I must be weird, then. I appreciate elite status not because it's "elite", but because it makes travel suck less. Given that 12+ hours of my week is taken up traveling, I talk about it to know more about how it works and how to make it work better for me. But then, my goal here is not to troll...

Agree 100%.

In fact, I hate that they call the programs "elite." I'd prefer something more self-depreciating like "sacrifices relationships with friends and family for work" or "spends more time in a metal tube than home, so we throw 'em a bone." It would help those that view "eliteness" with either confusion or disdain put things in a better context.

I thought FA's already had their own forum to insult and degrade those who give their airline enough money to give them a job?

As far as my coolest pilot created experience, it was on a DL flight last year SAN-ATL and shortly after take-off the pilot announced he would be dipping both sides of the plane to show everyone the pretty awesome sandstorm that was blowing across Imperial Valley. He gave each side a good solid 90 seconds too...

As far as irritating, I don't know if I just have good hearing but the pre-announcement "ding" always wakes me, or startles me if I'm already awake. Too bad I usually find the "things to see" announcements interesting leaving me in a quandary. Can't there just be talking with no ding?

For as short as the runway at SAN is, most of the landings here are pretty well done.

I thought that more people might respond to this one. Truth be told, I have very, very little interaction with pilots. Teeth rattling landing? Well, let's say that cockpit door seems to stay closed a little longer. I think that maybe once every six months a pilot comes out of the cockpit to thank us for flying, but it is fairly cursory. Nice, but cursory.

My only major "negatives" about crew, in general, largely seem to center on the relative indifference some FAs have about conducting a smooth boarding process. Probably half or more cabin crews seem to get caught off-guard when the overheads fill up and then have to start checking bags. This is not to say they are necessarily lazy, though some are, but merely misguided. The cabin crew I had on Friday (1433) let a couple of passengers wander the aisles for easily five minutes trying to find places to shove rollaboards. While they were trying to be helpful (and presumably non-confrontational) to the two passengers in question, the net effect was still checked bags. Firm, but friendly, here goes a long way to making an on-time airline. I also have a pet peeve about the FAs who are so adamant about not touching PAX bags that they stay out of the boarding process entirely, which also significant time. Conversely, the best cabin crew I've ever had managed to seat a full 738 that started boarding 10m late and were able to push 5m early. Unfortunately, I only managed to get one name for that particular set of folks to include in a letter.

Ok, I've had one bad landing as a passenger (we won't count me in a Cessna). It was a long time ago, AA ord-lga - 727 iirc. beautiful clear day, no wind, no clouds, daytime. It was visual 22. We came in from the south, made a nice graceful turn over the water, and seemed to be below the level of the runway. Pilot added thrust (a fair amount from where I sat), began climbing... then reduced thrust and continued the landing. We touched down about 1/2 way down the runway... I'd say that from the bruises on my hips from the seatbelt, we used a large amount of braking and full reverse thrust. someone had a suitcase out in the back of the plane - it hit the cockpit door. Someone else had their eyeglasses hit the bulkhead. We stopped on the numbers. The crew made no mention of anything unusual, we taxied to the gate.

I also experienced a tailstrike as a passenger on a UA flight departing OMA.

A couple of years ago, I was flying on NW metal, sitting next to a college kid who had not flown much. During the first part of the flight, the purser came back to me and thanked me for being an elite flyer (or some such language). The guy next to me said something like, "Wow, it must be nice to be elitist."

Have I had some bad flights? Sure, but if I focused on that instead of the positive I wouldn't be so excited to get back on the plane!

I did around 150,000 miles on Amtrak after my dad quit flying. That was enough to make me want to never take Amtrak again (I did once PHL-EWR a few years ago, but that was it). By far, flying is SO much better!

Vote #1 for a new name for the UA forum.

I flew on one of these Wednesday on Great Lakes and am about to board one now...the doors are still open (even though it's obviously post-9/11).


I was shocked at first but it's definitely cool to see.

Did you get Kareem's autograph while you were up there?

No kidding. Just wish they'd post their flight schedules so we can book on any flight EXCEPT the ones they are working.

Can I get a raise?

I'm pretty sure that the B1900s don't have doors to close. At least the ones I used to fly on didn't. Maybe they added them but I don't know for sure. I definitely enjoyed a night landing at PHL with the curtain open staring out the front windows.

Also interesting is that the B1900s are small enough that they do not have to operate under the crazy TSA rules. They generally do to facilitate the connections for passengers, but they do not have to based on their size.

No doors, yet. The recent B1900 I was on, the capt. kindly left the curtain open.