OK, at least my flight wasn't this fucked up

[Diego in Seattle]

Perhaps they should block the Faux News Channel in the pilot break room....

[Left Seater]

Perhaps they should block the Faux News Channel in the pilot break room....

Couldn't agree more, you passengers get stuck watching it in the terminal, but we get real news. If someone put it on CNN in the ready room we would prolly not fly with them since they are clearly unstable.

[smackaholic]

My flight this AM was excellent.

Left gulfport right on time for the ATL. I had a window seat, so I was looking down in hopes I might see spray waddling around. He ought to stand out from 35K ft. Funny how much faster flights are when you are getting pushed by the jet stream rather than pedaling straight into it as we were on the flight down.

Got off the bus at B11 to find that my connecting flight was B19.

Huh? You mean I don't have a half hour odyssey to get to my next flight?

So, I walk over to B-19. Flight moved to A-32.

Figures.

So, I go for the subway ride. yay.

Get to A-32. They say, don't get comfy. It's moving again.....to A-30.

No biggy.

But, it gets delayed 2 hrs.

So, back on the train to my favorite place in the world, the USO. Where I get to hang out with very friendly elderly volunteers. Most of the retired military.

The USO an awesome organization and they get a few bucks out of my tight ass every year. And they gots free interwebs, unlike the rest of this shitty airport. WTF is up with that.? Only airport internet that I know of that charges.

Fukk you, ATL airport.

[Left Seater]

Fukk you, ATL airport.

Reminds me of the old yarn about those not worthy of heaven, having to connect in ATL to get to hell.

[Mikey]

Later the report though he might have been "over medicated"

Sure it's not you that was over medicated?

[jiminphilly]

Speaking of flying, why is it about $200 cheaper for US Air to fly me to Chicago IL for a flight to Columbus OH from.... Philadelphia.

Also I was just in Austin TX for a couple days and there is no doubt in my mind that some of the hottest women seem to migrate to that town, at least when I'm there. :grin:

[Left Seater]

Airline fares are one of the most complicated things around.

The grossly simple reason the fare is more expensive for the PHL - CMH non stop is because USAirways is the only non-stop option. So because of that they can charge more for the route. However, when connecting they are competing with AA and United thru Chicago and Delta thru ATL. Competition lowers the fares.

[jiminphilly]

Airline fares are one of the most complicated things around.

The grossly simple reason the fare is more expensive for the PHL - CMH non stop is because USAirways is the only non-stop option. So because of that they can charge more for the route. However, when connecting they are competing with AA and United thru Chicago and Delta thru ATL. Competition lowers the fares.

Except last year it was half the cost.. I get it.. fuel costs are rising but I've had to book a few trips lately and US Airways has had some really high fares going into DFW and Houston Intercontinenal. AA is kicking their ass right now.

[Screw_Michigan]

Also I was just in Austin TX for a couple days and there is no doubt in my mind that some of the hottest women seem to migrate to that town, at least when I'm there. :grin:

It's what the world looks like outside of Philly.

[Left Seater]

Airfares are a joke the way they are quoted today. Unless of course you are looking at Southwest, Jetblue, and a few smaller examples.

Fuel surcharges have nothing to do with the actual fuel costs to get a plane from point A to point Z. Fuel surcharges are just a way for the airline to use a lower base fare.

For example: Airlines file tons of info with the SEC including their average fuel price per pax mile. These are around 4.5 cents. So given this publicly available info we can see what the approx fuel costs are per pax on certain flights. Looking at a Delta flight from LAX to JFK mid week in June we see a fuel surcharge of $237. However, we also know that Delta's fuel price per pax mile is just under 4.5 cents. We also know that the typical routing LAX JFK is around 2600 miles. So the actual fuel costs to Delta using their SEC filing and distance is $117 per person on this route. (4.5 cents x 2700 miles / 100 to convert cents to dollars)

Hell, on many of these flights Delta couldn't even use all of the fuel surcharge on fuel for a specific flight because the amount collected in the fuel surcharge exceeds the cost per gallon of the fuel times the planes capacity.

But lets go back to your initial PHL - CMH non stop vs PHL - ORD - CMH one stop. The airline gets more money from the pax on the non-stop and their costs are lower to get them there. So why would they reward the person taking the connection with more in their frequent flier program? The connecting pax will receive 1948 miles in their USAirways frequent flier account for the round trip. The pax on the non-stop will only get 812 miles in their frequent flier account. How does that make any sense? Here is another example that a blogger posted last week. Dude needed to get from Tampa to Seattle and back. He could have gone Tampa/Houston/Seattle or Tampa/Denver/Seattle for the same cost but United allowed up to 5 segments so he chose a Tampa/DC/NYC/LAX/SFO/SEA/LAX/DEN/JFK/DC/Tampa. For increasing United's cost and giving them no more money they rewarded him with an extra 3923 frequent flier miles. No wonder the legacy airlines can't make money.

No surprise though that Southwest, Jetblue, Virgin America and a few others don't do this. They would actually reward the pax that paid the higher fare with more frequent flier points.

[The Seer]

Perhaps they should block the Faux News Channel in the pilot break room....

Faux news.....lol

[smackaholic]

Airlines file tons of info with the SEC including their average fuel price per pax mile.

Not really sure why they do this. It's not as if those fukks ever play OOC road games anyhoo and wouldn't know what a plane looks like. Besides, all them big numbers would just confuse them.

[Goober McTuber]

Airfares are a joke the way they are quoted today.

We are traveling to Italy this fall. Flying Chicago to Rome. Stay there for several days, take a train to the Naples area for a few days, then an overnight ferry ride to Palermo where we’ll stay for eight days.

I needed to book a flight from Palermo to Rome to catch the return flight to Chicago. I shit you not, it was priced as follows:

2 Adult(s) $ 25.99
Taxes and Fees $ 153.05

Total $ 179.05 USD

[smackaholic]

Airfares are a joke the way they are quoted today.

We are traveling to Italy this fall. Flying Chicago to Rome. Stay there for several days, take a train to the Naples area for a few days, then an overnight ferry ride to Palermo where we’ll stay for eight days.

I needed to book a flight from Palermo to Rome to catch the return flight to Chicago. I shit you not, it was priced as follows:

2 Adult(s) $ 25.99
Taxes and Fees $ 153.05

Total $ 179.05 USD

fukkin' senior citizen discounts rule!!!!!!!

If you've never been there, Rome is amazing. Just make certain your camera or anything else valuable is firmly tethered to your person as those fukkin' dagos WILL attempt to steal it.

if you've never been to Napoli, I suggest you stay on the train a few extra stops, unless trannies and rats the size of a lab. retriever are on your must see list. There is a town that overlooks the sea from the edge of a cliff about an hour south of Naples. Forget the name of it, but it is beautiful and relatively trannie/rat free. And as a service to the board, feel free to jump off the cliff, rather than taking the stairs down to the beach.

Have fun in Sicily and try not to get whacked by the local mafiosi.

[Left Seater]

Both of my Delta flights this past weekend were delayed by more than 2 hours (CLE to JFK and JFK to CLE). But I don't mind that too much. I anticipate long periods of waiting around when I travel by air. So I take my iPad and a book and basically veg out in the terminal until it is time to go.

The thing that drives me nuts, however, is when the plane sits on the taxi-way for long periods for no explicable reason. This seems to happen at ORD more than any other place, although ATL is bad about it too. I've been told that airlines push away from the gate in order to report on-time departures, even though they know there is such a backlog of planes waiting to take off that it is going to be 45 minutes to an hour before the plane can actually depart.

I watched an A-380 take off on Monday. Got to say, that motherfucker is huge and impressive.

The problem with many of the Northeast airports are their layouts. They flat out suck and due to the number of flights thru them delays are damn near impossible to avoid. JFK has two sets of two parallel runways, however they are at 90 degrees to each other and as such all 4 can't be used at the same time. In fact 3 of the runways cross at least one other runway. Contrast that with Dallas which has 8 runways, none of which cross another runway. JFK can have two operations at the same time, while DFW can have 6 at one time. So when the weather is less than ideal, JFK has zero margin to work with.

As for the planes leaving the gate only to inch along the taxiway is due to two factors. The first is they are not added to the departure queue until they are off of the gate. Second that gate is often needed for another flight that just arrived. The airlines would love to have each plane stay at a gate until there is a clear lane to the runway, because they can use ground power vs jet fuel. That however isn't going to happen anytime soon.

Compare these two flights:

Delta flight 73 between JFK and ATL departs 6:50 pm arrives 9:50 pm. Block time of 3 hours over 760 miles.

Southwest flight 203 between PVD and MCO departs 7:25 pm arrives 10:15. Block time of 2 hours 50 minutes over 1072 miles.

So Southwest can go over 300 miles further in less time. This is due to the planned ground time Delta builds into their schedule, which they fully expect to be about an hour.

Here is another example between the same cities:

United flight 1214 between IAH and ORD departs 7:05pm arrives 9:57pm. Block time of 2 hours 42 minutes over 925 miles.

Southwest flight 3398 between HOU and MDW departs 7:55pm arrives 10:15 pm. Block time of 2 hours 20 minutes over 937 miles.


Again United adds a bunch of ground time to the schedule knowing they will need every bit of it.


I agree the A380 taking off is damn impressive. I have zero desire to ride on one though. I can't imagine how long it would take to deplane everyone and then to get them all thru customs and immigration. No thanks.

[Goober McTuber]

Airfares are a joke the way they are quoted today.

We are traveling to Italy this fall. Flying Chicago to Rome. Stay there for several days, take a train to the Naples area for a few days, then an overnight ferry ride to Palermo where we’ll stay for eight days.

I needed to book a flight from Palermo to Rome to catch the return flight to Chicago. I shit you not, it was priced as follows:

2 Adult(s) $ 25.99
Taxes and Fees $ 153.05

Total $ 179.05 USD

fukkin' senior citizen discounts rule!!!!!!!

If you've never been there, Rome is amazing. Just make certain your camera or anything else valuable is firmly tethered to your person as those fukkin' dagos WILL attempt to steal it.

if you've never been to Napoli, I suggest you stay on the train a few extra stops, unless trannies and rats the size of a lab. retriever are on your must see list. There is a town that overlooks the sea from the edge of a cliff about an hour south of Naples. Forget the name of it, but it is beautiful and relatively trannie/rat free. And as a service to the board, feel free to jump off the cliff, rather than taking the stairs down to the beach.

Have fun in Sicily and try not to get whacked by the local mafiosi.

Perhaps the town you are thinking of south of Naples is Sorrento. We will be staying at one of their very best bed and breakfasts, overlooking the sea with a view of Naples.

No worries about Sicily, my in-laws are probably related to the local Mafioso.

[smackaholic]

We are traveling to Italy this fall. Flying Chicago to Rome. Stay there for several days, take a train to the Naples area for a few days, then an overnight ferry ride to Palermo where we’ll stay for eight days.

I needed to book a flight from Palermo to Rome to catch the return flight to Chicago. I shit you not, it was priced as follows:

2 Adult(s) $ 25.99
Taxes and Fees $ 153.05

Total $ 179.05 USD

fukkin' senior citizen discounts rule!!!!!!!

If you've never been there, Rome is amazing. Just make certain your camera or anything else valuable is firmly tethered to your person as those fukkin' dagos WILL attempt to steal it.

if you've never been to Napoli, I suggest you stay on the train a few extra stops, unless trannies and rats the size of a lab. retriever are on your must see list. There is a town that overlooks the sea from the edge of a cliff about an hour south of Naples. Forget the name of it, but it is beautiful and relatively trannie/rat free. And as a service to the board, feel free to jump off the cliff, rather than taking the stairs down to the beach.

Have fun in Sicily and try not to get whacked by the local mafiosi.

Perhaps the town you are thinking of south of Naples is Sorrento. We will be staying at one of their very best bed and breakfasts, overlooking the sea with a view of Naples.

No worries about Sicily, my in-laws are probably related to the local Mafioso.

Holy crap, I think this is a first. A reply from goobs with out any commentary on my IQ or recommendations of self copulation.

I almost feel bad about telling you to jump off that cliff.

Almost.

I think Sorrento is the place. What a beatiful little town. Can't believe I wasted so many port calls in Napoli observing rat herds and fukking around with he-shes.

A few things I remember about that town was some hilarious old pisan liquor store owner who game us some wine purchasing advice.....

disa wine.... eeesssa gooooda to drink. (expensive stuff) disa wine.... eeeesssa goooooda to washa you hands (italian ripple)

the other thing I remember was the baked chicken I had in an outdoor restaurant that may be the single best meal I ever had.

Rack the fukk outta those guinea bastards.

[Goober McTuber]

Holy crap, I think this is a first. A reply from goobs with out any commentary on my IQ or recommendations of self copulation.

Sorry, I was pressed for time. Feel free to go fuck yourself, you slack-jawed halfwit.


This place:

[ucantdoitdoggieSTyle2]

All this talk of Italy. I think it's high time I posted pics of my honeymoon from 2007.

[Goober McTuber]

All this talk of Italy. I think it's high time I posted pics of my honeymoon from 2007.

Be sure to include some pics of you with your wife. That’ll get Scott steamed.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

Be sure to include some pics of you with your wife. That’ll get Scott steamed.

Why you gotta go there, man?


:x


not cool

[smackaholic]

All this talk of Italy. I think it's high time I posted pics of my honeymoon from 2007.

You honeymooned in the north end?

[smackaholic]

Holy crap, I think this is a first. A reply from goobs with out any commentary on my IQ or recommendations of self copulation.

Sorry, I was pressed for time. Feel free to go fuck yourself, you slack-jawed halfwit.


This place:

Yeah, that kinda looks like it. Seems to have been built up quite a bit over the last 25 years.