carry luggage too.

The restaurants have definitely improved and since they are often beyond security they are closer together. Lots more choices in less space.

We dress simpler so we can get through the security scanners without setting alarms off and slip on shoes like loafers or boat shoes are much more comfortable than even sneakers.

Yes, air travel has changed, some good , some bad but I like it more now because most of the time it’s taking me to someplace new and exciting, or so I hope. 🙂

(PS. I had more pictures to share but they were all taken with my camera phone and for some reason, the transfer keeps failing. I’ve been trying for 2 days to get them from my phone to the computer so I’m just settling for the one that went right through. That was in Chicago O’Hare )