No room at the inn—or on the airplane?
Is anyone else trying to travel over the holidays? Anyone else having trouble?
My already-rescheduled flight, due to leave this evening, was unceremoniously (and unapologetically) canceled last night by the airline, which informed me via a terse email with the eye-catching title: “your canceled flight.”
I know there are much worse things; this is an the nature of an inconvenience. But we have grown used to (and fond of) the conveniences of modern life, including the ability to magically cross the country in a single evening while nodding to the rhythm of our ipods or gazing at mini-TVs with glazed eyes . In fact, we rely on it, to visit far-flung friends and loved ones. But this particular cancellation was especially difficult because (a) weather in both places was supposed to be fine at the time of the flight, and (b) alternatives have dwindled down to a precious few, if that.
Yes, everyone’s in pretty much the same boat—or bus, or train, or plane—or not, as the case may be. The weather has been extraordinarily harsh in so many areas of the country that travel is affected even in cities that should be clear. In the case of my erstwhile flight, the problem appeared to be a crew and a plane that could not be gotten from point A to point B in time for the flight and in accordance with regulations.
Ordinarily this would not be a problem; a person could just go the next day. But I have never seen so few available flights as now. And the ones that are have prices that sound almost funny: two thousand dollars to get from coast to coast, making three stops along the way, and on Christmas Day? Sure, why not—sounds like a bargain.
Actually, now that I’ve vented sufficiently, I will say that yesterday evening I managed to find an alternative far more reasonable, although it does involve the now-obligatory stop and plane change. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate.
So this Christmas season, may everyone’s travel plans go without a hitch. May you get all the presents you want—and also that most special present of all, the presence of those you love.
Well, I for one, hope you get wherever you are going. Me I’m just going to sit here and wait the weather out.
I know there are much worse things; this is an the nature of an inconvenience. But we have grown used to (and fond of) the conveniences of modern life…
Ordinarily this would not be a problem; a person could just go the next day. But I have never seen so few available flights as now. And the ones that are have prices that sound almost funny: two thousand dollars to get from coast to coast
your used to LUXURIES, what the rich only could have… Socialism has been going for 40 years, and we are verging on change since we are anemic from the parasites. Is it really any wonder that the Bourgeois luxuries are being taken off the table?
Dont you remember that the thing the old money hated most was that new money let all the riff raff in? After all capitalism means that one has to sit in a plane seat and tolerate the average… since capitalism raises the living of everyone, which increases the number at the top from what it woud be wkithout it. look at russia, their disparity is how much compared to ours? and we are copying them!
when no one owns anyting, then only the few at the top will be able to travel, eat, play, and live in peace at all the best spots without worrying that there arent enough seats, the riff raff will spoil it, the beach will be crowded. [this is what it was like and is like in the socialist states, you eat dirt, they eat caviar – and you both are equal!!!!]
they are doing through money and policy what overt power did before.
“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline
to the levels in Europe.” – Dr Steven Chu, Obama’s selection for the Energy post.
i would go down the list of what they think are Bourgeois things and check out what we will be losing through soft annoyance action which makes it too much trouble.
travel, pets, foods, music, art, energy, sculpture, aesthetics, literature, mobility, freedom to think, and lots more are all considered Bourgeois (middle class).
since i get too big… i hope people get my references..
A Simple Example Of Communal Decline
A Letter From South Africa by Jim Peron (September 1998)
When a country begins sliding into oblivion it really is the little things that get to you. You wake up in the morning and turn to see what time it is. The clock is off. The electricity is off again. Sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for a few hours, but it seems to happen more regularly than before.
You pick up the phone at work to make a call. Nothing. Your neighborhood is without telephone service again. You breathe a sigh of relief–at least if all the phones are out, they’ll do something relatively soon to fix it. If it’s just your own line, it can take days before they’ll do anything.
in the paper recently:
Britain could face regular blackouts within seven years if the Government does not intervene in the energy market to ensure that more power stations are built, the head of National Grid says today.
the more the state controls. the more innefficient it is. they are so over regulated that they cant make a profit except by odd solutions.
like dropping a flight at the last minute to cause everyone to scramble and fill up their other flights to 100%… and dumping the 25% that would cause a flight to lose money, but no longer can be written off as a loss.
de-icing, and other things cost a lot of money, and so your going to find that the luxuries that you ahve become used to are going to seriously decline.
before you were the frog in the frying pan, and you couldnt tell or made up some reason that excused it… even tradition!!!
but now the changes are going to accelerate, since we have reached critical mass. and so, as in pysics we are about to experience a ‘state’ change…
we can no longer even put our finger on why, its just all over…
but that IS what a society in fast decline is like… workers who hate their customers. most either getting taxes or working for the state… the state against the people. state printing money to remove money from peoples savings to keep them working…
laws so complicated that everyone is guilty of soemthing, thereby facilitating the legal terror that has started years ago, but in special areas.. like family law, drug forfieture… no we have drunk driving forfieture (where they dont prove that the person was drunk), and new soon to arrive, noise forfeiture… we have cops torturing people regularly with tasers, and we refuse to note the higher civilian rates of death where the level of weaker officers due to affirmative action are.
our schools are no where near what they were…
yet we cant remember anything but the propaganda (nwo they are suprised to discover that greek women were not the way that feminists said! same will soon be discovered as to the victorian women who were better educated, better styled, better all around… )
since i am trying not to be long your going to have to follow it.
1960’s — CONFESSIONS OF A NON-HIPPIE #13 — EASTPORT HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT HANDBOOK, 1969-1970 civillascybercafe.blogspot.com/2008/12/1960s-confessions-of-non-hippie-13.html
Read this post to see how far we’ve come as far as manners and dress go. My brother’s wife, Marty, recently sent me a couple of boxes of old stuff that she found in the attic of my parent’s house.
Rummaging through the boxes of mementos — dolls, photographs, nick-nacks, books and papers, I came across this little booklet: “Eastport (N.Y.) High School, Student Handbook 1969-1970. It was mine when I was a senior in high school during that school year. (This was public school, by the way.)
Page 14 started a chapter on “Citizenship and Manners at School”. I will print the chapter in its entirety, although is a little lengthy, to show what was expected of public school students back then, and to show how far we’ve come.
there are also some tests and things from the 1800s, they put todays students to shame!!!!
we used to have high standards.
this is all a part of it… one cant run a large complicated industry like the air line, and not have to deal with the liabilities of the population in which you are trapped dealing with!!!!
darn, too long…
The General Impact Of The Decline Of A Civilization
by Philip Atkinson
When a civilization declines it goes into reverse with all the wealth, power and wisdom realised by its rise being discarded at an ever increasing rate until dissolution. The people will discover that:
1. The quality of goods and services falls as the cost increases; and this corruption extends into every aspect of their existence, from the faltering quality of bread to the growing inconstancy of love.
ii. Order will be increasingly eroded.
Tyranny and injustice will reign as delusion triumphs and the community dissolves into impotence. But this will never be generally recognized because the source of the disease is the waning of citizens’ comprehension A decay made palpable by the disappearance of plain speaking. .
Such a society is no longer engaged in creating a human heaven on earth, but is earnestly constructing the very opposite where:
i. The worst people get rewarded while the best get penalized.
ii. The education system can only spread delusion.
iii. The bureaucracy becomes a liability instead of an asset.
iv. The courts must promote injustice.
However this will always be denied because truth will be vanquished by lies.
==============
and that applies to your situation in that the more we move into this, the less you can rely on complex systems.
well, when that is how large beauracracies are, then thats how they are run. they tend to punish their customers for not givng them more money for less service! (what your describing neo). they tend to be more and more invasive, the customers tend to look more like cattle. except for the wealthy. they tend to look to the government to remove compettion rather than be better, and they tend to look at their customers as a hastle.
under the socialist matrist system your qualities for success are:
The essential quality for success in the community, circa 2000 A.D., is incompetence, supported by delusion and driven by conceit–selfishness.
at what point does a general lack of respsct percieved by customers having to deal with people hired from the general public? this is the result of going from patrist, to matrist society… which is what we have now…
the airlines are no longer hiring the best people, affirmative action and diversity insures that they get placed by appoinment (ergo, they cant do the work).
the people that are there who are bad, are protected and unlike the good, willing to work the system. you try to fire someone that cant do the job! your going to get a discrimination suit for any number of things..
there is no competition thanks to the state.. one cant start a new airline any more than one can start a new oil company. yeah jet blue… right… and how hamstrung are they just like the others?
neo… what did you think teaching selfishness and the progressive stuff would lead to? coupled with regressive school, class politics, and regulations trying to control from on high..
it leads to workers that dont want to work that are willing to go to court and lose, and waist tons of resources. people who dont care… the promoting of incompetents to make the population of the beuracracy gray…
merit is replaced by ideology…
this is the result of that…
let me know how many world wide air companies that russia, north korea, cuba, etc run…
25 years as an airline pilot provided me with some insight into the business. For me one of the great satisfactions of the job was seeing families, lovers, friends, and business people happy to arrive where they would do their business, reunite with families, etc. I felt that I was a part of a service that was very valuable to people.
However, we had our weather problems during the holidays. I can remember being snowed in in Buffalo for three days one Christmas. When we did finally depart with a full airplane, the runway was a black icy streak in a vast landscape of deep snow. I have also had to divert to better weather airports when approaches became unsafe due to low visibility, high winds, and slick runways.
Several things have caused the problems that the airlines are having today.
1.Deregulation increased the number of airlines and lowered fairs. Unfortunately, the FAA which controls Air Traffic Control (ATC) has never updated the ATC system. They are still using 1960s technology to control a vastly expanded number of airplanes on the airways. Thus the delays and cancellations that eveyone has become familiar with in recent years.
2.Deregulation led to a race to the bottom on fares and service. When the public became accustomed to low fares and the airlines were barely making any money, an increase in jet fuel prices wreaked havoc on the airlines’ ability to make enough money to stay in business.
3. Deregulation led to the end of air mail contracts for the airlines. Those contracts helped the airlines even out their revenues during lean times and allowed them to service small cities that have lost air service today.
4. The airlines are only deregulated as far as how much they charge for a ticket and where they can fly. They are closely regulated by the FAA as to training for pilots and mechanics, maintenance standards, and, of course, the ATC owns the highways in the sky which the airlines use. Additionally, the cities own and regulate the airports where the airlines takeoff and land. Some cities like New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles charge high landing fees and restrict access to their airports because the demand is so great. Thus, a lot of things that happen are beyond the control of the airlines.
5. There have been very few new runways built in the U.S. in the last 25 years. If air travel continues to grow, more runways will be needed and the ATC must modernize and streamline its control procedures to be able to handle larger volumes of aircraft in the air. Otherwise flying will become like driving on a choked up freeway with many delays and lack of control over schedules.
6. During the high jet fuel prices of this summer the airlines planned for big cutbacks in service for this fall and winter. The result has been fewer flights and less choice for passengers. The airlines expected business to drop off a lot more than it has thus far. So, they are less able to meet demand. Add in a nationwide storm system such as we have been experiencing and it can make for many interrupted or cancelled travel plans.
I always said when I was working that anyone who made travel plans for Christmas – New Years period needed the patience of Job and an ability to gotten better in the 15 years since I flew my last flight.
Something happened at the end of my comment.
It should read: “….the patience of Job and an ability to smile in the face of adversity. Unfortunately, things have not gotten better in the 15 years since I flew my last flight.”
You’ve been having a bit of a crappy time this winter between the flight cancellations and electrical outages.
Thankfully, you’ve discovered a wine you like. Don’t underestimate the amazing power of drink to take the edge off a trying time.
There is a reason adventurers and explorers of old never went anywhere without schnapps, brandy and whiskey.
Well, real adventurers and explorers, not “eco-tourists”, “fitness climbers” or “extreme campers”….
Safe travels, neoneocon.
Hubby and I are homebodies — we never travel over the holidays. This year we’re enjoying a rare rainy spell in SoCal.
Well, I hope you get to where you are going within a reasonable time frame.
Earlier this year the airlines canceled many thousands of flights in an effort to save money because of fuel costs. They are trying to have fewer flights but the fewer flights will be more packed. And there is less margin for error. If you are making connecting flights, you will wait longer for your connection. And if something happens when you are at another airport waiting for your connection and something goes wrong… well you are truly f****d.
My wife and I traveled to the Big Island of Hawai’i in early September after Labor Day. We booked the flight and package back in early April, because we thought that fares would be going much higher as oil prices kept going up. By June there were already two changes to our itinerary. By August there had been SIX changes to our itinerary. We had many hours at LAX waiting for our connecting flight to Kailua-Kona. Coming home was a true test of our endurance. Besides a five hour layover at LAX, when we got to St. Louis on the way to Boston the jet we were on had engine trouble. We had to de-plane while they tested the engine and eventually we had to be held over in St. Louis for four hours waiting for a flight from Orlando that would be sent on to Boston.
Coming home we were up 36 hours total. That didn’t include the fact that we had to drive home from the hotel in Saugus, MA where we had left our car.
Travel today IS NOT FUN. It is an endurance test. Try finding an eatery in an airport in between connections that does not have a waiting line a half hour long. You have to eat on the ground because they ‘aint feedin’ ya in the air. The wife and I pack snacks in our carry ons for long flights.
Fred:Travel today IS NOT FUN. It is an endurance test. Unfortunately, I have to agree with you. Of the last three trips I took, one had an overnight stay at an airport hotel paid by the airline, and the other got in two hours late, ruining my plan to take public transportation out of the airport, because the last bus left five minutes before my plane arrived.
Travel by train is neither cheap nor fast, but it is enjoyable. I also find it much easier to read on a train than on a plane. With a plane these days, you shut your eyes, block your nose, and jump into the muck.
Trying to make a connecting flight, Saturday I had three flights canceled and expected to spend the night sleeping on the terminal floor at JFK.
Mysteriously, after my 10:45pm flight was canceled, an airline rep found me an opening on a 6:30pm flight which was only delayed three times, and I arrived at my sister’s home in Boston four hours later.
JimmyJ…you’ve probably already seen this…it’s pretty cute.