Bosox:

What you stumbled on was the new american era of "somebody else is always to blame"

Not everyone feels this way, but it seems an increasing number of americans do.

I'd also wonder just how many people actually miss flights that they get to the airport within 20 mins of departure.

I never have. Anytime I've been to the airport within 20 mins of departure, I've somehow managed to make the flight.

One time at Newark, I was flying to seattle and missing my flight would have meant something like a 7 hr wait(if they had seats)

I had 2 lareg bags, so carry on wouldnt work and getting them through the Xray machines would have been a long shot.

The line by the skycaps was probably 25 deep, my flight was in 22 mins. I take out a crisp 20 dollar bill and say to the skycap
this is yours if you can check my bags
in 60 seconds. His response, "follow me"


Whatever happened to the old fashioned taking out a 10 dollar bill and waving in front of a skycap. Do that at newark, and your bags will be checked in less than 60 secs.

You go to a major airport and wave some green paper with Andy Jackson's or Alex Hamilton 's face on it, you'll be on your flight without a worry.

In general I admire very much the efficiency of US airlines/airports. But regarding check-in, lately, you got way behind the comfort some European airlines/airports offer.

For 'overseas'-departures from Zurich I have a choice of the following: [*]'normal' check-in as everywhere in the world[*]check-in at any time of the day I am departing (UA in N-America limits this to 4 hours before flight)[*]check-in at the airport the night before departure (starting 5PM)[*]if flying SR: check-in at the Swiss�tel in Zurich-Oerlikon, until 2 hours before the flight[*]check-in at any of over 60 railway-stations, distributed all over Switzerland 24 hours before departure (until 2 hours before, depending on the distance/rail-connection to the airport) excluded are (for so-called 'safety-reasons') US-carrier flights and El Al. This service is called 'Fly-Rail-Baggage' and costs an extra SFr 20 per piece of luggage checked. The railway-stations do the complete check-in service with seat-assignements, boarding passes, etc. And railways and airlines make a profit out of this!

[This message has been edited by Rudi (edited 08-05-2000).]

Bosoxsfan45 wrote "I do believe airlines shold give you a ticket stamped with the time you got in line, and if you wait over 45 minutes by the time you are helped, then you get a free upgrade coupon"

I do believe this is one of the best ideas i have read on FT

Boomer is right, works in London too.

Amazing NJ -- I agree that waiting in line for an hour or more is unacceptable. However, given that long waits are reality, one must arrive at the airport in plenty of time. Arriving just in the nick of time (80 min. is my opinion of "nick" ) won't help the overall situation, and makes the immediate situation even worse.

Thanks for the welcome! (I followed a link here from PlaneBusiness)

BTW I usually fly out of LGA (I've recently lowered my acceptable EWR fares), and have not experienced a long wait at curb-side check-in (lucky maybe). Inside lines can get long, but I've already bought my ticket when I get to the airport .

Re "... I do believe airlines shold give you a ticket stamped with the time you got in line, and if you wait over 45 minutes by the time you are helped, then you get a free upgrade coupon, or something like that..." (BoSoxFan45)

Upgrades are useless if everyone has one. You'll just have to wait!


Beetee, I've also noticed that a third of the plane at SWA pre-boards. That's the problem with open seating. It's a tradeoff for the low unrestricted fares. Since I normally fly with restricted tickets, I don't fly SWA.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by JSrombough:

Upgrades are useless if everyone has one. You'll just have to wait!


I doubt that many people would be getting their upgrades if for a wait of over 30 minutes one recieved a system wide upgrade to be used at a future date. Airlines would make pretty certain that very few people had to wait more than 1/2 hour.

Ofcourse if they ever instituted a policy like that people in FT would be trying to figure out ways to make sure they were in line LONGER than 30mins so they could get the upgrade. I bet that rather than scowling at the family with 5 kids being moved to the head of the line we would see happy faces from all those in line as they dreamed of their upgrades




[This message has been edited by Mvic (edited 08-06-2000).]

I think my record was getting to the airport two hours ahead and into a line of about 25 people at T-90 minutes, and reaching the desk at exactly the scheduled departure time! (This was YWG on the last day of the Pan American Games, so many passengers spoke no English or French, and also did not seem to understand that you can't carry five large suitcases onto the plane.) And there were quite a few people behind me too... with the next departure for ORD scheduled 11 hours later, they quite sensibly held the flight.