I generally avoid flying when possible. I don't have a fear of flying or anything like that. I just find that flying is almost always an unpleasant experience. Unfortunately, there are times when flying is the only practical way to travel due to time constraints or location. When I lived in Guam and Hawaii, I felt that flying was the only practical way to get someplace else, unless I wanted to travel by nuclear submarine.
It seems like nearly all the flights I take are delayed. Whenever I read statistics about on-time flights, they always say it is somewhere in the mid-eighty percent range. I must be incredibly unlucky when it comes to flights being delayed or there is a lot of lying going on. I find that arriving on time is a rare exception, not the norm.
I also don't like the way that some flight attendants treat passengers. I do feel kind of sorry for flight attendants and I know they are there primarily for passenger safety and to enforce rules, but there are a few of them out there that really seem to go out of their way to be rude to passengers. Most flight attendants are pretty nice and treat passengers well, but if you ever get stuck on a flight when a flight attendant is having a bad day, it can be a miserable experience. This has not happened to me very often. Very few flight attendants have treated me poorly, but when it does happen, it sucks.
I just read this article about an absolutely terrible flight from Mexico City to Seattle. The flight was diverted to Portland because of heavy fog in Seattle. After flying for six hours, the plane landed in Portland. Then the airplane sat on the tarmac. And sat. And sat. For four hours, they sat there. Then, they turned around and flew back to Mexico City. What had started as a six hour flight turned into a sixteen hour flight. Then the passengers had to spend the night at the airport in Mexico City and fly to Seattle the next day.
While in Portland, with no food and having been sitting on the tarmac in Portland for hours with no opportunity to deplane, the passengers started to get angry. They couldn't get off the plane because they had to clear customs. Luckily, the Portland Airport Police had a solution. They came on the plane and told the passengers to sit down and shut up or they could choose to be arrested instead!
Great Job, Portland Airport Police!!! You guys are heroes.
Some Portland Airport Firefighters took pity on the passengers and bought them Big Macs from McDonalds. At least these guys took some initiative to help the situation instead of being a bunch of jerks like the police.
Portland is an international airport. They should have custom agents that can come in and let the people get off the plane in Portland. The people then could have taken a short flight to Seattle, or hopped on an Amtrak train, or taken a bus. Lots of ways to get from Portland to Seattle. Instead, they flew all the way back to Mexico City and then spent a night in an airport, then flew to Seattle the next day.
At the very least, you would think an international airport would have a place where the arriving passengers could have been let off the plane to use the bathroom and relax while they were waiting for the situation to be resolved instead of keeping them trapped on the airplane with no food.
Portland Airport officials manned up and took responsibility for the problem.
No they didn't.
They passed the buck.
It seems like nearly all the flights I take are delayed. Whenever I read statistics about on-time flights, they always say it is somewhere in the mid-eighty percent range. I must be incredibly unlucky when it comes to flights being delayed or there is a lot of lying going on. I find that arriving on time is a rare exception, not the norm.
I also don't like the way that some flight attendants treat passengers. I do feel kind of sorry for flight attendants and I know they are there primarily for passenger safety and to enforce rules, but there are a few of them out there that really seem to go out of their way to be rude to passengers. Most flight attendants are pretty nice and treat passengers well, but if you ever get stuck on a flight when a flight attendant is having a bad day, it can be a miserable experience. This has not happened to me very often. Very few flight attendants have treated me poorly, but when it does happen, it sucks.
I just read this article about an absolutely terrible flight from Mexico City to Seattle. The flight was diverted to Portland because of heavy fog in Seattle. After flying for six hours, the plane landed in Portland. Then the airplane sat on the tarmac. And sat. And sat. For four hours, they sat there. Then, they turned around and flew back to Mexico City. What had started as a six hour flight turned into a sixteen hour flight. Then the passengers had to spend the night at the airport in Mexico City and fly to Seattle the next day.
While in Portland, with no food and having been sitting on the tarmac in Portland for hours with no opportunity to deplane, the passengers started to get angry. They couldn't get off the plane because they had to clear customs. Luckily, the Portland Airport Police had a solution. They came on the plane and told the passengers to sit down and shut up or they could choose to be arrested instead!
Great Job, Portland Airport Police!!! You guys are heroes.
Some Portland Airport Firefighters took pity on the passengers and bought them Big Macs from McDonalds. At least these guys took some initiative to help the situation instead of being a bunch of jerks like the police.
Portland is an international airport. They should have custom agents that can come in and let the people get off the plane in Portland. The people then could have taken a short flight to Seattle, or hopped on an Amtrak train, or taken a bus. Lots of ways to get from Portland to Seattle. Instead, they flew all the way back to Mexico City and then spent a night in an airport, then flew to Seattle the next day.
At the very least, you would think an international airport would have a place where the arriving passengers could have been let off the plane to use the bathroom and relax while they were waiting for the situation to be resolved instead of keeping them trapped on the airplane with no food.
Portland Airport officials manned up and took responsibility for the problem.
No they didn't.
They passed the buck.
A spokesperson for the Portland International Airport told KGW that PDX cannot comment on the customs situation because it was a federal issue.I guess this is just one more item to add to the list of reasons I don't like to fly.
4 comments:
I agree with you..
When you board an airline in these days and times it is almost a sure deal that you will be in a airline generated hostage crisis.
I flew in Nov from Seattle to Albq. New Mexico, Seems like a simple task, But we ended up spending an evening in Salt Lake City UT because the airline was incapable of pulling their head out of thier rectum. Trashed all vacation plans because time line was hosed, plus our luggage went without us to ALB.. Unforgettable famliy fun...
I have rarely departed or arrived as advertised, The conditions you are trapped in when they refuse to "Depart" or "Arrive" are horrid, cramped, no food or drink (you can't take your own cause TSA feels you might build a bomb out of a sandwich and Diet coke)
The heads on planes are overwhelmed in short order due to use..
But it is about the almighty dollar and the infinantly small fine print on your ticket that allows them to treat you like the cargo they consider you.
I would rather take the Nuclear Submarine across the Pacific any day.. Even with field days and drills it is a more comfortable ride than the service modern airlines provide to transport people.
I like flying. I'm usually not happy about having to travel in the first place and am always grateful for an excuse not to have made it to wherever I am going on time or better yet, not to have made it at all.
Stewardesses used to bother me. They are notoriously promiscuous and I used to have friends that got to screw them all the time. I know this is true because they would sometimes bring them to parties I attended and they were the type of gatherings that no woman would attend with a man unless she was sleeping with him. Me, they can't even give a ginger ale and bag of peanuts to without showing complete contempt. I don't know why I expected them to be any different from 99% of the other women I have ever met.
Now that we call them flight attendants and they are a lot older and fatter and sometimes even gay men, I don't have any problem at all, even though they all still treat me like shit.
I was on a United flight last year with a white haired stewardess. I asked her how long had she been doing this, and she replied, "Since 1971."
Wowser. She seemed to be very happy.
I had a sick Academy shipmate of mine who, duh, got a stewardess pregnant. I don't know who was stupider, he or she. I wonder if they teach birth control and VD prevention during plebe summer?
Post a Comment