Originally Posted by
uoficowboy
They forced me to gate check my bag in SEA because, though it fit into the bag checker thing, I had to press on it with fairly low force to make it go all the way in, due to my roller's wheels not being flush with the back of the bag (the rest of the bag easily dropped in with gravity, as I as not at all over packed). Nobody bothered me about it on the way back (even though I had picked up a few things and hadn't packed as well, so it was bulging significantly more). It fit in the overhead compartments without any problems.
Some stations are more militant about enforcing the sizer, particularly for elite-heavy hub-to-hub routes. From what I've seen, advance gate-checking of carry-ons is at the discretion of the GA.
Bathroom doors had to be completely manhandled to be closed. I encountered this on both SEA - IAH and IAH - SEA (the only times I used the bathroom). The first time I thought it was a fluke, but the second time?
I rarely use the lav, but I've never encountered this issue. That said, the Y cabin lav doors take some serious abuse. Without knowing more about dates & flight numbers, it's hard to address this. (It's possible you got the same aircraft in both directions...)
Three of my four flights were delayed:
IAH - SEA by about 30 minutes (no explanation)
MCO - IAH by about 30 minutes (no explanation)
IAH - SEA by about 100 minutes (mechanical issues, something to do with door, had to switch planes and gates)
The 30 minute delays aren't at all surprising. CO's hubs in EWR and IAH are extremely susceptible to ATC/weather delays. As for the 100m delay...well, a mechanical is a mechanical. I've had 4-hour MX delays on AA - it happens to every airline.
No complementary movies. On SEA - IAH, IAH - MCO, and MCO - IAH you could pay for the directtv access (I could be remembering wrong and one of those flights may not have had directtv). On IAH - SEA they played a movie on the fold down screens and gave out headphones for free to apologize for the 100 minute delay - but the headphones they gave me were broken (easy fix) and my chair couldn't even get the right channel (hard fix).
CO is moving to LiveTV for most of its domestic fleet (the exception being aircraft equipped for TATL/TPAC routes - 777s, 752s and 76Xs), and it's only free in F (although there's a rumor that you also get it free if you pay for an ELR seat). Things could have been worse - because of the Koito debacle, newer pmCO aircraft enters service without any IFE at all. (Of course, that's hardly unique - there's no IFE of any kind on US.)
As for the malfunctioning seat controls - since CO is in the middle of two seat issues (finding a replacement for the Koito seats and deploying LiveTV), I wouldn't be surprised to find the maintenance of the existing IFE controls to be a secondary concern.
edit: forgot to mention one last thing: on IAH - MCO the flight was about half empty, but the FAs were not letting anybody change seats to empty seats. So there were entire bulkhead rows sitting empty. Maybe this is a policy, but that just struck me as downright nasty.
The bulkhead rows are considered ELR rows and are reserved for elites or for pax who want to pay an upcharge. The FAs were correct in enforcing this policy. (You'll see a similar policy in place on UA's E+ section.)
Any of these things alone would not be that bad - but when combined? I really just don't see myself flying CO anytime soon... Is my luck just god awful? Am I being whiny?
As someone who isn't used to CO's policies, I can understand your complaints, but I think maybe you just got hit by the air travel equivalent of Murphy's Law.