Airlines...
I know this blog has no political content, but it's subject pisses me off just about as much as the republicans calling my crowd "anti-Christian." This morning I have been searching for flights from Tampa, FL to Wilmington, NC next month and I'm baffled by what I'm seeing. I go to the major discount websites and enter my cities and dates and what time I want to fly... nothing available that reasonably fits my schedule. So I decide to go to USAirways.com and see what's over there... still no luck with an evening flight on a Friday night (good line for a song, innit?). Delta is my last hope. I've never had this much trouble finding flights on non-holiday weekends, what's going on? I enter my cities and dates and times... bingo! The times work.
But wait, the return flight has a problem. This can't be right... And then I'm staring directly at the reason why the airline industry in this country sucks and is going bankrupt company by company. My return flight has me going from Wilmington to Cincinnati, to Birmingham, to Tampa. To travel 650 miles I have to fly 2,000 miles. And the most ridiculous part of the whole damn stupid deal is that that trip will cost exactly $1.69 more than an option to fly Wilmington to Cincinnati, to Tampa on the same morning. So, the airline wants me to spend an extra hour and a half in an airplane and an extra 2 hours in an airport (I'm compensating for the inevitable flight delay) AND spend an extra $1.69 to unnecessarily add one more flight to my trip? And we continue to spend millions if not BILLIONS of dollars keeping these companies afloat when they go bankrupt?
Here's a thought, how about we get the five-year-olds out of the flight scheduling department and save the customer $1.69 and the company thousands, maybe millions in the long term. I've never seen a more idiotic way of doing things.
I will find two flights that work for me and I will get to my destination and home without going through Birmingham, AL. But the fact that that schedule is even an option explains to me that the industry has a long way to go before the bankruptcies end and some common sense begins.
But wait, the return flight has a problem. This can't be right... And then I'm staring directly at the reason why the airline industry in this country sucks and is going bankrupt company by company. My return flight has me going from Wilmington to Cincinnati, to Birmingham, to Tampa. To travel 650 miles I have to fly 2,000 miles. And the most ridiculous part of the whole damn stupid deal is that that trip will cost exactly $1.69 more than an option to fly Wilmington to Cincinnati, to Tampa on the same morning. So, the airline wants me to spend an extra hour and a half in an airplane and an extra 2 hours in an airport (I'm compensating for the inevitable flight delay) AND spend an extra $1.69 to unnecessarily add one more flight to my trip? And we continue to spend millions if not BILLIONS of dollars keeping these companies afloat when they go bankrupt?
Here's a thought, how about we get the five-year-olds out of the flight scheduling department and save the customer $1.69 and the company thousands, maybe millions in the long term. I've never seen a more idiotic way of doing things.
I will find two flights that work for me and I will get to my destination and home without going through Birmingham, AL. But the fact that that schedule is even an option explains to me that the industry has a long way to go before the bankruptcies end and some common sense begins.
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