US Airways Dividend Miles (Pre-FlightFund Merger) - Inmates Running the Asylum

Show up at White Plains at 4:50 PM for a 5:30 Express flight to Philly, and they are calling final boarding, and looking for me and another guy by name over the PA. I try to rush Security, and TSA decides to show me who's boss. I commute to Florida this time of year, so the majority of my hand luggage is mail. They give me the best workout I've had since basic training in the Air Force, including threatening to hold me there if I don't stop looking away (I'm trying to get the US gate agent's attention, since she is buttoning up the flight a half hour early, and TSA says I can't tell them I'm there). It was bizarre. TSA, in some locations, is a power trip with a rubber glove. It often seems they are particularly onerous in these subuurban airports, where they often outnumber the passengers on some flights. I finally get released by TSA, and rush to the gate (there are only 4, and they are all within sight). I ask the agent if this is new company policy, calling flights a half hour early. She obfuscates, mutters something about "everybody was here, so we thought we'd go early". I respond that if you want a 5 PM flight, then schedule it at that time, and I board, wondering why I still get on these things every week. We arrive in Philly, and I stop in F Terminal to ask the duty manager if it has become company policy to push flights up to 30 minutes early. No such animal, I'm told, and I go off, just shaking my head, as I ponder a company where a line employee can override the VP-Scheduling. Best line of the night....after landing, the pilot announces we may have to wait up to 30 minutes for a gate, because we are so early.-

It reminds me of the time I tried to check in for a Continental flight (30 minutes early) and was refused because all passengers had already checked in and the flight was leaving. I said "that's not possible since I am a passanger and I have not checked in". They looked at me like I was crazy and refused to let me check in. So I called my co-worker who was on the same flight to tell them I would not be on the flight. They answered their phone in the parking lot of the airport. Now we had 2 passengers who had not checked in but the flight was ready to leave early. In the end, they called the gate and we got on the flight.

US may be guilty, but they have company.

Show up at White Plains at 4:50 PM for a 5:30 Express flight to Philly, and they are calling final boarding

I can sympathize with the harried departure as air travel is hard as is. HOWEVER, don't you think you're cutting it a bit close in the first place? Quoting straight from the US Air web site: . . . US Airways recommends customers arrive at least one hour prior to departure for domestic flights . . .

By your own admission you show up 40 minutes before scheduled departure, which taking into account boarding time, doesn't exactly leave you much margin to manage security and boarding.

As to the TSA folks, they're damned if they do their job and damned if they don't. Just another reason to allow sufficient time.

Barry

Its surprising to see any type of Express flights start boarding around the 30 min mark. All of the Express flights I've been on are closer to the 15 minute mark, if that.

-JC

With online check in, a boardng pass already printed, no luggage to check, and a small airport like that, with only 4 gates in the same common area, 40 minutes, while not exactly early, is more than adequate for boarding a 30 passenger plane. As for TSA, they finally got off my case after a manager, in business attire, came over, and without speaking to me, quietly told them to knock it off. We have to get over the notion in this country that just because someone is doing a job related to the aftermath of 9/11, they can never be wrong. An awful lot of people, who were apparently not in great demand, were hired in a short time.

US Airways recommends customers arrive at least one hour prior to departure for domestic flights . . .[/B]


That is for the average customer who will wait in a line to check baggage then wait in a security line. If you have priority check in (or do it online) and priority screening - it changes everything.

They also don't want to hear compaints that you missed you flight because of a line. I just heard a person from the ALB airport say to get there 2 hours early this week. He admitted you might get through security in 12 minutes so bring a book. It is all about setting expectations.

Yell at the top of your lungs.

In those small airports they can hear you even if your gate is the last one out.

Something along the lines of "I'm here!" right after the PA announcement.

I've been there. It works.

It works reasonably well when they steal your laptop during the shoe shakedown too.

Its surprising to see any type of Express flights start boarding around the 30 min mark. All of the Express flights I've been on are closer to the 15 minute mark, if that.

-JC

I was thinking the same thing... even for RJs it seems to be 15 min, 20 max.

I ponder a company where a line employee can override the VP-Scheduling. Best line of the night....after landing, the pilot announces we may have to wait up to 30 minutes for a gate, because we are so early.-

I had the same situation, though both on 737's. Hurry up and wait. One time we left 20 minutes early, and another 15 minutes early. The planes were nowhere close to full. I've been told that "the captain wants to get in the departure line asap", though I can't imagine that line to be too long at White Plains. I've been told, "It's the airline's decision when to board and not board a flight, despite what the departure time says". (?) In both cases, we arrived in Philly early and sat on the tarmac til our actual arrival time because it was rush hour and gates weren't ready.

My real problem is less the agents who board flights at their leisure, than it is the TSA. I tell less-experienced travelers in line around me all the time..."don't complain...if you want to get through it, you have to go through it" because I see the way these folks like to throw their weight around. I love it when they double-team the grannies; or when the TSA agent in Philly yelled at my 86-year-old mother because she wasn't getting up out of the wheelchair fast enough - they wouldn't push her through - and how they yelled at her when she held on to the side of the xray machine so she wouldn't fall. When I got angry and yelled for a supervisor, I was told, "one more word from you sir, and you will not fly today". It's a power trip, and nothing more.

It is all about setting expectations.

Mileshound,

I agree with you, expectations are important. Not being a business traveler myself, I recognize that folks who are on the road a great deal experience flying from a different perspective. And when one travels a great deal, they're gonna run into bumps and miscues along the way -- it's inevitible. But flying is flying and it remains prudent to allow sufficient time, and to approach situations with circumspection and patience.

I agree that TSA can frequently be an arduous process. but I don't buy into the argument made by some folks that security is overblown and TSA folks are dolts who exercise power capriciously. It a job and a process which needs to be done & done properly, and feedback is important in getting the process done smoothly.

My own travel observations are that TSA at PHL A-west is most usually OK while PHL B/C concourses are chaotic & disconcerting -- they need to work out a lot of issues there. We find screening at PBI to be amazingly smooth, efficient, and courteous without compromising thorough screening. MCO is hectic, ORD confusing, and PHX looks like it could jam up although we've had smooth sailing there. So it seems that both pax and TSA expectations are an important factor in how things will or will not work out.

You make an excellent point about priority check-in and screening, as this is something that US and other carriers should emphasize for its preferred and regular fliers. Of course they can't implement this at every airport. But we should each let US and our home airports know what we think about the TSA process. I can't for the life of me figure out why US has not implemented a more consistent policy and process for priority screening for preferreds at PHL, but I am informing CA about my observations and suggestions.

safe & happy travels

Barry

I'm just happy the Asylum is still open :)

If I really need to be at the airport one hour early, I will take the train. If the airlines and the TSA cannot get me (no luggage, boarding pass in hand) through the one line (security) that I have to wait in, at 20 minutes before flight departure, then they should find another line of work.

I usually arrive at the airport at T-30 minutes, but with the shuttles (and their policy of door close at T-3 minutes), I arrive at T-20. I have not missed a shuttle flight in about ten years. And I am pointedly talking about Logan and LaGuardia. At a suburban airport, there should not be a line.

All of this sounds like a legitimate quesion for Deb Thompson's Attache column: "It's Your Fault."

I'd like to hear their US answer.

As for TSA... We have to get over the notion in this country that just because someone is doing a job related to the aftermath of 9/11, they can never be wrong. An awful lot of people, who were apparently not in great demand, were hired in a short time.

Despite having over 125,000 miles flown this year -- after changing a flight, I received the special screening note on my boarding pass. After watching TSA spend a couple minutes flipping through my note book and examining each page and examining each dollar bill in my wallet, after 10 minutes they finally let me go. I got a kick out of thinking for the next 10 minutes about all of the things they didn't look at (2 zipped pockets in my bag for starters). Not quite sure what they were looking for -- I doubt they knew either.

Forget about having your ego bruised. Here is the real scandal and what should make us all angry:

WASHINGTON - Airport security remains lax despite billions of dollars and thousands of federal employees added since the Sept. 11 attacks, lawmakers were told Thursday.

A pair of government investigations submitted to the House aviation subcommittee found dangerous objects still get past security checkpoints. And they said neither government nor privately employed screeners performed their jobs well.

The findings are "pretty scary," said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., the panel's chairman. He plans to hold an emergency meeting with Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and other key agency officials in the next 10 days to discuss ways to tighten airport security.

"We really ought to be doing a better job for all the money we're spending," said Mica, who threatened to subpoena Ridge and the others if they fail to respond to his request for a meeting.

Congress created the Transportation Security Administration after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and ordered the agency to replace the privately employed screeners with a better-paid, better-trained federal work force. More than 50,000 screeners were hired.

Congress also ordered five commercial airports to use privately employed screeners who are hired, trained, paid and tested to TSA standards to serve as a comparison to the federal employees. Those airports are in San Francisco; Rochester, N.Y.; Tupelo, Miss.; Jackson, Wyo.; and Kansas City, Mo.

Homeland Security Department Inspector General Clark Kent Ervin told lawmakers that the TSA screeners and privately contracted airport workers "performed about the same, which is to say, equally poorly."

The conclusions were based on Ervin's own inspectors, who tried to sneak dangerous objects past screeners at airport checkpoints. Such security gaps also were found by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress. Its conclusions were based on the TSA's covert testing.

Classified Results

The specific results of the inspector general's report were classified, but the committee's ranking Democrat said it revealed that passenger screening is no better than it was 17 years ago. Then, screeners didn't detect 20 percent of the dangerous objects that undercover agents carried through checkpoints, according to the GAO report.

"The inadequacies and loopholes in the system are phenomenal," Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio said.

Mica and DeFazio blamed outdated screening equipment. They said the TSA needs to buy modern machines, which are already in use on Capitol Hill and in the White House.

BearingPoint, a private firm that also conducted a study, did not rate the screeners other than to say there was little difference in their performances.

The inspector general's report, as well as the GAO study, portrayed the TSA as an unresponsive inflexible bureaucracy. For example, it does not allow its own airport security directors or private contractors to fill vacancies as soon as they arise, causing staff shortages. Instead, the TSA sets up temporary assessment centers to process applicants.

Congress gave airports the option of returning to private screeners next Nov. 19, three years after President Bush signed the bill into law. More than 100 of the 429 commercial airports have said they are considering this.

Ervin said the TSA did not initially give the private contractors at the five airports enough freedom to "effectively and immediately address problems with high attrition levels, understaffing, excessive overtime, and employee morale issues."

Lawmakers, the inspector general and the GAO noted that the TSA has begun to give contractors more freedom to test innovations and ways to cut costs. They urged the agency to allow even more flexibility so they could find ways to improve screening.

© 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

They need to spend more time checking shoes -- that will fix it.

You check in before the cut-off time. +

You present yourself at the gate before the cut-off time. +

The flight leaves without you.

= IDB.

That's cash, please. ;)

These people should not be immune from scrutiny. If you complain, they simply say you were uncooperative. Regardless of the circumstance, there is no justification for ordering people around like they are military recruits. When you produce an agency like this, there is a tremendous opportunity for abuse when, human beings, being just that, suddenly discover they have power over other human beings for the first time in their lives. Not all of them can handle that. The real thrust of this thread, however, was the calling of final and immediate boarding 30 minutes early on an Express flight, many of which don't even have that much turn time built into their schedules. That created the conditions for the TSA episode.

They need to spend more time checking shoes -- that will fix it.

Im reading this in an auditorium of a couple hundred people, ostensibly listening to a lecture and it was very hard not to burst out laughing. And the lecture isnt very funny.......