N941WR

N941WR

Legacy Member
We just returned from a trip to OKC to visit my wife's Grandmother for her 80th birthday party. The entire extended family was going to be there so it was something we didn't want to miss.

On Wednesday, June 20th we were scheduled to fly United from CLT to ORD and then on to OKC. After we boarded the first flight out of Charlotte for a 10 AM departure and just after they closed the door the pilot made an announcement saying "the computers" were down and they couldn't push back or depart because they couldn't do their W&B or flight plan w/o the computers. We were not to worry because the computers were to be back up in 15 minutes.

Two hours later we finally pushed back with an assurance that we would make our connecting flight because all the planes were delayed.

It turns out the connecting flight departed O?Hare just as we were touching down. We then had to wait around for 3 1/2 hours for the next flight to OKC only to get bounced off of that one, which we knew would happen because United over books all of its flights and there were a bunch of people waiting around who also missed the noon flight, like us.

We were then told we would have to wait around for the 8:30 PM flight before they would do anything for us. Oh, and by the way, that flight was over booked with a waiting list.

With no way for them to get us to OKC I inquired about sending us back to CLT. The United customer anti-service person told me they would do nothing for us until we missed the 8:30 PM flight. If we were to miss that flight, the next flight either back to CLT or OKC would be the next day. The next flight to OKC was scheduled for 8:30 PM the next day. Meaning we would miss the birthday party / reunion and have to sit around the airport for 24 hours.

When I asked the CS supervisor about them putting us up in a hotel for the night and then sending us back to CLT the next day he told me that was not their policy as the agreement we had was for them to deliver us from point A to point B but not on a give day and it would be my fault if I returned to CLT on the second day. United would not even cover the cost of our over priced airport meal.

Needless to say, I was about to go ballistic with the entire situation. (For the record, I never raised my voice or called into question the heritage of people I was talking to, but I was close.) My wife calmed me down and in the end the gate agent took pity on us and bumped someone else so we could get to OKC on the 8:30 flight and make the party the next day.

To add insult to injury, the TSA rummaged through my bag on the return flight this evening. Whenever they do that it makes me feel the same way it did when my house was broken into years a go, violated.

I cannot wait to get my plane flying so I can kiss the airlines and TSA good bye!

Sorry, I just had to vent!
 
When you fly your plane

You can carry sharp pointy objects made of metal.

You can carry full or opened bottler of water that you brought to the airport.

You can take a knife with Jim Bowie sized blade.

You can take and eat peanuts or any sandwich of your choice.

You get the best view window seat.

You know that the person getting on the plane is an American who can be trusted.

You can tell the pilot to do better if the ride is not the best.

You don't have to worry about someone rummaging through your luggage.

You can walk out on the flight line.

If you are weather delayed you decide where to stay and don't have to argue with anyone.

That is a start.
 
Airline Flying

That sounds like an ugly experience. It was quite common here in Europe, particularly with the low cost airlines, so the people decided that that they should not be subsidizing the airline's bad management with their lost time, and got the following rules passed:

* Compensation to be paid to passengers by the airlines in the event of long delays or denied boarding is ?250 ($335) on flights up to 1,500 km (938 miles), ?400 ($540) on flights between 1,500 km and 3,500 km (2,188 miles), or ?600 ($810) for flights longer than 3,500 km. Those figures are reduced by 50 percent when the delay does not exceed two, three, or four hours, respectively. The only exception is in cases where an airline can prove that cancellation was due to extraordinary circumstances that could not have been avoided. Weather, however, is not an exclusion.

* In the event of long delays, the airline has to offer meals, refreshments, hotel accommodation if necessary, and means of communication. If the delay exceeds five hours, it has to propose refunding the ticket (with, if necessary, a free flight to your point of departure).

These are new rules are quite new, and the airlines are squealing loudly, but hopefully this will make a difference in the flying experience.
 
just to add

ronlee said:
You can carry sharp pointy objects made of metal.

You can carry full or opened bottler of water that you brought to the airport.

You can take a knife with Jim Bowie sized blade.


That is a start. snip
Click to expand...

I might add...

You don't have to walk around the airport in stocking feet.

You can nunge the guy beside you when the pilot bounces one
on landing............oh wait :eek:
 
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Xenophobia

AntiGravity said:
I hope not! :eek:
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Jeff,

I am sure Ron meant to type "You know that the person getting on the plane is an PERSON who can be trusted.

After all, probably every country in the world has some citizen that can't be trusted (Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were American citizens weren't they ?) and we certainly have some in the UK that have done some awful things.

- RV builders worldwide excepted of course ! ;)
 
9MM

.......You can take your 38 Special, 9MM, etc

........You can pack a bottle of wine for tonight..

and on and on...

Yessss,
Pierre
 
N941WR said:
I cannot wait to get my plane flying so I can kiss the airlines and TSA good bye!
Click to expand...

AW Bill, C'mon! All this will get better as soon as GA starts paying their "fair share" of system costs! :eek:

My job forces me into the commercial airline arena about 20 -25 weeks per year. O'Hail ;) airport is a place I avoid like the plague. Interestingly, I fly through CLT (closest hub to AVL) and find it to be a very comfortable place, even though it was rated the third worst behind DET and ORD for performance. I do like the rocking chairs and the live piano music.

My last debacle was the start of a very complicated set of overseas flights. When I got to the Useless Air kiosk at AVL, it had no record of any of my reservations. Nichts, Nada, Nyet. :mad: Fortunately, the corp travel agent saved the day and rerouted me (original flights were full) with only 4 hr delay to my arrival in Milan. I think the USAir and America West merger is going about as well as the Lockheed FSS transition.

I DO mirror your feelings about "I'll fly myself darn it". I find the VFR ticket is too unreliable due to the weather for that to work for me. SO, I'm working on my IFR ticket. I'll have to admit, it is one of the more difficult bits of training I have experienced, including my engineering courses.

Oh yeah, I got a present in my luggage a few years ago. A nice TSA flashlight... :D
 
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ARRRRRGGGGGGH!

Here I sit preparing for tomorrow.

One plane broken the other gutted for a condition inspection and waiting for parts.

Tomorrow I start a 2 week trip from MSY>>ORD>>MCI>>JAC>>SEA>>MCI>>>ORD>>MSY

Unfortunately except for the JAC>>SEA leg which is by train, it is all United.

The only thing in life that could be worse is trying to get something done at at Cingular.

I think I would rather spend a day at the Dentist
 
Conspiracy Theory Debunked

Bob Collins said:
It's funny how they always find the problem AFTER they push back, isn't it. What a coincidence!

Seriously, I know WHY they do that, but a little honesty wouldn't hurt.
OTOH, just be glad you don't fly Continental.
Click to expand...

No big conspiracy here, Bob. After pushback, when the motors are started,
many complex systems are activated like hydraulics, anti-ice, generators,
leading edge devices, pressurization, etc. As a rule, this stuff never breaks until you turn it on.
 
That reminds me. A few years ago I was taking a DC-9 out of MSP. At "pushback time," they just started the engines, put it in reverse thrust (I guess) and backed up. Weirdest thing I ever saw and that was the only time.


Anyway, what you say makes sense. But that moment at pushback time when it's time to start things up, I always close my eyes now and say "please let's get out of here...please let's get out of here."

Took Continental Express out of Chicago a few weeks ago to Cleveland. The miniute we pushed back, my incantations did no good. "Ahh.... we have a ground hold because of a problem in Cleveland. It'll be about an hour." NOOOOOOOoooooo! (I had Indians tickets for a 7 p.m. start at Jacob's Field).

True enough, though, I'd rather discover stuff doesn't work on the ground rather than in the air. But I DO draw the line at **** flowing down the aisle. :D
 
Powerback

Yes, several years ago it was in vogue at the majors to "power back" DC-9s
from the gate with reverse thrust instead of hooking up a tug and a couple of
"thugs". If you apply the brakes too hard while going backwards, a 9 can and has fallen back on it's tail. That, and FOD blowing into the inlets seems to have led to the demise of that technique.
 
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rzbill said:
My job forces me into the commercial airline arena about 20 -25 weeks per year. O'Hail ;) airport is a place I avoid like the plague. Interestingly, I fly through CLT (closest hub to AVL) and find it to be a very comfortable place, even though it was rated the third worst behind DET and ORD for performance. I do like the rocking chairs and the live piano music.
:D
Click to expand...
I like CLT! When I have a choice I go through there. I've never had a bad experience there, and I like Carolina BBQ!
 
British Airways

Maybe it's just luck, but I've never had a bad experience with British Airways. Airlines don't have to be a PITA. On a flight out of Ghana, I had a 5 hour layover in London. A two hour delay before boarding brought that down to 3 hours--good, I had lunch with friends. Then an extended stop in Nigeria brought it down to two hours, again good. Then there were the headwinds....

I was put near the door, someone met me as I exited, I was hurried through all the customs stuff, I was given a priority pass to get to Heathrow, and they held the plane on the taxiway and brought the portable stairs for me to board. It was precious to watch the passengers wonder who the VIP was! Some of our airlines could take a hint--I fly BA anytime I can. Of course that was in the late 90's.

Bob Kelly
 
They're all the same

A few years ago, I was on an AA flight from Manchester England to DFW. After a 10 hr flight, we held for wx at DFW for about two hours before diverting to Tulsa. Landed at Tulsa, but had to stay on the plane as there were no customs facilities there. After six hours of waiting, the crew ran out of time and we had to wait for another crew to fly in from DFW. Flew back, and guess what? After about 20+ hours on the plane, we had to wait 45 minutes for gate crew to park us.

The toilets were full, and the FAs quit doing anything. They did order in Domino's pizza for us. That was a first for me--pizza delivered to a plane.

The plane was full of Britts and most of them were crawling the walls wanting a smoke.

Oh yea, I gotta fly UAL Sun.

Mark
 
That's bad Mark, but you've got to ask yourself what the solution is???
After an 8 hour flight over the Atlantic, whose fault is it that the weather is bad at the destination? All airports don't have customs, especially one as far inland as Tulsa. What would you do there??? Install a customs office for the occasional DFW divert? Flight attendents are exhausted after 20 hrs, so don't expect to be waited on like royalty.

Airline flying is not an exact science. Lot's of variables that must be handled on a case by case basis. Customer service issues should and will be addressed, but the occasional frustrating nature of travel will always be with us.

Just like RV flying. Your plane will break from time to time, you will on occasion be too ill or tired to pilot it, the destination weather will be too poor to land. That's life.
 
John,

Easy to defend the airlines now, but if you were on that plane with me, I think you would have changed your mind by the 4th or 5th hour sitting at the Tulsa gate. They could have let us off the plane and kept us in an area of the concourse. Funny how the crew could de-plane without any customs people, but not the passengers.

The wait for the DFW gate was the final straw.

Mark
 
Mark,

It is a Federal law that keeps passengers on the plane while waiting for customs. Try leaving your plane before customs arrives when coming back from Canada or Mexico, and watch what happens.

The parking thing is another issue. Was it a lack of personnel or was it a lack of gate space?
 
strahler13 said:
John,

Easy to defend the airlines now, but if you were on that plane with me, I think you would have changed your mind by the 4th or 5th hour sitting at the Tulsa gate. They could have let us off the plane and kept us in an area of the concourse. Funny how the crew could de-plane without any customs people, but not the passengers.

The wait for the DFW gate was the final straw.

Mark
Click to expand...
I got the same deal two weeks in a row from AA on my normal weekly DFW-SNA-DFW Mon/Fri trip (yes, I'm happy I left that job). One week they canceled us outright and offered me a flight SNA-SFO on Saturday afternoon and then the redeye from SFO-DFW arriving 6am Sunday - 36 hr late and a 3 hr flight turned into a 9 hr SNAFU. I booked a flight out the next morning on SWA to DAL, had lunch with my wife at Mia's (Ummm, brisket tacos!). No offer of any help, meal, hotel, etc. from AA.

Next week, we got as far as ABI, held for 45 min and landed. We sat on the ramp for 2 hour and watched Eaglets land and accumulate, then refueled and dodged TS to DFW. But yes, once we got there, we waited for a gate ... for 50 mins. Can't blame the crew, they wanted to get home as much as us, but someone sure messed up.

The airlines (the institutions, not the people) are a bit like Churchill's description of democracy - the worst form of transportation except for all the rest.
 
N131RV said:
First off, in the 30 years or so that I traveled via commercial airlines, I can say without at doubt, the 'customer service' aspect of air travel has evaporated to almost non-existant.

They're like the phone company. "They don't care, they don;t have to." :D

When they get in trouble, they just send in the lobbyists for another bailout. When will enough be enough?

I quit flying commercial at all in 2002. Unless its a matter of life and death, I will not voluntarily give any commercial airline ONE THIN DIME of my money.

I refiuse to be treated like a criminal/idiot/child while paying for the "privilege".
Click to expand...

Joe,

There hasn't been "THE PHONE COMPANY" since 1982, so you need to update your rant. Lots of phone companies nowdays, just like there are lots of airlines.
 
Interesting decision, as I made the same one on the night of December 26, 2001, my final airline flight. When I watched male screeners require female passengers to show the top of their underpants and the bottom of their bras in Cincinnati before a flight to LAX I wondered who would complain. In the dead silence of the stunned masses I was the only one to protest, a fact that told me clearly that I could never go through this again. We landed at LAX and I took one last look at the plane from the inside and from the top of the ramp. I left and never turned back.

From that day forward, I travel by RV-8A. If weather or distance is such that I cannot make the trip, I don't go. But I walk with my head high, my dignity intact, my shoes on and forever mindful that the same government that does not guard the borders is the one who wants to shake me down at the airport because terrorists are in the country.

BTW, my wife is a recently retired Delta flight attendant and we have unlimited lifetime passes anywhere in the world they fly including free upgrades to first or business.

Yes, that's how big a deal it is to me. Your mileage may vary.
 
UAL...my employer and my nemesis!

Wow, guys!......I've been thinking about how to reply to this thread and the best way I can think of is to generally agree with most of the ranting going on here! Some exceptions though...

I've seen your rants and pretty much agree with your frustrations. Heck, I'm up in the cockpit and I'm frustrated!!!! ORD is UAL's home base and I too avoid that place like the plague! Give me my DC to the west coast nonstops, and I'll be a happy camper!

I am married to my airline because I've been there 22 years and pretty much need to see it through until retirement. We've almost just finished recalling all 2000+ pilots on furlough. Guess what?.... only around 20% came back to UAL. ..The rest said "Why??"...............That would've been unheard of in the old days.

The benefits are virtually gone...Retirement was gutted to a fraction of what it once was by a non-airline, non-caring management "team"( the term "team" here means a collaborative effort by the cool-aid drinkers and bean counters of the "management" side to figure out how to screw their underlings out of anything and everything). Our pay in most cases has been cut by 40%, and some cases by 60%. Many...and I mean.... many... of our pilots have decided to move away from their domiciles to other cities simply because they can't afford to live there anymore! So now they commute, which makes an already tough situation even harder!

...and here's the best part! My job as a pilot at this airline is the only one worth having here! The Flight Attendants and the Customer Service people having been taking it in the shorts for as long as I have been here!

When I walk the halls of our training center in Denver, there are countless reminders in the displays on the walls there, of United's once great heritage. This place dates all the way back to the airmail days of the 1920's! It's real sad to see what has become of this once great flagship airline!!

Between the Bush administration and overall the "corporate greed" philosophy in this country, the split between the "haves" and the "have nots" has widened and obviously not just in the airline sector! The anger and frustration is showing up at the ticket counter, and the gate podiums, and yes, very often in the airplane cabins. These people are doing double shifts for half pay with very limited resources ( because everything else has been outsourced!), and getting spit on by customers!!.....all while our CEO and his ...."team"... have given themselves millions and millions of dollars for a job well done! HA!...what a f#%^&'n joke!!! My God! What has this world come to!??

Is any of this right? Of course it's not, but I am but just one person in this big mess! One of you mentioned a two week itinerary that involved " all United"..... Times once, I would've been proud.....nowadays... I'm sad and embarassed because I know of the true feeling and emotion expressed here! I hear it...and I feel it.

I draw the line though when one of you mentions about "finding stuff" after we leave the gate! I'm but one of 6000 pilots here at United, so I certainly can't speak for all of us... but I will say that when I am on the job, in my cockpit, that I am putting in my 150% towards trying to make it the best flight I can! This means keeping you informed of delays as they occur, and working in your best interest to get you from point "A" to point "B".

Let me also say this ( now that I'm on my soapbox!). There's not one United pilot...NO, NOT EVEN ONE.......who would've taken a crippled 747 all the way from LAX to LHR, because their company people said to. We have heads on our shoulders and we choose to make our own decisions about such things, thank you....
 
N131RV said:
First off, in the 30 years or so that I traveled via commercial airlines, I can say without at doubt, the 'customer service' aspect of air travel has evaporated to almost non-existant.

They're like the phone company. "They don't care, they don;t have to." :D

Why take it from the phone company either? One word of advice here: SUNROCKET!
Click to expand...
 
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Re: United. IMHO, all airlines are the same. They have the same challenges, the same mix of good vs. bad employees, the same aging equipment, etc.

United, however, still holds a place dear in my heart because to my knowledge, they are the only ones that let us listen in to the ATC comms on the entertainment channels. I really dig that. "Oh, we're talking to Salk Lake Center? Cool, almost there!" I also really enjoy listening to O'Hare ground. You think approach/departure controllers are harried? The ground controllers at ORD are frazzled beyond belief!
 
jdmunzell said:
Wow, guys!. . .
Let me also say this ( now that I'm on my soapbox!). There's not one United pilot...NO, NOT EVEN ONE.......who would've taken a crippled 747 all the way from LAX to LHR, because their company people said to. We have heads on our shoulders and we choose to make our own decisions about such things, thank you....
Click to expand...

JD -

Wasn't there an article on Avweb or some such where an experienced 747 captain went through the details of the decision to press on? After reading that, where he explained about the complications arising to the passengers after the aircraft made a heavy landing and the extreme unlikelyhood of a second engine quitting, I thought the decision to press on made sense. What are your comments?

- Ralph
 
jdmunzell said:
Wow, guys!......
I've seen your rants and pretty much agree with your frustrations. Heck, I'm up in the cockpit and I'm frustrated!!!! ....

The benefits are virtually gone...

...and here's the best part! My job as a pilot at this airline is the only one worth having here! The Flight Attendants and the Customer Service people having been taking it in the shorts for as long as I have been here!
Click to expand...
Good points. I think most people will agree that the problem lies in the system, not the people doing the day-to-day work. Unfortunately, those with the power to change the design of the system rarely get to hear from the day-to-day users of the system.
 
United Airlines Problems

I am a 21 year Captan at UAL and it sickens me to see how the once great pioneer airline is being destroyed. The day I recieved my UAL wings was one of the proudest days in my life. Now I am embarrassed to admit that I work for UAL. The day congress deregulated the airlines is the day this down fall started. UAL's management gives lip service to running a business while lining their pockets at the expense of the employees. I'll sacrifice my pension and 40 percent of my pay, but for what? I expected to see improvement in all areas of the operation but have seen nothing but outsourcing to the lowest bidder.

You can know this, however, your crew will do its best to get you to your destination as quickly and safely as they can. The next dark stormy night that you fly into O Hare on UAL you can know you had some of the best pilots in the world up front.

Now I am going to go fly my RV-4 and forget about UAL for awhile.
:mad:
 
John, It was a lack of personnel at DFW. We sat in front of an empty gate.

Jeff, So Bush gets the blame for the sorry state of the airline industry? Jeeze, that guy can't get a break.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm flying UAL Sunday...to ORD :eek:

Mark
 
Ralph Kramden said:
JD -

Wasn't there an article on Avweb or some such where an experienced 747 captain went through the details of the decision to press on? After reading that, where he explained about the complications arising to the passengers after the aircraft made a heavy landing and the extreme unlikelyhood of a second engine quitting, I thought the decision to press on made sense. What are your comments?

- Ralph
Click to expand...

Ralph,

When you're operating your airliner in a normal fashion, then passenger satisfaction is job one..next to safety of course. When you've just suffered a pretty spectacular engine fire right after takeoff, then you need to think about the safe operation of that airliner no matter how " inconvenienced" your passengers might wind up. I can't allow that to affect how I'm going to handle that emergency, and believe me what those guys had was an EMERGENCY!

Yes, they secured the engine and the immediate threat was contained. But to then press on to your destination with less than what your aircraft is certified to do with paying passengers is nuts! The were fueled for a four engine flight over the ocean at night at a certain altitude. What they wound up with was not originally planned for. Though I'm not rated on four engine transoceanic flights, I am rated for twin engine oceanic flights. Our performance criteria for exactly how far away from a suitable emergency landing field we can be is based on driftdown altitudes and speeds among other things, if we lose an engine or have some other kind of emergency over the pond.

When you start out with one of your four engines already gone due to fire, and you continue on a long journey up over some pretty hostile enviroment, your level of safety has been compromised. Period. If anything else happens along your way to England, your options may not be nearly as rosy as if you had started with ALL you ace cards up your sleeve. In this line of work (and in flying RVs or anything else for that matter), a true safety minded pilot needs to think about the "what ifs" no matter how slim the odds are.

Of course the company wanted that crew to fly the bird home and save the day. They are thinking about the high cost of dumping all that fuel over the ocean ( to avoid that overweight landing ), and returning to LAX or to "the nearest suitable airport", only to have to deal with the "inconvienced" passengers.

Yes, the airplane will do it, but I maintain that you have lost a lot of options, if other bad things happen. As I recall, they had to land short of Heathrow anyway.

I can also tell you that as a US based FAA certified pilot, if I had done what that crew did... the FAA would have my head on a platter!
 
jdmunzell said:
They are thinking about the high cost of dumping all that fuel over the ocean
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Saw a documentary last night that considered reluctance to dump fuel and return to recalibrate the INS as a contributing factor to the KAL007 shoot-down back in the 80s. They would have lost their jobs, according to the story.

Some of these management policies seem to really miss the point....
 
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PILOTS: RESPOND TO UNITED'S LATEST USER FEE GIMMICK

This just in from AOPA...
AOPA said:
PILOTS: RESPOND TO UNITED'S LATEST USER FEE GIMMICK
United Airlines began an e-mail campaign on June 27, urging its frequent fliers to support the airline's greedy approach to FAA funding changes, but AOPA members were not taken in. By dinnertime on the same day, hundreds of you had contacted AOPA to let us know about the scheme. "This latest airline effort to push through a user-fee-funded system is really not surprising," said AOPA President Phil Boyer. "But United may have miscalculated this time. Not only are AOPA members general aviation pilots, they are some of the heaviest users of the airlines, and they're not at all pleased at United's effort to use them as pawns in the battle over FAA funding." What the airline has done, Boyer suggested, is antagonize an otherwise loyal customer base?one that disagrees with the airline's falsehoods about the causes of delays and opposes a user-fee-funded air traffic control system. You can contact Glenn Tilton, chairman, president, and CEO of UAL Corporation (United Airlines' parent company), and let him know how you feel about his airline's campaign. For tips on what to say, see AOPA Online.
Click to expand...
 
User Fees and the Airlines

Check out this video -- seven hours on the tarmac at JFK.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R06dAgpmmbg

The maker of the video takes a humorous approach, but for goodness sake, this sort of nonsense belongs is some third-world country. Making excuses for this just doesn't work. There are no excuses. Some suit somewhere should have been kicking arse to get this taken care of. Instead there are just excuses.

They should have refunded the money for every passenger on that flight. Did they? I'm not sure but I seriously doubt it.

And THESE are the people that want to run the FAA?
 
I was a mechanic At UAL... I will hate United untill my dieing day. :mad: Lies and broken promises....
 
N941WR said:
This just in from AOPA...
Click to expand...

I wrote them an email ... here is the canned response:

"Thank you for your e-mail regarding United's participation in the campaign for air traffic control (ATC) modernization. We sent a communication about the campaign to our valued MileagePlus members because they, like United, are the very constituency that cares the most about reducing congestion and delays in the nation's skies. Congress is debating this very important issue right now, and we want to make sure that our frequent travelers have timely information and the opportunity to participate in this debate if they so choose.

The funding reforms to pay for a satellite-based system under debate in Congress right now apply only to high-performance jet and turboprop aircraft, exempting the vast majority of general aviation users. When Congress decides how to tackle this issue, the airlines hope the final decision is fair and equitable to all ATC users and ensures that all users pay for the resources they use - no more, no less."



They hope the final outcome is fair - right, as long as they have no fuel tax and we bear the brunt of most of the funding $$.

T.
 
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