Returning to Dallas on Southwest from Chicago was a different experience. First, we neglected to insist on avoiding Lakeshore Drive from downtown Chicago to Midway. This found us sitting in stop and go traffic with our margin of safety time eroding quickly. A quick tip and some encouragement to the taxi driver found us suddenly surging ahead when a hole opened and he got us there with time to spare.
Again, I paid for Early Bird check-in on my flight. This found me with a seat number of A group, position 37. This is unsatisfying and I don’t believe the old “A” group went to 37. What I’m saying is that A37 really translates into roughly B10 when you consider the number of people ahead of you and the fact that virtually every flight departing MDW originated somewhere else and already has passengers on it. I obtained a seat in the back on the aisle and that’s OK.
My security experience at MDW was unpleasant and I would say it was about average for a lot of busy airports. In this case, I put the blame squarely on the staffers. They were certainly moving in the Chicago Way. One thing that found me objecting vocally were the wheelchairs. While I stood in line with my belt and shoes in my hands, I saw 3 wheelchair bound people go to the front of the line where all three people got up, walked able bodied through the process and then sat down again.
Sorry but being in a wheelchair does not entitle you to get in front of two dozen people waiting to move through. I objected and the TSA offered that I was being unreasonable. I offered that fair is fair and able bodied people in wheelchairs don’t get to go in front of me. Based on the reaction of passengers around me, public opinion was on my side.
Again, this airport is crowded and I walked the full lengths of both A and B concourses where I did not witness an empty Southwest gate. I witnessed empty Delta gates and empty Porter Airlines gates but not one Southwest gate. They are bursting at the seems and the gate areas don’t quite have enough space for full flights in my opinion.
On this flight (via STL again), I witnessed person after person trying to stuff grossly overpacked and slightly oversized rollaboard cases into overhead bins. This causes many delays when boarding the aircraft. People move through the aisles slower, they put their things away slower and they fight for overhead bin space near their seat. Flight attendants numbering just 3 per aircraft are not enough to keep this kind of herd flowing smoothly. Even a few off duty Southwest staff pitched in to help and made little difference.
One staffer attempted to move my modest briefcase and light fleece jacket all the way to the back. Uh, no, you aren’t going to penalize me for being efficient in favor of people who are apparently clueless about checking oversized bags. My stuff took up, at best, 1/5 of the overhead bin. I’m comfortable with that and it’s notable that just 2 fat bags were able to fit into the bin next to my stuff and the bin lid was only closed after a SWA FA essentially beat the bags down with the lid until it latched.
The flight departure was significantly delayed and I would attribute all of that to people boarding slowly, sitting down slowly, arguing for bin space instead of accepting a gate check of their bag and, last but not least, a 100% full flight. These 100% full flights are exactly why SWA needs the Boeing 737-800 in its fleet.
Once every got seated, we did depart the gate fairly rapidly and experienced about a 10 minute taxi delay as well. Once we took off, things settled down and the trip into STL was quick. Taxiing into STL was efficient and deplaning went quickly. However, once again, it was 100% full and, once again, we played baggage and seat games far longer than necessary. This found the plane departing even later.
Ultimately, I arrived in DAL about 40 minutes late. That was unsatisfying because it wasn’t weather and it wasn’t the aircraft. It was the sheer mass of people attempting to occupy too much space on that aircraft. Southwest needs bigger gate areas to get people organized onto the aircraft and it might be time to consider some variation of assigned seating. Too many people are jockeying for position on full aircraft and that delays things quite a bit. Assigned seating would eliminate the jockeying and, I think, speed seating. Unassigned seating on aircraft that are seeing 70% load factors is one thing but on aircraft that are as much as 89% load factor average, it becomes almost untenable.
All of that said, I still think the experience on both flights was as good or better than what was available to me via American Airlines, DFW and ORD airports. And about $300 cheaper as well. I still recommend Southwest but I also recommend that you use flights that are “no plane change” flights into and out of MDW or you may well risk making a connection. That recommendation stands until Southwest improves its ontime rate at Midway.
One more hint: Southwest doesn’t charge for checking your bags. It has an excellent record when it comes to lost or misplaced baggage and it delivers checked bags to its carousels pretty quickly. Save yourself trouble and just check your rollaboard. You’ll find yourself able to maneuver on and off the airplane quicker. You won’t have to fight for overhead bin space near you (and if you don’t get it near you, you’re going to be massively delayed in getting off that aircraft anyway.) Don’t be vain and insist on taking it onboard when it is completely unnecessary on this airline.
Here is Associated Press video of the tsunami resulting from the 8.9 magnitude earthquake in Japan. The airport is Sendai Airport. You can see where Sendai is located in Japan on the Great Circle Mapper image below the video.
Last Saturday, I wrote about a trip I was taking from Dallas to Chicago on Southwest. This was my first opportunity to fly Southwest between the two cities and I’ve long believed that even though the flight was a one stop flight, it was actually as efficient or more efficient than taking a legacy carrier such as American Airlines from DFW to ORD.
Yes, it was. Entry into Love Field and moving to the gate was simple and quick. I don’t know why but they appear to be able to move more people through security at Love Field in shorter time than anything I’ve ever seen at DFW. I also don’t know why the TSA staffers at Love Field are coherent and focused and polite in stark contrast with the typical TSA staffers I’ve seen at DFW. The experience at Love Field is better in every way that counts.
The flight departed on time and arrived in St. Louis on time. I paid for Early Bird check-in and got an excellent window seat in the front of the aircraft. The flight was about 80% full to STL but I managed to not have someone sit next to me on that segment.
Departing STL for Chicago, we were delayed a brief while and the Captain announced that they were holding at the gate due to traffic congestion in Chicago. The weather in Chicago was overcast with extremely light snow falling and temperatures at about 36 degrees. When we did take off, there was light to moderate turbulence for the first 45 minutes or so but it wasn’t really uncomfortable with a seatbelt on. As we neared Chicago, the pilot performed a series of “S” turns and I would presume he was asked to do so to fit into the traffic pattern.
Landing at MDW was uneventful and the taxi to the gate was short and quick. But now we get to the downsides. It’s clear that Southwest is overtaxed at MDW. It’s clear by the fact that virtually every gate had an aircraft and when I deplaned, I found every gate area I passed full to overflowing with people awaiting a departure. The walk from the gate areas to the baggage claims is long(ish) but no more so than at many other older airports. Certainly not really more than one experiences at Love Field.
By the time I claimed my baggage, the person I was to meet there arrived and I waited another 15 minutes for him to claim his luggage as well. Travel into downtown Chicago was efficient and quick but probably only because we insisted on taking the interestate northwards instead of being lead to Lakeshore Drive. Make a note of this: You’ll generally always be better off if you insist on the taxi driver not taking Lakeshore Drive to downtown. They’ll insist that it is quicker, it isn’t. It’s slightly shorter but much more congested as a rule.
My Southwest service excellent in all respects on that flight but I do understand why MDW is having delay problems. I don’t think it is the airport so much as it is the fact that virtually every Southwest flight into and out of this airport is full. By full, I mean full to the brim.
What makes those full flights worse is the fact that a great many people are business travelers carrying quite a bit of carry-on luggage. By quite a bit, I mean an obscene amount. With unassigned seating, these travelers jockey for position, jockey for overhead bin space and jockey to avoid sitting in a middle seat. I’ll have more on that in my next post on this trip.
Overall, the experience was pleasant and everything Southwest is praised for. But that said, you’ll find that I see some growing pains in the Southwest model that I think Southwest is going to have to figure out if it expects to continue to profit in the future.
When traveling through airports, I often notice just how sub-par many airport concessions are for the traveler. Frequently, the kiosks are full of rather generic items priced at rather extraordinary prices to fit rare needs. The newsshops are often the most useful but offer rather high prices and, sometimes, impratically packaged food items. Restaurants of all kinds are often staffed by rather surly people and run by large companies such as ARAmark with not enough attention paid to the standards of the brand.
Before going further, let’s concede that operating on airport real estate is an expensive proposition. Let’s also concede that supplying an operation and staffing it for what are often odd retail hours is also a challenge. In short, let’s be understanding of the need for a higher price for many goods, food and services.
It’s my observation that what often drivese this sub-par service is the exceptionally lengthy leases and concessions granted by airport management to these businesses. Once you’ve got your space, you’ve got a very captive audience. Once you’ve leased all these concessions to one large corporation, you’ve got no real competition either. This is a real problem at many airports.
I am an admitted coffee addict and even an admitted Starbucks fan. I’ve yet to have purchased a Starbucks beverage at an airport that was anywhere close to the product I can get at a regular retail Starbucks store. The service is almost invariably slow and the training of the service staff is invariably bad. I’ve even had to tell a so called airport barista what a “dry” cappucino was. You may not know but in the Starbucks world, this is a basic thing. And that kind of experience for a beverage costing around $5 is really unacceptable. I don’t care if I’m standing in an airport or at my local Starbucks: For $5, I deserve a properly made beverage.
Not all airports are like this. I have always found Portland International to be a great airport to visit. I also really enjoy Milwaukee’s airport when I’ve passed through. Both have the distinction of being willing to reflect their locality with food, retail items and even books. (It’s notable that both these airports have excellent book stores.) I honestly don’t know what their concessions contracts and leases are like but since they do have exceptional representation from local businesses, I can only believe they are doing an excellent job of balancing their offerings as well as ensuring some competition.
It’s time to see other, larger airports engage in more competition inside their terminals. It’s time to see competing newstands, restaurants and retail shops. And it’s time to ensure that new competition has an open and transparent opportunity to enter into that marketplace on a more regular basis than every 15 years.
Today, the way many airports seem to operate in this area reminds me of cable companies in many cities. There is always mediocre to lackluster service until it gets close to the time to renew these contracts. As these businesses near their renewal, there is a suddenly a fresh burst of service and quality. When that time comes, there is often a push to retain the incumbent and to do so under cover rather than through an open bid. The incumbent makes grandiose promises of raising standards in every category and offers what are often large sums of profit sharing to the airport management to ensure their participation in the airport business. Once the incumbent wins his next 10 to 15 year contract, service plummets again and consumers are faced with more expensive and generic offerings with surly service.
I have no doubt that airports could be offering a much better service product with much more competition between businesses. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to buy an airplane practical meal? Or to be able to find a USB charger for your cellphone that you forgot to bring? Are you really going to shop for a $1200 suit while waiting for a flight?
The only way this happens is if your community lets its wishes be known. An active community voice does drive this process.
Later today, I’m flying from Dallas to Chicago and this time I’m trying out Southwest Airlines’ service from Love Field to Midway Airport. Both airports are the quintessential second airports for their respective cities and both have a strong Southwest history.
Why this airline and these airports? I’ve long advocated that you can enjoy a better, less expensive flight on Southwest that is essentially the same time elapsed “door to door” as a flight on a carrier such as American Airlines.
So, I’ll be making a much quicker drive to Love Field airport where I’ll make a much quicker transit through security to my gate. I did pay the $10 Southwest Fee to early check in to improve my seating options (and it’s a fee that, for Southwest customers, does provide extra value). My flight, however, is not non-stop. I’ll be on a one-stop Southwest flight that pauses briefly in St. Louis. Total programmed flight time? 2 hours, 55 minutes.
I paid $408 for this trip last Saturday compared to American Airlines fare for similar departure times on the same days of $659 and that does not include the fees for one checked bag that I’ll have to take with me. All in, AA would have cost me (or, rather, my client) over $700.
If I had taken AA, I would have had a much longer drive to DFW airport and a much more expensive one as well. (One takes a tollway to DFW if one expects to get to DFW in a reasonable amount of time from where I live.) The difference in time to get to each airport for me on a day where there are no traffic jams? About 20 minutes less to access Love Field.
My Southwest flight time will be 2 hours, 55 minutes (if they’re on time) and a similar choice with American Airlines would be 2 hours, 30 minutes. With the difference in drive time alone, I’ve just made up 20 minutes of a 25 minute difference. When you account for the fact that I can arrive at Love Field with a bare minimum amount of time for passing through vs DFW airport where I would arrive about 15 minutes before my one hour deadline prior to flight time (because checking bags and passing through security at DFW can be easy or it can be real lengthy), I’ve just gained another 10 minutes.
Since I”m arriving at Chicago Midway Airport, I’ll have a drive to my hotel in downtown Chicago that is nominally 6 miles shorter in distance and about 20 minutes quicker than if I arrived at Chicago O’Hare. I’m now up by 30 minutes using Southwest.
At least in theory.
But let’s take a look at the contrasts in experiences I’m liable to enjoy between the two airlines. On Southwest, I paid the $10 Early Bird Check-In fee so I’ll have a very high likelihood of obtaining a good, front of cabin seat on a 737-700. It will be a fairly new aircraft and possibly a brand new aircraft. It won’t be old and it won’t have old, worn out seats either. I’ll enjoy 32″ to 33″ of seat pitch, most likely a friend flight attendant and no charge for a beverage. Because of the nature of my trip, I have to check a bag and that comes free and on an airline with a good reputation for baggage handling and security.
If I had taken American Airlines on similar flight time, I would have enjoyed a 20+ year old MD-82. Since I would have bought AA’s best economy price, I would have likely been at the back of the aircraft and sitting in old, worn out seating with 31″ of seat pitch. My flight attendants would have most likely been cranky, older crew who have a reputation of taking out their job dissatisfaction on their customers. (AA flight attendants can be good but in my experience the DFW and Chicago based crews are frequently hostile to customers.)
My bag would be handled by an airline who had a less than positive reputation for baggage handling (and strangely I’ve had many bags delayed over the years on the DFW-ORD route) and only for a $25 fee each way. If I had paid AA’s fee for priority boarding, I’d get earlier access to overhead bins but no options to sit in a preferred seat up front and an economy passenger on an AA MD-80 flight is going to have the options of “bad” and “worse” when it comes to seat assignments.
Savings in dollars: About $300
Savings in time: About 30 minutes door to door (if this works out as I expect).
What do I give up? I don’t get frequent flier points on American Airlines. Let me point out that my dollar savings alone just bought me a “free trip” if I wanted it. Which would you rather have? about 1600 frequent flier point or $300 in savings? Which would you rather fly on? An old MD-80 with old seats and a hostile flight crew or on a fairly new 737 with new seats and a friendly flight crew?
Once I complete this trip, I’ll write up what actually happened.
Two TSA officers from JFK airport were arrested for stealing $40,000 from someone’s suitcase. The suitcase apparently contained $170,000 and was destined for Argentina (which is where the owner is now.)
The officers spotted the money during an x-ray of the bag and helped themselves. The money was recovered (all but $20) after a third TSA officer reported the deed (and may I say kudos to whoever that was.) Law enforcement are suspicious that the $170,000 was drug related and want to talk to the owner who, as was previously noted, is now in Argentina and firmly outside the reach of the long arm of the law.
Regardless of the origin of money, this points up what I and many think is a continuing problemwith the TSA. They steal.
They examine contents of bags and steal. I’ve heard far too many instances from readers of this very blog for this to be characterized as isolated incidents. Truth be known, your possessions may be far safer locked in a car in downtown Detroit than going through the TSA security system. And the TSA’s customary response to this kind of theft extraordinarily disappointing because the common response is “Gee. Sorry. But we do care”. Obviously I’m paraphrasing.
More importantly, when thieving is taking place among the corps of people who are tasked with guarding the population against threats in the air system, how do you trust them to do their basic job? After all, would you trust a guy who stole your prized wrist watch to guard your house against someone who wants to throw a brick through the window?
This winter season we’ve seen record cancellations due to major weather events and by all appearances, this isn’t over yet. These cancellations will cost airlines their 1st quarter profitability in many cases and exacerbate the losses of other airlines as well.
One trend I’ve noticed is a number of flight crew blaming the 3 Hour Rule for creating these cancellations citing their opinion that their company won’t risk a 3 Hour Rule violation. No doubt that at least some of these cancellations were in fact influenced by the rule.
However, I’m not sure you can point to the 3 Hour Rule as the cause for losses. Not yet anyway. The weather events that have caused these massive cancellations would have no doubt caused them regardless of the rule. It’s difficult to send an airplane out on a flight if the airport is closed due to blizzard conditions. In other cases, while there may not have been a blizzard, there have been several airports dealing with unusual conditions (for their area) that have caused airport closing and/or reduced operations. DFW and Dallas Love Field are two excellent examples.
I expect that sometime later this year, we’ll see airlines push for either a straight out repeal 0f the 3 Hour Rule (unlikely) or some modification for weather events (much more likely.) I remain unsure if that would be justified because despite these huge cancellation numbers, I’m just not seeing any giant outcry over it either. If anything, I suspect that the 3 Hour Rule is causing airlines to think earlier and be more proactive in their cancellation strategy and that is resulting in people being able to plan better and plan around these weather events.
In addition, one winter’s weather does not make a trend. It’s been a bad one so far and I continue to believe that we need 2 or more full year’s data to really determine the potential negative effects of the 3 Hour Rule. And the real critical area is determining when and for what reason airlines are cancelling flights when the weather events are not so clear cut. For instance, who is cancelling when strong winds impact runway choices at NYC airports and thereby reducing the hourly rate at which flights can land and take-off?
However the rest of this winter plays out, I expect to see the industry renew its efforts to modify the rule some time after the 1st Quarter financial results are in for our major airlines. I do think there should be a debate on this subject and it should balance cancellations, the rule and what the passengers may be asked to put up with. It’s quite possible that relaxing these rules to 4 hours may satisfy most parties in this fight.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is now trying to position the vacant TWA terminal at JFK Airport as a potential boutique hotel to developers. They believe the property can be developed into a small, high end hotel serving the airport given the attractiveness of the Eero Saarinen designed building.
Anyone with any airline romance in their heart would hate to see that terminal continue to go unused or, worse, torn down. It presently stands in front of the new jetBlue terminal and it’s great that it has been retained, so far, for its presence and attractiveness.
However, one has to wonder at the reality 0f developing such a property into a hotel and at JFK no less. JFK airport is not anywhere close to Manhattan (or other desired parts of New York City) and how pleasant can a hotel that is nearly airside at that airport be? I’m not saying all hotels at airports are a bad idea. This one, however, seems like a non-starter to me. Too small to attract convention traffic, too far away from other features of NYC and, potentially, too difficult to access during weather events.
The romanticist in me wants them to preserve and use that highly attractive building. The pragmatist in me says a small, high end hotel isn’t the way to do it.
There has been talk recently of a phase 2 expansion of Chicago’s O’Hare airport and now there are calls for expanding both JFK and Newark airports in the New York City area.
No doubt that the latter two could certainly stand some better planning and a revision of runway strategy. I would also be wholly unsurprised to find out that others will argue for a new airport serving the area. Then they will point to White Plains as the next NYC airport again.
I’m all for airports getting revamped and better plans and runways.
But what I would like to see more of is rapid transportation to and from these airports. A big part of the problem with using many of today’s airports is the inability to get to them in timely manner as well as the parking fees that resemble mob extortion.
Everyone knows the challenges in accessing most of the New York’s airports. It’s much the same at many other airports around the country including my own home base in DFW. I can drive 40 miles and pay a minimum of $13/day to park at DFW (anything somewhat close to the terminal is considerably more) and I don’t have much in the way of choice in doing that.
We have a rail system now and it’s actually a pleasant one. You can get kind of close to DFW via the rail system but you still have to transit from a rail station to the airport via shuttle at the cost of at least 15 minutes more time and often more.
Why I can’t ride a rail right to the DFW airport terminals and their new rail system is completely beyond me and a sorely neglected option. It’s coming, they say but it’s about 10 years overdue in my opinion.
And these conditions aren’t much different at other major airports. We need to do a better job of planning access to these airports in addition to building a new runway here and there.
I think just about everyone was at least a little surprised at the announcement of the QANTAS flight between DFW and Brisbane, Australia. It was a subject that would pop up on the radar now and then but generally dismissed with skepticism of it ever happening. Particularly with the equipment that QANTAS had for making the flight, namely the 747-400ER.
Flights between the United States and Australia have been the domain of west coast cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco and the primary equipment has been the 747-400. The aircraft available to make such a flight has already changed and is due to change a bit more in the future. The 747 got used more because of its range and ability to haul a passenger load with a strong load of cargo. Generally, long flights like that work best if there is enough demand for a 747 because seat costs go down.
Now the 777-300 is plying trans-Atlantic routes between the US and Australia and soon will be on routes between the US and New Zealand. It’s a good aircraft for the trip because of the 777’s ability to fly it non-stop, carry a load of cargo and a fairly large complement of passengers. We’ll see these West Coast to Down Under flights fracture a bit more in the future when the 787-8/9 come online with airlines.
So why the 747 and DFW? Well, it’s notable that SFO is losing its flight with QANTAS but that makes sense now. San Francisco is the domain of United, not American Airlines and QANTAS is partners with AA via Oneworld. Los Angeles remains and it should remain as a Western US departure point between for Oneworld.
Until now, Oneworld has had to feed all its traffic from all over the United States to either Los Angeles or San Francisco and while LA is a Oneworld focus city, all other Oneworld focus cities are east of the Rocky Mountains. They are Dallas/Fort Worth, Chicago, New York and Miami. In that group, there was only one city that made sense with the aircraft available today: DFW.
The other thing that has changed is the new anti-trust immune cooperative agreements that are forming in Oneworld. First there is the trans-Atlantic Oneworld partnerships and second is the trans-Pacific(Japan) Oneworld partnership. Next is logically AA/QANTAS.
With DFW and Los Angeles as that “hub”, Oneworld can feed traffic to DFW from points east of the Rocky Mountains and from points in Mexico, Central America and South America all to DFW. Yes, AA can feed that 747 nicely. And if they do it well enough, you can bet on seeing an Airbus A380 being switched into that route.
DFW gets a nice boost from all of this as well. It’s already started to transition back into a more “international” airport than it has bee in some time. British Airways is now using a 747 on one of its flights to DFW and AA is using more 777s for its flights to Europe. It will continue to grow as a Oneworld “hub” both because of its good location (not nearly as affected by weather as other potential hubs) as well as the availability of room to grow.
I would be completely unsurprised at the addition of another direct route to Tokyo and a direct flight to China in the near future. Currently AA has 2 flights to Japan via 777s and I think we may see one more or, alternatively, we may see JAL start flying one of those flights with its own 777. AA has wanted to fly direct to China from DFW (and it should) but has so far been blocked by its pilots over duty time rules that AA wanted a variance for from the union. The flight they wanted to do ultimately went to Chicago instead. Expect AA to make another run at such a route.
One thing I don’t think we’ll see is a lot of additional routes from Los Angeles to Oneworld destinations. It’s a crowded airport with limited room to grow. Delta/Sky Team has a strong base in Seattle and United/Star Alliance has got strength in San Francisco. Dallas / Fort Worth offers the growth opportunities now with the ability to fly longer range flights using the 787 and 777 and I think we’ll see more and more long haul flights from DFW.
I have to say that I’m very pleased for DFW and I see this as a very good development for American Airlines as well. It’s nice to see opportunities created like this within Oneworld and on AA’s part, too.
We’ve read much about both Europe and the United States being snagged with huge airline delays and problems due to storms but one country took a slightly different tactic with their airlines this week.
Russian Prime Minister Vladmir Putin warned Russia’s airlines’ managers not to go on vacation while their flights were suffering delays and imposing hardships on its passengers. Five of Russia’s airlines are being probed now: S7, Transaero, UT Air, VIM, and Orenburg airlines all have to answer for the problems passengers have incurred.
Notably, OAO Aeroflot, largely owned by the Russian government, has escaped notice.
Most of the problems were experienced at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport and Putin warned that officials should “”stop whining and start working.”
I’m pretty sure that sent a chill through some people’s hearts.
Whenever a merger is announced between two airlines, one of the first things to be answered in the announcement is that no city is going to be hurt by this. Obviously that is a politically driven statement because CongressCritters have a lot of power to make it difficult for airlines in a merger.
The one thing about mergers is that absolutely flights will be combined wherever it makes sense. Fuller aircraft make for vastly better profits. But just because flights are reduced doesn’t mean that that is bad for a particular town or city. A rationalized set of flights might reduce frequency a bit but result in a better, more comfortable aircraft serving the route.
Hubs are different thing. There is always the promise that hubs won’t be reduced but that’s a hard promise to keep sometimes. You only need so many hubs serving so many regions. In the case of ContiUnited, it seemed difficult to imagine that Cleveland would continue to exist as a hub in light of the fact that it was bounded by three better hubs: Chicago, Newark and Washington D.C.
But, again, in this day and age that doesn’t necessarily mean that the city will suffer. Now, other airlines often see opportunity in cities that are seeing their airport downsized as a hub. A Southwest Airlines, for instance, may see high fares because of hub dominance and go in was another airline retreats and offer better fares and better flights to appropriate cities.
The Delta/Northwest merger has seen both Memphis and Cincinatti hubs being downsized and rationalized and that’s OK. The good news is that there are number of strong(er) airlines who may be interested in offering smart services.
The ContiUnited merger had less overlap with just Cleveland appearing to be the ugly stepchild. The smart thing for Cleveland to do is not fight to keep ContiUnited but fight for new airines to come into their markets. Competition will lower their fares and a diversit of airlines will ensure a healthier business climate for its native businesses and industries.
It seems safer to try to keep what you already have but it often smarter to fight to have change and experience better rewards with other airlines.
We just saw what an impending storm can cause when it comes to flight cancellations. One thing that people often wonder at is the reason their flight was cancelled when it isn’t snowing yet in their departure city.
In fact, people are often left wondering what happened to their flight when it isn’t even forecast to snow in their departure city.
It has to do with with an airline’s network. An airline may have to cancel a flight in one city because the aircraft is stuck in another city due to weather. That’s really a common occurrence.
Sometimes an impending storm results in an airline cancelling flights in advance of the arrival of a snow storm. There are a lot of valid reasons for doing this. It may be unwise to send a flight out to a city where the airline doesn’t customarily overnight aircraft. Doing so potentially leaves the aircraft and its flight crew orphaned in an unknown city and unusable when weather does clear.
Since storms, particularly snow storms, can leave an airline’s network destroyed, it is attractive to the airline to keep its aircraft at its hub(s) so that when the storm does clear, it has the equipment to get people on their way immediately.
Another reason is that snow storms approach a lot of cities with a great deal of uncertainty. It’s poor safety to send aircraft to a city prior to a potential snow storm because that storm may arrive early causing the aircraft to divert or hazard a landing in poor conditions.
Flight cancellations are painful not because of the immediate inconvenience. They are painful because airlines often are incapable of taking care of a customer for days afterwards. That may be unacceptable. There isn’t anything that an airline is going to do about it unless forced to. The best alternative is to really weigh consequences of sticking to your travel plans.
Most airlines welcome a change to an earlier flight and offer the ability to do so without penalty in these situations. Take advantage of that. Sometimes no matter how much you want to go, you can’t. Skip your trip if you can get a refund and many airlines will offer such a thing during bad storms. Flex a little and avoid being that person stuck in an airport for 4 days clinging to the idea of taking a flight somewhere.
A 50 year old anonymous airline pilot decided to video what passes for security at SFO airport and post it on YouTube. He (rightly) pointed out that what passes for security for ground personnel at the airport (and not just this airport) isn’t what you might expect it to be. See the video below (and I apologize for the commercial):
In response to this, federal air marshals and sheriffs showed up at his home to confiscate his federally authorized handgun (the pilot is a deputized federal air marshal). The pilot believes this was done as retribution. The pilot videotaped this visit as well but I can find no copy of it so far on the internet.
To anyone who understands airports, this comes as no surprise and its one great reason why I call the security done by the TSA theater. It is very much a weak spot and very much a hole that people are, at best, cursorily screened can bypass security with evil intent.
Over the past week, I’ve seen several more examples of TSA Security Theater make the news. First up is the businessman who managed to accidentally carry his personal handgun through security and onto an aircraft where he discovered his mistake during the flight. To the man’s credit, he reported it upon arrival at his destination. One has to ask how any TSA agent misses a handgun inside someone’s carryone baggage going through a scanner.
Then there was the small child who was frisked in Salt Lake City, Utah and who had to remove his shirt. Originally, the reason cited was that he set off the scanner. Later, it was revealed that it was because he was wearing “bulky” clothing. One has to ask how a sweat shirt qualifies as bulky clothing.
Finally, it was reported in the news that a TSA agent who was stealing laptops in Philadelphia has received probation for his offense. The agent was reported by a baggage handler who saw this man hiding these items. The irony of a baggage handler reporting theft is left to the reader.
These aren’t minor, one time occurences. They’re endemic to the security situation at most airports and representative of just how incompetently our security is being handled. The government and, more specifically, the Department of Homeland Security has presented the new body scanners and thorough friskings (aka sexual assaults) as necessary to the security of air travel.
There are too many incidents of incompetence and dishonesty on the part of the TSA to see the new procedures as anything but additional layers of inconvenience that, considering who is performing the work, adds nothing to real security. People have been trying to carry weapons onboard aircraft to commit serious crimes for nearly as long as airlines have been in existence. After the spate of hijackings in the 1960’s and 1970’s, we introduced baggage scanning and metal detectors. However, despite being given nearly 40 years to perfect the detection of a handgun, they still get through alarmingly easy at times.
Instead of ensuring that people actually do feel safer, our security apparatus has managed to make people feel even more annoyed at the idea of travel and that is saying something in this day and age. If anything, we’ve gone from mere annoyance at our security theater to being often humiliated through the process.
More machines and more procedures isn’t going to make us safer. Having honest, vigilant and intelligent people run our security processes will. Instead, we’ve created a new civil service job that pays poorly and attracts the barely qualified instead of the best of the best. There is no esprit de corps inside the TSA and there is no honor in the job. All too often we see these agents performing their roles with contempt for the very people they’re supposedly protecting. Contempt that is justified with “terrorism” as a watchword.
It’s tolerated because the situation is presented in a manner in which people see no alternative. When you have to travel 500 or more miles, there are few realistic options other than air travel for most people. What is more insulting is that we have tacitly agreed to let the US government present the idea of air travel as a “privilege” rather than a “right” contingent upon you agreeing to let them do whatever they want to do in the name of security.
I don’t think any rational person objects to real security work being performed at airports, including me. What we do object to is the placebo approach to security veiled with threats and intimidation and conditional upon giving up constitutional rights such as the 4th Amendment.
But as this holiday season goes on, people continue to be bullied, humiliated, insulted and intimidated all for the privilege of getting on an airplane to travel for pleasure or business.
American Airlines is switching its 2 flights per day from Springfield, IL to Chicago over to their DFW hub next April. By doing so, AA will be eligible to dip into available grants setup to defer start up costs on new routes.
One of the things that irritates me the most about how the US airline world has become distorted has to be how regional jets are used. We don’t use them on regional routes. Well, they’re still used on those routes but far more often we use them on long, ultra thin routes like Springfield, IL to DFW. Or how about the time I flew from DFW to Cleveland on a Continental Express ERJ-140.
The truth is, any flights from Springfield, IL should be going to regional hubs that are nearby. We should see larger turbo-props flying passengers from Springfield to Chicago, St. Louis and Memphis. I don’t know if Springfield can honestly justify the 6 flights per day it has to Chicago at this time but, if it can, I would argue that 1 or 2 of those flights is superfluous at best.
Small airports like Springfield get access to all kinds of grants and other funding that permit them to attempt to attract new services and, hopefully, help grow their local economy. But those grants are used to distort markets and encourage flights that would never exist if they had to be justified on the real market demand. How is Springfield, Illinois truly better served by 2 flights per day to the DFW area for AA/Oneworld connections to the rest of the world when it can access pretty much the same parts of the world easier (and more economically) through Chicago?
The truth is, if you look at just a 350nm radius emanating from Springfield, you’ll find that the options on a regional basis to hubs and/or focus cities that actually have both political and business ties to Springfield, you realize just how insane it is to be flying a Springfield to Dallas route of 630nm using an ERJ-14X aircraft.
Cities like Springfield should be cultivating multiple routes to multiple hubs/focus cities near them. They should seek to offer broad based links to their entire region instead of a link to one part of their region (Chicago) and another link to an area entirely outside of their economic sphere (Dallas). Using Springfield as an example and defining their “region” as being roughly 350nm diameter, they could target links to Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, Minneapolis / St. Paul, Memphis, Nashville and even Cincinatti and Columbus.
Grants and incentives have a tendency to drive decisions towards things that are clearly serving a narrow, immediate “want” rather than a broad based, market driven “need”. I would far rather see grants help improve airports themselves and let the municipal, state and business leaders of a city make a business case to airlines for routes they need. All too often, when I see a route like DFW-Springfield, I wonder what local business executive wants that route for his convenience and to what other businesses detriment is it being done?
Before anything else today, let me say this: I’m quite sure that very few security officers in the TSA are truly evil or have even bad intent. I suspect most are just trying to earn a living in a world where that has become quite a bigger challenge in the past few years.
After reading a CNN story found HERE, I got curious as to what we’re buying when it comes to security. So I checked jobs at the TSA website to see what was being advertised. What I was interested in was the going rate for a TSA officer.
I was more disappointed than I expected and that’s saying something.
Apparently most of these jobs start as part time and can continue to be so for as much as 3 years. That means less benefits and the officer will almost certainly be working another job to make it in this world. Anyone who has worked 2 jobs will tell you that that is a draining experience. Even if you’re working a steady 40 hours as week, a 2 job lifestyle is much harder on a person than a single steady one job lifestyle.
We pay these vaunted officers $14 / hour roughly to do this job part time. Again, in this world we actually life in, that ain’t much. Do people survive on less? Sure. Do many people survive on less? No. We have this idea that honest work at low pay rewards and frankly as someone who has done honest work at low pay, I can tell you it doesn’t reward you. It just stresses you out and generally depresses you.
I wonder how vigilant the average person is working 2 jobs (at least) for pretty low pay in an environment that places them on the frontline for abuse?
If a worker gets a full time gig, they earn about $29,000 a year and they stop out at a stunning $43,000 per year. These folks can make a maximum of $43K per year and that equates roughly to someone over 25 years of age who has achieved an Associates Degree.
Look at it differently. The median income for an officer lies somewhere in the vicinity of $36,000 / year. My point is that we are, at the very best, hiring the middle section of people who below average in capability as determined by earnings.
Then we abuse them a bit more with lackluster benefits (their healthcare can cost hundreds of dollars per month if they think they can afford it and they probably cannot without working a 2nd job again.)
Let me suggest that we want security officers who are *more* capable than average. We want officers who are more vigilant than average. We want officers who we would at the least hire to be police officers in a major city (and they aren’t) and we probably want a better person than entry level police material.
Because good security involves critical thinking and the exercise of good judgement. That costs something. Instead, we’re hiring a person who is roughly qualified to work at a Sears department store.
Update (Nov 22, 2010 / 3:12pm CST): I just saw this quote from Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security:
“I think we all understand the concerns Americans have,” Napolitano is quoted as saying by The Associated Press. “It’s something new. Most Americans are not used to a real law enforcement pat-down like that.”
Yes, please. Insult our intelligence a bit more for the holiday season. More to the point, let me point out that even if that were similar to a “real law enforcement pat-down” (it’s not and, yes, I know), no one in a line for security at an airport is under arrest or under suspicion and aren’t subject to such overstepping anywhere else in their lives.
Original Entry:
I don’t know if I would recommend “joining” the “boycott” being suggested for Wednesday, November 24th, where people are suggesting that all passengers opt out for being scanned in favor of the pat down as a form of protest.
It’s a poor choice of day because many do have something to lose in being either late or exceptionally inconvenienced traveling someplace for the holiday. It would feel more smart if it were on another day. On the other hand, I can’t actually discourage it either because this needs attention and quickly.
Take a look at what the Denver Post photographed at the local airport HERE. In particular, I think this photo HERE represents all that is wrong w/ these procedures. I’m not sure where exactly the line is but I’m certain that the line has been crossed by a good margin at this point.
TSA chief, Joe Pistole, keeps saying that relatively few people object. I say that this is too new for us to know how everyone feels. In fact, every time I see interviews of people on the street asking if they would subject themselves to this kind of patdown, I believe their “yes” answers come before experiencing this process.
Let’s put it another way. If you saw your family being put through this, would you stand for it anywhere else? I wouldn’t. Take a look at this video:
The father removed the shirt because the boy was too shy to lift his arms for the patdown. Regardless, this is getting more offensive as time goes by and it still happened because of invasive search requirements by the TSA.
And I’ll reiterate my own feelings that whatever a passenger is required to go through, the same should be applied to everyone including flight crews regardless of background checks, etc. If this really is about security, then it should be applied with no holes. I’ll include the President should he ever fly commercially during his tenure in office.
In addition, there is too much evidence that how these procedures are being applied at various airports is inconsistent and indicates, at the least, poor training for TSA agents although I’ll continue to maintain that the people I’ve encountered in the TSA uniform continue to appear to be doing their jobs without real vigilence and seem to be following a policy rather than acting in real concern for security. Read this ABS news story for the latest example (and at an airport where policy just should be flat out known) HERE. If that isn’t enough, see Scott McCartney’s Middle Seat Terminal blog entry about TSA training and an audit on it that was performed recently.
I would suggest writing your congressmen and senators. They are easy to find and easy to email and it is well known that they pay attention to trends in communications they receive from their constituents. In addition, I would suggest sending an email to the ACLU and to your local newspapers. And do it multiple times. These communications go farther in the long run.
The great argument driving TSA rules on x-ray machines and patdowns derives from what was, quite honestly, a horrible act on September 11, 2001. We’ve been treating air travel with high security for 4 decades starting with hijackings that resulted in bombs and deaths resulting from other horrific acts. You have to acknowledge that air travel has, in fact, been used as a weapon and as a terrorist act more than once.
These acts have, in my opinion, driven us to accept conditions upon our free movement inside this country that we don’t accept anywhere else. In fact, we are asked to accept conditions in order to travel by air that we don’t accept in virtually any other place in our lives. Let me point out that we aren’t asked to accept this level of scrutiny in order to enter a courthouse, the Capitol, a military base or even the White House. Even with respect to the real world, we aren’t asked to endure this scrutiny to visit a federal building or a movie theater or restaurant. Think about that for a minute: we aren’t groped (sexually or otherwise) in order to proceed about our lawful business in virtually any other setting.
I am far from suggesting that there be no security checks in airports. To the contrary, I believe that there is a level of security that should be applied and applied evenly and without regard to race, religion, etc. There should be absolutely no exceptions for anyone including flight crew.
But I do think we’ve gone too far and I do think that we, the public, have been far too accepting of the latest indignities and, quite frankly, inappropriate searches of ourselves and our personal belongings all in the name of “security”. This is making the free movement about our country a privilege rather than a right and I’m extremely uncomfortable with that. And to argue that there are other choices is disingenuous at best in this modern age.
What we’re really doing is carving out exceptions to basic and derived rights on the basis of security theater rather than real security.
It doesn’t just exist at airports although I think airports are the most extreme case. Recently, I’ve made a number of trips to McAllen, Texas. Ironically, by car and I’ve witnessed behaviour on the part of several law enforcement agencies that I honestly believe would not only not been tolerated but soundly stopped just 20 years ago. Imagine traveling 90 miles and seeing 18 State Trooper cars, 5 Border Patrol cars and a mandatory checkpoint where you are interrogated and potentially asked to consent to a search before simply proceeding about your lawful business.
Privacy in this country has traditionally been a very sacred subject. The right to privacy, to not incriminate oneself and even the right to engage in lawful business between two areas has been infringed upon to a degree that I think it’s changing our country.
It’s time we start accepting that this world is not and has never been a perfectly safe place and to attempt to make it so does far more harm than it does good. I’m rather shocked that people haven’t challenged these acts in the courts (is the ACLU really that docile now?) and that we haven’t complained rationally and loudly to our lawmakers and policymakers.
For the record, I have written Congressmen and Senators and I think others should too. Also for the record, I am not a libertarian or conservative or liberal. If anything, I’d be identified as a moderate Democrat that find himself largely unrepresented by either side.
My standard in feeling revulsion at these developments has come from the fact that I’ve realized over the past few years that I actually feel more exposed and less safe as a result of these security measures. They don’t reassure me and they don’t make me feel that my plane has been adequately protected from threats.
I do think there are measures we could take and if we’re really serious about security, why aren’t we hiring bright and capable people to perform our security roles? Furthermore, why are we endorsing a para-military approach to security at our airports when we find that, time and again, this mindset doesn’t result in greater security to ourselves.
I have a great fear that we are going to abrogate more and more rights in this quest to perceive ourselves “safe” that any value we derive from being citizens and residents in a country with uniquely protected basic civil rights will be simply gone. And I wonder if that isn’t a “win” for terrorists as well.
Just in case you think I’m the only one out there disturbed by these many farces, read FL250’s post HERE.
