My Superbowl Sunday

Posted on February 6, 2017February 6, 2017 by Dusty Roads

I want to thank everyone who reads and follows my posts. You kept your comments positive. I don’t agree with the”trash Talking” world we live in. I was very into sports in high school, even a cheerleader, and the golden rule was always to support our team but treat our opponent’s with respect. Win or lose, be a good sport!

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So let me tell you a little about my experience yesterday. There were 3 legs to my journey to Maui. The first leg was Providence RI to Charlotte, NC. There were a lot of Patriots shirts, hats and T’s to show support for the big day.

I didn’t think much about it. In New England we wear sports team jerseys every day. Its just what we do. Anyway once we landed in Charlotte after an on time and very pleasant flight, the flight attendants announced (as a joke, I hope) that they were now “kicking all of the Pat’s Fans off the plane, Go Falcons!” I’m not sure if that was in good taste but I thought it pretty humorous and I didn’t see anyone take it the wrong way. It all depends on how you say things.

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Between the Concourses at Charlotte Airport. Love the rocking chairs

Leg number two was a nail biter. The plane coming in was delayed. They never said why but American Gate attendants did their best to keep us updated and once the plane did arrive they hustled us on board as fast as possible. Apparently quite a few people, myself included, had tight connections. Once on board and sealed up we started to taxi to the run way, then stopped. I bet we sat on the tarmac for 20 minutes or more, at least it seemed that way.

The crowd waiting to hear news of our delayed flight

As if to make up for the delay, our flight crew gave us a travelogue all along the way. “We’re flying over the Mississippi, look now the Rocky mountains are coming up, You can see Santa Fe. There’s Albuquerque to the left. Looks like plenty of snow for the skiers in the mountains.” The one thing they didn’t say was what time we’d land.

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Finally there was Phoenix! The cabin crew asked everyone to let off passengers with connecting flights first. Luckily we landed at Gate 23 and our departing flight to Maui was Gate 24. Same concourse, just “across the way”.

Myself and my fellow passengers to Maui (7 of us) raced to the gate. Our plane was scheduled to leave at 2:45 Mountain time. It was 2:55 when we landed. Many thanks to American Airlines. They held the plane for us!

Now for the cynical side comment…It was probably cheaper to hold the plane than to put 7 of us up for the night and rebook the next day…or option two, ship us to San Francisco and then look for a connecting flight to Maui. In any case, Thanks American! Nice job!

Never a Dull Moment

Posted on November 7, 2016November 7, 2016 by Dusty Roads

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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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 March 13, 2016March 13, 2016 by Dusty Roads

Hi everyone!

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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?

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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?