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The Herd Getting Heard in Washington, DC

Here at Aircomplane, we wear our raison d'être on our sleeve: we're here so you're heard. This blog is a place for tired, trodden, and mistreated passengers customers to have their say, hear stories of passengers customers just like them, and make the airlines take heed.

The most important thing for airline customers to remember is that you're not alone; if you've had a bad experience flying, so have hundreds of others. Individually, we may not be able to get the attention of airline executives and bureaucratic decisionmakers, but together, we can make some noise.

That's just what one organization is going to do on September 19th in Washington, DC.

The Coalition for Passengers' Bill of Rights, formed by the passengers of several American Airlines planes stranded in Austin, TX for over 9 hours in December 2006, is taking their message to Congress.

The group is hosting a strand-in on the National Mall, recreating the hellish ordeal their founders and hundreds of other paying airline customers have endured, complete with the sights, sounds, and smells of a long-term airline stranding. Members of Congress will be there as well as the national media, and it's all to convince Congress to establish a maximum tarmac delay period, so airline passengers will be treated humanely during flight delays.

Read about the protest in The Washington Post, or read the Coalition's letter to Congress. Most importantly, attend the strand-in in Washington on Wednesday and join hundreds of flyers like you who just want to be treated like paying customers they are.

The details:
Who: The Coalition for Passengers' Bill of Rights
What: Strand-in Simulation on the National Mall
When: Wednesday, September 19, 2007, 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Where: The National Mall, between 12th and 13th Streets NW, Washington, DC

UPDATE: Flyersrights.org, The Coalition for Passengers' Bill of Rights' website, was hacked yesterday by vandals who clearly didn't like what they have to say.

   

These goons are going to learn that they can't silence the movement for Passengers' Rights quite so easily. Show your support by attending the Strand-In tomorrow.

Airline Schedules Fodder for Late Night Talk Shows? Really?

On the surface, readers of Aircomplane.com should be somewhat relieved to hear that we appear to have some company in pushing the airlines to get their delayed, overbooked, arrogant, selfish, irresponsible, mis-managed acts together. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), specifically FAA Administrator Marion C. Blakey announced this week that "Airline schedules have got to stop being the fodder for late-night monologues. And if the airlines don't address this voluntarily, don't be surprised when the government steps in." Please, surprise US!

Here are some of the related articles from ABCNews.go.com and CNN.com.

As previously mentioned here in both commentary and the actual report from the Department of Transportation, July 2007 showed the airline industry’s worst on-time performance since 1995 – the year such data was first tracked.

But, alas, we cannot get too excited. First, Ms. Blakey made her announcement during her last official speech as head of the FAA and two, Air Transport Association spokesman David Castelveter reportedly said "No carrier is going to be willing to reduce its schedule unless we see that industry addresses all of the causes of delay."

“ALL” of the causes of delay? You mean the passengers? Sorry, you didn’t mention us…Those of us with children, special needs, and who may only fly once or twice a year and not wise to the ways of the cattle car mentality? (PUBLISHERS' NOTE:  We get the general need for the bovine-like conveyance of large groups of people, but we don't appreciate being branded by the iron-hot stares of arrogant and condescending fright attendants during what should be a customer service interchange.) Hmmm….Can we make a list of "all of the causes of delay," too? How about overbooking, aggressive adherence to impossible but-we-guess-they-look-profitable on spreadsheets schedules and a lack of overall responsibility to those whom you purport to serve as “customers.” OK, send us a list, Mr. “spokesman” for the ATA. We’d like to see it, and we’ll certainly publish it. And our readers will absolutely help complete it.

Aviation Consumer Protection Website at the Department of Transportation is Down...

For those of you who have been trying to access the July 2007 report from the Department of Transportation as included on Aircomplane.com's previous posting, there may be nothing wrong with your computer. The entire The Aviation Consumer Protection website at the Department of Transportation appears to be down http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov as of this posting. When and if back up, here's the link to the report: http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/reports/atcr07.htm. Clever ducks...or not.

The Herd Getting Heard

It is with some satisfaction that your Aircomplane.com Spite Crew read Marilyn Adams’ USAToday article on record breaking number of travelers’ complaints filed with the U.S. Government Department of Transportation. The article, entitled “Fliers’ Complaints Hit 7-Year High” is available here . The actual report from the Department of Transportation is here. http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/reports/atcr07.htm

It details how the DOT received 1,455 complaints in July, 2007 – the highest level in the last seven years. Areas of complaint include canceled flights and lost luggage. Ya think?

We have one word for all of you frustrated fliers who took the time to complain…Congratulations! The herd is being heard, and we must continue to do so.

 If we at Aircomplane.com let our ego get to us, we’d like to think that having the DOT complaint form prominently featured in the upper right hand corner of our blog had something to do with it. We hope so, but we’re just glad it’s happening. If you haven’t printed out the form and taken it with you when you fly, do. It gives you the information you need to gather to file a complaint and serves as a guide for when you encounter delays, lost luggage, and impossible fright attendants. It’s also here. http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/problems.htm

 Please, insist that you be treated like the paying customers you are: with respect, with dignity, and as a customer. And take the lead from the 1,455 passengers in July who insisted on having their problems documented.

Be one of the herd getting heard – and maybe they’ll stop treating us like farm animals and more like the people who employ them.

When Conventional Airline Maintenance isn’t Enough.

Reuters reports today that Nepal Airlines, encountering pesky technical difficulties with a Boeing 757 aircraft, sacrificed two goats to appease the Hindu sky god Akash Bhairab. We are not kidding.

Surprisingly, belligerent passengers were apparently not available.

Read it here.

Labor Day Travel is Here

The Bad News: The Air Transport Association "forecasts 15.7 million passengers will travel globally on U.S. airlines during the 2007 Labor Day period, spanning Wednesday, Aug. 29 through Wednesday, Sept. 5, resulting in a 2.6 percent increase in passengers over the same period last year."

The Good News: Aircomplane.com is here to help.

First, relax. Ironically-named Labor Day is a time when we should all unplug, relax, do what we want, and pull ourselves away from the very activity that gives us the financial freedom to do so. (Hmm...more irony.)

If you and/or the family are going to be flying over the next week, plan to encounter certain experiences. Knowing that they are inevitable may at least help you diffuse some of the dread and plan on how to deal with them.

• Lines: They will be there. Labor Day travelers, like many holiday travelers, may not be as organized and savvy as business travelers. If you see someone overly burdened with their children and taking a little longer getting through, by, or organized; appearing lost; or who really looks like they could use a section of the newspaper you're finished with anyway, help them out.
• Be ready for check in and security. Read the signs, have your identification and documents ready, begin thinking about where you change, cell phone, and your titanium hip are. Security will take as long as it takes. Think about being patient and cooperative as your patriotic duty. It kind of is.
• Keep boozing to a minimum until you hit your hotel. Be rational and don't give the Fright Attendants a reason make you their punching bag.
• Between now and your trip, physically print and take a copy of this form with you. It is the The Aviation Consumer Protection Division (ACPD) complaint form. The ACPD "operates a complaint handling system for consumers who experience air travel service problems." Having a copy of the form at the ready will help you to remember what information about service problem you will need. Take names, flight numbers, times....It's all there and the form is ALWAYS on the upper right hand column of the Aircomplane.com home page. Go, print one out, now.

We also wanted to mention that a website called AirlineComplaints.org offers some valuable airline contact and other information for airline travelers. Check it out.

If we can directly help you with any issues contacting airlines about a problem or concern, let your Spite Crew here at Aircomplane.com know. Also, feel free to vent here. Sharing horrendous stories about how you may have been (mis)treated during your travels in not only excellent therapy, it's a great way to let other passengers know they're not alone...unfortunately. We promise to find all sorts of interesting things to do with your stories. We don't have the budgets the airlines do when they tell you what a FANTASTIC experience you have if you fly with them, but that's OK. Testimonials carry their own special weight.

The Passengers Are Revolting! – You would be too if made to live in your own filth.

The sad, ironic beauty of serving as your Aircomplane.com Spite Attendants is that we don’t have to make this stuff up. Aircomplane.com certainly benefits from any viral sharing of items it offers here, but forwarding this and other postings can help support our efforts to be treated fairly, humanely, and with the respect most of the airline industry doesn’t seem to feel its PAYING CUSTOMERS deserve.

Sun-Sentinal.com – “On July 29, Continental Flight 1669, a 737-700 with about 120 passengers aboard, was bound for Newark, N.J., from Caracas, Venezuela, when bad weather caused the plane to be diverted to Baltimore. It sat there for about five hours with passengers on board as food and water ran low and toilets became filthy.

But what made the Continental flight somewhat different was that passengers organized and protested by clapping in rhythm and drumming on overhead bins. Finally, the pilot, worried about mayhem, called the police.” Story here.

ConsumerAffairs.com – “It had to happen sooner or later: an airline called police to calm a planeload of angry passengers.” Story  here.

ABCNews.go.com – “"We were not provided with food," said passenger Caroline Murray. "There were passengers who were ill. There was one woman who was diabetic. There was a pregnant woman with small children. It was shocking to me."

"When you've got passengers about ready to riot, you've got an air crew that's not properly trained to communicate," said ABC News aviation consultant John Nance." Story here.

 

Question: What does a Russian Gulag and the Airline Industry Have in Common?

Answer: The same “How to Welcome your Guests” section in their employee training manuals.

• We are allowed to place you in an area of confinement.
• We tell you when you will be strapped down.
• We are allowed to keep you for hours on end without access to food, water and information about your fate.
• You are not allowed outside contact.
• We have your money, and we control the future of your possessions.
• We are the judges of what is an indignity and what is not.
• We are subsidized by your government and are accountable to few.

Yea, we know. We’re not always part of the solution…sometimes, we just get pissy.

Associated Press: Two Major Airlines Admit to Price Fixing

Because we never suspected it...read about it here.

Anyone else bathing with us in the irony that the fines, if paid, will ultimately be done so with fare increases?

Another Air Travel Tricfecta: Arrogance, Apathy, and Entitlement. Your industry is given every break there is -- including those government safety nets that will never really, really let you go out of business. Grow up, stop playing games, and run your businesses like your customers and shareholders expect you to.

Frankly, we're most embarrassed for your parents. We assume they tried with you.

Bah!

News Flash! Flight Attendant Gets Drunker than Passengers! Is Rewarded with Fame and Immortality!

For those of you who have NOT seen the video of the drunken fright attendant for Delta Airlines, here it is:   

If you'd rather read the CNN version of the story, here IT is.

Personally, we like any story that begins with "A flight attendant appeared in court Monday to answer charges she was drinking alcohol on the job and told a captain "You're dead" as she was removed from the plane." (CNN.com)

Yea, yea, yea...we're all human...Isolated incident...not representative of the industry....

Might your Aircomplane.com Spite Crew recommend her sentence?

Sit on a plane with no food, water, and 20 of your colleagues for 10 hours. And let's keep it real: They won't tell you why you're there, how long you're going to be there, and that the only plane that DID take off just delivered your luggage and bottle of Jack Daniels to Salt Lake City.

The pisser is that in six months after rehab she'll have a talk show.

Big Balls!

On April 5, we initiated a post in support of travel agents. For many of you this may have come as a surprise since we MAY have given the impression that we have a hard-on for giving it to the travel industry as a whole. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are actually, in our own way, SUPPORTING the travel industry. Hell, we’d shut down tomorrow if travelers received fair pricing and quality customer service...and airlines made a concerted effort to banish what we at Aircomplane.com like to call the Airline A-Hole Quadrangle: attitude, apathy, arrogance, and (lack of) accountability. (A quadrangle is kind of like a hole, isn’t it?)

In the posting, which you can read here later, your Spite Attendant Crew offered four significant reasons why working with a legitimate travel agent could improve your chances for a better travel experience.

And then, the most amazing thing happened. Someone posted a comment to our blog post basically plugging a Multi-Level Marketing company that, from what we can tell, is about as far from what experienced, certified, and proven travel agents do. Now, as several of you can attest, I often pull truly important comments and correspondence from within Aircomplane.com and give them top billing. After all, you are what make us relevant. So, I am going to do the same thing here while fulfilling our mission of protecting you, the traveler, further.

On July 25, 2007, Mr. Terry Zulit of “The Terry Zulit Financial Freedom Blog” posted the following comment:

“I found a way to write-off all my travel, and get my travel agent status. I then can write-off all my travel costs. I made a long post that explains it all here:
http://www.zulit.com/2007/07/24/pro-travel-network-review-to-end-all-pro-travel-network-reviews/ You might be interested in using the idea. Don't worry about signup with me, but seriously...it works saving a ton on travel per year.

Terry”

Interesting.

First, know how fascinated we are that someone had the balls (if not the brains) to piggyback on our blog with a plug for a Multi-Level Marketing endeavor EXACTLY COUNTER to the points of Aircomplane.com’s editors. Normally we would applaud such chutzpah. This is, after all (and unless you’re on an airplane), a free country. But your Aircomplane.com Spite Attendants decided it was necessary to do a little digging into this dubious ticket to “Financial Freedom” and see what surfaced.

• Terry Zulit is proudly part of a Multi-Level Marketing (travel) company called Pro Travel Network. He must have placed some thought into his business decision because his own blog states, as of this posting, “The Internet income I make still far out weighs the Pro Travel Network income. Pro Travel Network (or PTN) is just another strong income stream for me. I’ve been a marketer for 4 years now, and I’ve looked at EVERY MLM opportunity there is on this planet. (no shit).”

· A little further digging about the Pro Travel Network revealed the following:

o  The stock for Pro Travel Network (PTVL) is at about its all-time low. As of this post, it’s trading at about $0.31 from a high of $1.75. It dropped over 40% TODAY. (This chart, courtesy of Businessweek.com basically says that a $10,000 initial investment now leaves you with less than $4,000.

o Here is some Securities and Exchange Commission filing information. Don’t stop until you read “Risk Factors.”

Well, we usually like to make three points about something, but that’s really not necessary. A travel agent named “Jay” with 17 years in the travel agency business did comment on Mr. Zulit’s comment, and you can see that here. Perhaps Jay said it best with “What are your travel credentials? Do you have any certifications, destination specialties, advanced degrees, or have you even taken a travel course of any kind? Your “fad” will last only as far as you piss off your friends with poor service and higher prices. As you continue your jaunt through our sensitive yet resilient industry, lose the title of “Travel Agent.” You are a fraud and only an agent for yourself.”

We don’t know about the fraud thing, but we’re kind of happy we don’t own any Pro Travel Network stock. And we’d like to thank Mr. Zulit for bringing the Pro Travel Network to our attention. It always helps to match a name with a craze.