What is going on with the Airlines? First, as I previously posted, it was the man who’s luggage was peed in while being handled by Delta. Now this…
It’s getting to be like traveling in a Third World Country….
From AOL News:
A drunk male passenger was caught peeing on a sleeping 11-year old girl on a JFK-bound JetBlue flight on Wednesday.
18-year old Robert Vietze of South Warren, Vermont was on a red eye flight from Portland, Oregon when he started peeing on a sleeping 11-year old girl who was traveling with her sister and father, the New York Post reports.
Vietze was drunk, having consumed eight drinks, and stumbled five rows behind him (presumably towards the bathroom?!) when he started peeing on the girl. The girl’s family was using the bathroom at the time.
“I was drunk, and I did not realize I was pissing on her leg,” the 6-foot-4, 195-pound Vietze told law enforcement.
The unidentified girl’s father caught Vietze peeing on his daughter and started screaming, “F— that kid! I don’t want him near my family!” a fellow passenger told the Post.
Flight attendants separated the father and Vietze, whom they moved to the back of the plane. They also tried to clean up the pee with soap from the bathrooms.
Yet the already exciting flight was far from over. An hour before the plane landed, another passenger started complaining of chest pains and vomited. The pilot addressed the plane, asking “Is anybody on this flight a nurse or doctor? We have a medical emergency.” Yet no one stepped forward so flight attendants worked to keep him calm.
A witness told the Post that the pilots “kept coming out of the cockpit to talk to the flight crew about what was going on.”
Six Port Authority cops greeted the plane when it landed at 6:30am. Two helped the sick passenger while four carted Vietze into custody.
Vietze has been issued a federal summons for indecent exposure.
This is not, surprisingly, the first time a passenger has peed on another under the influence of alcohol. Back in June, a drunk New Zealand man on a Jetstar flight from Auckland to Singapore peed on the plane’s carpet, a man’s leg and a woman’s scarf after drinking whiskey out of Burger King cups with friends. The man, Michael Aitkin, eventually came forward and apologized profusely to his fellow passengers for his actions.
Someone at the Delta Airlines and in the U.S. Government needs to step up and speak up about this…all I can think about is Hitler’s special laws for Jews. This is so wrong I feel like I’ve been slapped in the face.
And I am sick of the U.S. Government and U.S. Businesses cozying up to the repressive regime in Saudi Arabia, in general, because of their oil and money.
I’ll never forget Bush, Jr groveling and practically kissing the ring of the Saudi’s and then strolling around happily, literally, hand-in-hand with them when they came to visit him.
Oil and money really are trumping everything else today. That’s got to stop.
Apparently standing up against something that is wrong on principle is a long lost American trait. Now our government and businesses are acting like hookers who’ll lay down and do anything for the right price.
If these are the conditions of doing business with Saudi Arabia, then Delta should be forced to just say no….
Jews and Israelis, or passengers carrying any non-Islamic article of faith, will not be able to fly code-share flights from the U.S. to Saudi Arabia under Delta Air Line’s new partnership with Saudi Arabian Airlines that is set to begin in 2012.
Although Delta announced in January that the Saudi airline would join its SkyTeam network next year, the implications of the deal only came to light recently, according to people who have scrutinized the details.
Saudi Arabia, which is governed by strict Islamic law, requires citizens of almost every country to obtain a visa. People who wish to enter the country must have a sponsor; women, who must be dressed according to Saudi standards of modesty, must be met at the Saudi airport by a man who will act as a chaperone.
Saudi Arabia bans anyone with an Israeli stamp in their passport from entering the country, even in transit. Many Jews believe the kingdom has also withheld visas from travelers with Jewish-sounding names.
Religious items such as Bibles that are not related to Islam may be confiscated at the airport.
Colby M. May, senior counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative legal group founded by religious broadcaster Pat Robertson, said his office is trying to determine if the agreement runs afoul of U.S. law.
“The very idea that there is a common carrier airline service that would deny an American citizen in America access to their services because they are Jewish or have religious items such as a yarmulke, a cross or a priestly collar, is deeply disturbing,” May said.
May said he is “trying to get answers” from Delta.
“They have not responded in a way that answers the question,” he said. “Hopefully they’ll do so.”
In a statement to Religion News Service on Thursday (June 23), Delta said it “does not discriminate, nor do we condone discrimination against any protected class of passenger in regards to age, race, nationality, religion, or gender.”
The airline, which did not deny the new policy, insisted that it has no control over who may fly to Saudi Arabia.
How about pissing in your luggage? That’s a sure way to ruin a trip…
This guy from Britain had an even worse experience with Delta than I’ve ever had with USAirways. I used to fly Delta and remember them fondly as being much classier and polite than those cattle cars in the sky run by USAirways. This kind of destroys those happy memories of made-to-order Ice Cream Sundies by smiling Stewardesses.
At least USAirways has never used my Tumi as a toilet.
Another reason to hate the US Airlines…As if we needed another reason.
But this is truly despicable. Charging checked baggage fees to soldiers returning from fighting in Afghanistan????
Unbelievable…
From Gadling.com:
A team of returning soldiers from Afghanistan was hit with an unpleasant surprise upon their arrival into the United States this morning. The squadron, bringing a full load of gear with them back from the Central Asia was sacked with the baggage fees in place at Delta Air Lines, which, despite the agreement that they have with the armed forces charged the soldiers extra baggage fees.
In sum, the group spent nearly $2800 in baggage fees for their gear, money that had to come straight out of their pockets.
Why do I have the sneaking suspicion this is to discourage International travel by US Citizens so they won’t realize how bad some things are here compared to the rest of the world….
Little things like Internet Service and Mass Transit that work much better in other countries than here….
And god forbid the travel on an airline like Virgin Atlantic, British Airways, Air France or Singapore Airlines that show how flying should be- not how the flying cattle cars that pass for US airlines do it….
Oh, and fresh food that isn’t full of additives and mass-produced on corporate farms….
Just little things….
From ConsumerTraveler.com:
The U.S. Department of State is proposing a new Biographical Questionnaire for some passport applicants: The proposed new Form DS-5513 asks for all addresses since birth; lifetime employment history including employers’ and supervisors names, addresses, and telephone numbers; personal details of all siblings; mother’s address one year prior to your birth; any “religious ceremony” around the time of birth; and a variety of other information. According to the proposed form, “failure to provide the information requested may result in … the denial of your U.S. passport application.”
The State Department estimated that the average respondent would be able to compile all this information in just 45 minutes, which is obviously absurd given the amount of research that is likely to be required to even attempt to complete the form.
Since I’m currently in the middle of business trip, this seemed appropriate to share…
I can’t believe USAirways didn’t take top dishonors in every category. They are truly a horrible airline in every conceivable way…
From the Gadling.com:
2011’s Airline Quality Report came out this month, which means that it’s time to distill out the industry leaders in a variety of categories, from on-time departures to lost bags to general happiness among passengers. Reporting on the best of the best is only half as fun as vilifying the worst though, so Yahoo and US News took the liberty of sorting out the worst performers in each category and hanging their decapitated bodies in the public square for everyone to shame. Among the losers this year:
Meanest major carrier: United Airlines
Meanest regional carrier: American Eagle
Most complained about airline: Delta Air Lines
Most likely to be unsafe: Jetblue
Most likely to overcharge for bags: Delta / US Airways / Continental
Most likely to bump you: American Eagle
Most likely to be late: Comair
Most likely to mishandle your bag: American Eagle
Daunting stuff, right? Maybe. Bear in mind, that the AQR samples a limited data set over a limited market, and that the term “worst” doesn’t necessarily mean that service is bad. American Eagle, for example, mishandles 7.15 bags for every thousand that go through its hands. The best carrier? Air Tran at 1.63 per thousand. That’s 1 drop in the bucket versus 1.0002 drops in the bucket.
Our suggestion? If you really want to figure out why each airline performed the worst in its own category then download the AQR yourself and flip through the data. It’s the only way you can get an accurate gauge of quality.
First of all, I’m amazed that I can blog from an airplane 37000 feet in the air while I’m traveling to Phoenix on a business trip. It’s so cool to be able to access the internet in flight, but I’m so thankful they still don’t let people use cell phones. This is as good as it gets while traveling….
I’m sitting here listening to Spencer Lewis on my iPod while I type this…I’ve flown cross-country and around the world with Spencer more times than I can count and he’s never known. Maybe he will now. His music makes it so easy to create my own peaceful, pleasant bubble while surrounded by travel madness.
And travel is madness now. There is no longer anything pleasant about it. Planes are packed solid and less comfortable than the old Greyhound Buses. The airlines are out to get every penny they can from you any way they can. Customer service is non-existent.
And my fellow travelers…
I frequently think of the old Noel Coward song: “Why Do the Wrong People Travel?”
So many of them complain constantly and I don’t know why. Sure, its miserable to travel, but why do people have to wallow in it? Why can’t they just make the best of it and muddle through.
I will offer them a few travel pointers:
Never argue with the airline. You will not win. They do not care and you will only raise your blood pressure.
When your flight is delayed and you originally only had 30 minutes to make your connection, do not complain loudly to anyone and everyone within ear shot. Yes, we realize you are going to miss your connection and we do not care. You should never have booked a flight with a connection that tight in the first place. We should all know better by now. I certainly do.
If it is cold enough for you to think you need to wear a sweat shirt, it is too cold to wear flip-flops, so don’t complain loudly about your feet being cold.
If you are a man over 40, and certainly over 50, you have no excuse for wearing shorts on a plane. No one wants to see your legs anymore. Where is your sense of dignity, man?
When you travel, you are on an airplane. They do now have the internet, but they do not yet have gyms. Dress accordingly. No need to wear your workout clothes…
It is beyond tacky to bring a whole box of Bojangles Chicken on the plane and eat it by yourself. Yes, someone is doing that a couple of rows behind me…
That’s it for now. I’m going to put up the laptop and go back to listening to Spencer Lewis on my iPod with my Bose noise reduction headphones and reading my Kindle.
I’ve learned these are all necessities for my frequent travel in today’s world. They help me pretend to be anywhere but where I am. This is one moment I do not need to be in….
I just had to take advantage of the moment and the access to all this new technology.
I’m just back from a trip, so I decided to revise and re-run one of my older posts. It’s still accurate, but I needed to add a couple of points. I’ve never seen an industry go downhill as fast as the airlines. They have used 9/11 as an excuse to avoid any attempts at Customer service. After our tax dollars bailed them out.
Think about that, those of you who don’t want to extend unemployment benefits. We bail out entire incompetently run businesses, then people complain if we try to help the average person…
One of the reasons I don’t post as often as I might like is that I travel on business about 50% of the time. I’ve been doing this for almost 15 years now and I’ve really seen first hand the decline in quality of life for airline travelers. A lot of it– most of it– is the fault of the airlines, but my fellow travelers are also contributing heavily to the unpleasantness of travel through their own behavior. Here are 10 suggestions I think would improve the process for all of us.
1.Weld all airline seats to a stationary position. I’m tired of some drunken businessman laying in my lap and blocking my reading light all the way across the country. I never recline my seat. Not only does this lead to poor posture, I find the seat is even more uncomfortable reclined than upright. Exceptions would be made for overnight flights only.
2. Allow pets in the cabin and put ill-behaved children in the cargo hold in pet carriers. Not only would it deter terrorists if we had numerous dogs loose in the cabin, it would be much more pleasant than having some kid kicking your seat from coast to coast, screaming and crying at the top of their lungs or whining unattractively.
3. Either increase the width of the seat or enforce the policy for severely over weight people to have to buy two seats. God knows I could lose a few pounds and I hate to say this, but it really makes for an uncomfortable flight if the person next to you taking half of your space. If you have spent 5 hours hanging halfway into the aisle or unable to move your shoulders because the person next to you takes up so much space, you will know what I mean.
4. Limit carry on bags and enforce the limits. I’m sick and tired of people practically dragging steamer trunks onto 30 seater planes, then seeming amazed that they don’t fit in the overhead.
5. Deliver checked luggage in a timely manner. We now have to pay the airlines to handle checked baggage, so they should handle it quickly. I’m tired of waiting up to 45 minutes after landing for my bags to arrive.
6. Ban carry on food. Either provide it or sell it, but don’t make me smell a meatball sub for hours in a confined, ill-ventilated space.
7. Define “weather” delays so the airlines don’t use it as a catch-all excuse not to staff or schedule appropriately or pay for hotel rooms for passengers they leave stranded. I’ve seen the airlines use this excuse too many times when they strand people for several days due to canceled flights when there either is no weather issue or it was several days previous to the delay or cancellation.
8. Don’t let airlines claim an “on time” departure from pushback from the gate. Require it to be when the plane actually is airborne. This would greatly reduce the time spent sitting on planes on the tarmac.
9. Start calling “Flight Attendants” Stewards and Stewardesses again. This might bring their attitudes down a notch and make them a little less uppity and mean.
10. Ban Flip Flops. If, god forbid, there were an emergency these fools would cause half the people on the plane to die because they don’t have appropriate footwear. Just think if there was a fire, crash landing, etc. Would you want to be crawling over hot, tangled metal shoeless or with little pieces of plastic melted to your feet? These people would delay the process and endanger everyone on the plane. This isn’t just a style preference, this is a safety issue.
11. Make people dress appropriately for travel in all other ways. If you wear shorts and a tank top on a plane, you should expect to be cold. Don’t make them turn down the air conditioning so those of us who are dressed appropriately for travel, burn up.
12. Nationalize the airlines and start over by reselling them to someone with a viable new business plan and customer focused strategy. We’ve gone so far downhill, this may be the only true fix….
13. Remove the requirement that the Airlines be majority US owned. I’m thinking Richard Branson. Virgin Atlantic is a wonderful airline. It seems only American’s no longer know how to run an airline. Other countries do this much better…either learn from them or let them go ahead and run ours.
14. Make them clean the damn planes. I actually found a used diaper in my seat back pocket once. When the stewards and stewardess come down the aisle to collect trash, I’m thinking we should all start keeping it and throwing it in the floor before we leave. That may be the only way to force them to clean the planes. Now, they expect us to do that ourselves, too.
More to come…I’ve got 3 more business trips over the next month or so…
As most of you know, I consider USAirways the worst airline ever. The competition is stiff, but they win by a large margin.
They are just disgusting. Not only do they nickle and dime you to death, treat you rudely and leave you stranded for days at a time, they never clean their planes. They are filthy. Flying cesspools, as my doctor says…
I just found this video on YouTube about one of their planes that was so infested with maggots and had to turn back to the gate.
Tell me again, we have the best of everything in America…..I still won’t believe you. Stuff like this does not happen on Virgin-Atlantic or some of the other top notch foreign airlines. And I have to fly with these fools again in a couple of weeks…
Just when you think they airlines can’t screw up any worse than they already have….Of course, knowing how incompetent and uncaring the airlines are, who in their right mind would trust their kids to the airlines?
Delta Air Lines blamed a paperwork mix-up for sending two children to the wrong cities as they flew under the airline’s unaccompanied minors program.
Delta said the children were connecting through Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Tuesday when they were put on the wrong connecting flights because of a “paperwork swap.”
Delta spokesman Paul Skrbec on Wednesday said a boy ended up in Cleveland instead of Boston while a girl was sent to Boston instead of Cleveland. He would not release information about the children, citing passenger privacy.
RT @SpiroAgnewGhost: 50 years ago tomorrow, 3/21/1973.
WH Counsel John Dean to Nixon:
“…there’s no doubt about the seriousness of the p… www.Lostinthe21stCentury.com 7 hours ago
RT @krassenstein: BREAKING: The #MAGABudgetDisaster that Kevin McCarthy wants is so bad that it’s trending on Twitter.
Republicans plan… www.Lostinthe21stCentury.com 7 hours ago
RT @StormyDaniels: That I have a strong stomach and no gag reflex? www.Lostinthe21stCentury.com 7 hours ago
RT @7Veritas4: Trump is not going to be comfortable with the concept of self-surrender.
We’ll say he’s needed in NY to accept an award…fro… www.Lostinthe21stCentury.com 8 hours ago
Lost in the 21st Century 
Some Thoughts from 37000 Feet
First of all, I’m amazed that I can blog from an airplane 37000 feet in the air while I’m traveling to Phoenix on a business trip. It’s so cool to be able to access the internet in flight, but I’m so thankful they still don’t let people use cell phones. This is as good as it gets while traveling….
I’m sitting here listening to Spencer Lewis on my iPod while I type this…I’ve flown cross-country and around the world with Spencer more times than I can count and he’s never known. Maybe he will now. His music makes it so easy to create my own peaceful, pleasant bubble while surrounded by travel madness.
And travel is madness now. There is no longer anything pleasant about it. Planes are packed solid and less comfortable than the old Greyhound Buses. The airlines are out to get every penny they can from you any way they can. Customer service is non-existent.
And my fellow travelers…
I frequently think of the old Noel Coward song: “Why Do the Wrong People Travel?”
So many of them complain constantly and I don’t know why. Sure, its miserable to travel, but why do people have to wallow in it? Why can’t they just make the best of it and muddle through.
I will offer them a few travel pointers:
That’s it for now. I’m going to put up the laptop and go back to listening to Spencer Lewis on my iPod with my Bose noise reduction headphones and reading my Kindle.
I’ve learned these are all necessities for my frequent travel in today’s world. They help me pretend to be anywhere but where I am. This is one moment I do not need to be in….
I just had to take advantage of the moment and the access to all this new technology.
Share this:
Like this:
2 Comments
Filed under Scott's Commentary, Travel
Tagged as airlines, Internet, Social Commentary, the south, travel