Translation: American Airlines does not want my business anymore

I once enthused about my favorite travel sites, and among these was Kayak.com, the AJAX-y Web 2.0 travel search engine that I use to find flights. The thing I love about Kayak is that I can literally slide the dials to look for just the right departure time, connections, and even planes to make sure things work out.

But American Airlines recently decided that it didn’t like paying Kayak for referrals, and has apparently pulled its listings, even through third parties like Orbitz. Now, Southwest never included listings on Kayak, but that was no great loss to me. But I’m an American elite (Gold) and they were my strong number two airline choice. I was even thinking of shifting more business their way! But thanks to their spat over a few dollars of commission, they’re unlikely to get much more business from me.

The ironic thing is, I never used Kayak for bookings anyway! I always shifted over to my page at aa.com to buy the tickets, since it ensured that I got the right flight, codes, and instructions. So they never lost a dollar of my business to Kayak.

US Airways is becoming the Ryanair of the US!

Air travel really is getting rapidly worse. The other day I was forced to fly cross country on US Airways, and it was just depressing. The flight attendants had to pitch credit card applications over the PA and in the aisles, they charged $2 for a bottle of water or cup of coffee, and there were ads on the tray tables. Oh, and US Airways doesn’t do planeside check – they require you to check your bags through (and pay a hefty charge) if they don’t fit.

Something has to change here. The airlines are almost bankrupt, yet there is a huge volume of travelers who must get from place to place. Service is dropping, passengers are unhappy, and no one is doing anything about it. Virgin America and JetBlue seem to be eating everyone’s lunch right now, but it won’t be long before they’re in trouble, too. And I can’t fly them anyway, since neither comes to Ohio. Something’s gotta give…

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | American Airlines Points Gun At Foot
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As a liberal-minded person, I tend toward the libertarian with regard to social issues, and especially technological ones. But although lots of the TSA policies annoy me, I’m frankly just too scared of missing my flight to “join the resistance” as it were and stand up and question some of the idiocy.

But here are the things I’d like a straight answer from the TSA about:

• Why are some airport x-ray scanners so much more or less sensitive than others? I always wear my wallet and watch through, and usually my belt, but the other day I accidentally left my V-Moda Vibe headphones and a steel business card case in my pockets with nary a beep. I must have had a pound of metal on me!
• Is toothpaste a liquid? I got yelled at in Philly that it didn’t need to be in “the bag”, and yelled at in Denver that it did! And yet, I accidentally left a tube in my backpack for a year without a question…
• They tried to explain the 3-ounce liquid thing.  I just don’t buy it.  And (not that the TSA has anything to do with this) I have a hard time understanding why no one makes a 3-ounce tube of toothpaste!  It’s 1.3 or 4.4, as far as I can tell!
• Why scan uniformed, ID-toting airline personnel and airport employees?  They could kind of do whatever they want with us anyway, so let’s just let them through, ok?
• What’s up with this new “dump out all your electronics” rule?  The bomb squad was once called on me (BOS, terminal B) due to my proliferation of mouses, external drives, power supplies, retractable cords, etc…  I’m what’s known as a road warrior, and I don’t want to have to dump out all of my stuff!
• Why can I put most items in one bin, but my laptop has to be in a separate one alone?

Aah well, maybe we’ll get some answers.  Or maybe it’ll just be a new place for flyertalkers to complain!

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2008. | TSA Blog Ignites Vitriol
This post was categorized as Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.

Certainly gate-checking has been relegated to families, golfers, and infrequent fliers. Look at the lines at check-in gates and baggage carousels these days, and it’s no wonder people like me who fly weekly (or even more often than that) choose to check in online and skip these lines. I recall a family trip where we had 12 items to check (no kidding) and waited in line for over an hour, first to get our check tags and then to send them through the bomb sniffer. And since Americans just can’t seem to figure out that standing back from the baggage claim carousel gives more people a shot at claiming their bag, it’s always an hour-long nightmare after the flight, too.

So we frequent travelers invest in 21″ and 22″ cases and garment bags and head directly to the gate. We pause to get our planeside check ticket (which have gotten laughable – US Airways no longer even gives you a numbered receipt to match!) and drop them off on the jet bridge.

But it’s after the flight that the trouble starts. With so many people taking advantage of what was once just an option for baby strollers and such, exiting the plane has gotten pretty crazy. Look at that photo again – there are more than two dozen people standing along both walls, crowding and slowing the exit to a crawl. And it can’t be easy on the baggage handlers to load and unload the planes extra-quick for these folks.

How long before the airlines start pushing back, forcing gate checking again? All these bags slow security (thanks especially to the ridiculous Ziploc rule), slow boarding, slow loading and unloading (even if the plane is big enough to handle the bags in the overhead compartments), and tax the system in general. But I for one intend to go on checking my bags planeside…

© sfoskett for Stephen Foskett, Pack Rat, 2007. | Has Planeside Baggage Check Gotten Out Of Hand?
This post was categorized as Personal. Each of my categories has its own feed if you'd like to filter out or focus on posts like this.