Originally Posted by
Beckles
I found out first hand today how CO can lose money so easily ... next week I need to be in Dallas and Norfolk. So, last week we booked two one-ways on WN, MCI-DAL and DAL-MCI for $107.60 and $100.10, respectively. A few days later we decided to go ahead and fly direct from Dallas to Norfolk, cancelling our DAL-MCI ticket with no penalty (use the credit on a ticket later) and booking a non-stop AA flight DFW-ORF for $104.60 all-in. I don't think AA's making a profit on those tickets. Today we finally nailed down our return date and time, so I go online to see what's available. Southwest is over $260 bucks and they leave too early, go to Priceline.com to see what's available for our trip in 10 days ...
Wait for it ...
We're flying CO ORF-EWR-MCI ... $90.70 all-in. Every other airline in the late afternoon was at least $200 all-in (US had a flights for the same price just over 3 hours earlier, which is the difference between working until 3:00 or working until noon, a big difference for business travelers). I can't justify to my company or client paying more than twice as much for another airline, even if it does mean getting in a little later than I would prefer. There is no way CO is making a penny hauling us on this trip, their share of that ticket after taxes and fees is a whopping $66.05.
I guess you get what you pay for ...
Last Thursday I got a call from CO at about 10:00 AM informing that my 9:05 PM EWR-MCI flight (Flt. 2669) was cancelled and I was rebooked on a flight the next morning, meaning I would have needed to spend the night at EWR. So I called them up to see what we could do, for some silly reason I figured if a flight was cancelled 11 hours in advance it must be a mechanical or something. The flight was cancelled due to "weather". I find it pretty amazing that the CO system is stretched so thin that they needed to cancel a flight 11 hours in advance due to weather (it's not like either EWR or MCI were closed due to weather). C'est la vive, there's nothing else we can do and we book a room in EWR and head up there.
The next morning they switch our gate from the A concourse to C concourse, no big deal one would think. We get to our gate and about the time they should start boarding our 8:20 AM flight they announce the F/A is late and we should leave around 9:00 AM. Around 9:00 AM they announce the F/A is on the ground ... at A concourse of course. 20 minutes later she comes strolling up chatting to a GA walking with her.
Now I realize CO is a big organization with a lot of moving pieces, the employees are all like "the flight's only an hour late." The problem is many people on this flight are in fact 12 hours late since we were originally booked on the cancelled flight the night before. If they had any real sense of urgency on getting our flight out, they would have 1) not moved it to C concourse in the first place (or moved it back); or 2) sent a car over to pick up the F/A so she didn't have to go out of A concourse, get to the Air Train, take the Air Train to C concourse, re-clear security, and then stroll on down to our gate (she obviously wasn't in a hurry since I noticed she didn't even bother using the moving walkway as she chatted with a GA on her way to the gate).
Eventually we are ready to leave over an hour after our flight time, about 30 minutes of which was wasted because the F/A had to transfer from A to C. Well, I think you all can guess what happens now ... ATC delay, part (if not all) of which I have no doublt would likely be avoided if we weren't waiting on the F/A in the first place.
So, in the end I get home 13.5 hours late ... bravo CO.
Anyway, no wonder LK is whining that he needs the protection of regulation from competitors like WN. They're the morons who sold me a ticket for a completely unrealistic price then can't even bother efficiently delivering the services the ticket was for.