also, the airlines are supposed to allow military members, on orders, to carry more than the alloted amount. but they werent following the rules.
Why not just take a hop instead of using your hard earned pay on commercial airlines? I doubt the loadmaster of a C-5, C141, or a C-17 will quibble about a 3lb. bag overage.
I agree with SabanFan. Techinically, you should know company procedures before doing business with them.I know no one actually reads the fine print, but that's not really the airlines fault. I work in the hotel business and, like the airline business, our margins can be unbelievably low at times...That forces us to have to tack on extra charges for certain things to make up for the low margins... I think sometimes people forgot that businesses like hotels and airlines are just that, businesses...
While I'm still not happy about the arbitrary heavy bag policy (I somehow still think that a total of 93 pounds is less than half as much as their maximum, yet costs $25 more), I'm VERY VERY happy with OnePass mile redeeming. Headed to the FINAL FOUR via Chicago and got 1st class up there, and coach return for a total of 35,000. Now I'm not thrilled about the $55 service charge, but that beats the hell outta $400+!!
25,000 skymiles on Delta gets you coach round trip from ATL to Indianapolis. I have enough Hertz points to get a Jag for a two day rental. If only I could get off work.
Wrong, I use to work in the airline industry. Airlines should be in the business of making money but they have turned into a government welfare program. They don't spend their money wisely. This isn't the first time United has been bailed out by the taxpayers if I recall correctly. Southwest is the model, they don't spend money they don't have. Southwest and Frontier are like the Walmarts of the industry, non-union. Another part of the airline welfare industry is just like GM and other American companies, the union salaries not to mention the retirement programs the industry couldn't afford to pay. Why can't they afford this, many reasons including CEO's big salaries as they cut back pay for employees. When I worked at US Air we agreed to lower wages and people were layed off including myself but the CEOs and other higher ups didn't take a hit. Just about every airline has been bailed out by the government at one time or another, some more than once. I really do think its time we quit bailing out the airlines and just maybe we will get a better industry to rise out of the ashes of the old one.
Southwest and Frontier cannot be the model for the big carriers. There operations are too different. Southwest services tourist destinations and flies one type of plane. You can't get to Soiux Falls, Minniapolis, or Wichita Kansas on a discount carrier. Delta is my lifeline because they or their partners can get me anywhere in the world that I need to go. They could severly cut back their operations and operate like Southwest, but American business travalers would suffer greatly. Executives at the airlines are taking big hits now, and so are the automaker executives. Man, I thought long and hard about this one. I do not see how anyone could provide the services that the legacy carriers do and be profitable.
Its actually pretty simple... There are too many carriers to sustain the airline industry in its present form. There are too many routes from the carriers going to the same place. What this means is that this is a really good deal for consumers but consumers are also taxpayers that are bailing out the industry. Consumers will always pay the price for this. Executives may be taking a hit now but they sure didn't for a number of years like their employees did, some of those CEO's cut and ran away with their nice little share of the pie, Wolf was his name at US Airways I believe. There isn't that much difference in the way airlines are run. Airline operations are basically the same with the exception of routes, planes, etc. There is when you consider that a lot of major carriers don't spend money wisely. How is it that United can declare bankruptcy but yet afford to paint their old planes with new colors and buy new planes when they could use some of the fleet they already have instead? Is it really necessary to paint old planes when you don't have that kind of money and your employees are taking pay cuts. The Unions and retirement pensions are another problem that has drained the system. Ticket prices are lower now more so then ever before, even if they are the same the wages have gone up over the years, number of retirees also. Just like social security system is being drained. All of these are factors in the airline industry. I'm not saying I have all the answers, far from it but there are issues that haven't been addressed and I know that these airlines could trim there expenses some and not waste so much money on some things. These are some things I learned when I worked inside the industry.
