Airports not accommodating passengers.
 

The airlines are charging for every little thing anymore. Yet, when a storm hits and you are in flight and must remain at an airport because of weather. Why doesn't the airport treat the people like valued clients? The idea the venders close and the airline themselves can't bring in pizzas, fruit and water for their customers is just wrong. We did use to do this at DTW in my working years at Northwest if someone thought about it. Should always have diapers on hand too.

I'll probably get flamed, but my opinion is 'doing the right thing' has now been replaced with 'complying with the minimal legal requirements that govern any situation'. Years ago it would have been unthinkable not to be accommodated (if possible) somewhere overnight during irrops.

I don't get it. Why does the self-loading cargo think it is a valued client? :confused:

Passengers are a nuisance to the U.S. air travel industry, nothing else. Every possible customer-service touchpoint throughout the system - airlines, airports, TSA, etc. - reaffirms this in the sharpest possible manner.

The airports themselves definitely do not want you there any longer than necessary. Definitely not U.S. airports, which are basically large bus depots.

I'm fairly certain that Comcast and Sprint think of me as a more valued client than any airport does. ;)

That's better than wanting you there for as long as possible, due to having turned every inch of available space into a hellish Ikeaesque duty free maze and pulling out every stop to squeeze every last penny out of you at overinflated prices. Welcome to UK airports.

Airports not accommodating passengers.
 

Why should the responsibility be on the airport, which is often a publicly owned entity? You seem to be confusing airlines and airports in your initial post.

As for the food vendors, you would think it's a missed opportunity to not sell more food. I mean, if you normally close at 8:00 but people are obviously going to be there for a few more hours, it's a captive audience and a chance to make money.

Once we got stuck in MSP years ago due to weather when my daughter was a baby. I don't remember if it was NW or the airport (I think the former) but they brought out diapers and I think even a bit of formula for people. I wouldn't expect that to happen nowadays.

Are you volunteering to work at an airport Sbarro at minimum wage during a snow storm?

The customers for the airport are NOT the passengers but the airlines, rental car companies, and shops. That is exactly what I was told by my local airport director in a meeting regarding the rebuild of the SLC airport.

^

If the OP is thinking specifically about the East Coast this week as it gets hit by a major blizzard, I think you're having a bit of tunnel vision. Mayors, governors, etc., have imposed curfews, shut down mass transit and ordered people to stay off the streets. Who, exactly, is going to cook and deliver those pizzas?

I love what East Coasters call a "major blizzard".



The rest of the U.S. refers to it as "three inches of snow." :p

http://cdn.inquisitr.com/wp-content/...64-665x385.jpg
"Three inches of snow" as viewed from Kansas City :rolleyes:

That looks like good sledding! :cool:

Nice snark, but there's a bit of a fact check in order.
The New York suburbs have experienced up to 28 inches of snow, and more is expected. http://www.nws.noaa.gov/view/prodsBy...rodtype=public
New England is worse. http://www.nws.noaa.gov/view/prodsBy...rodtype=public
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/view/prodsBy...rodtype=public

Winds of up to 50 MPH

BOS? 20.8 inches
PVD? 15 inches
BDL? 7.5 inches
ISP? 24.8 inches.

Average annual snowfall in New York? 25.1 inches and 11 days
Boston? 43.8 inches and 22 days
Kansas City? 13.4 inches and 8 days

So check yourself.

Those 28+ inches are in Suffolk County which would only generously be called a New York City suburb. The vast majority of New York City and it's surrounds were in the 8-12 inch range.

Still I think the OP has a point, about the airlines, and not the airport. These days terminals at the airports are privately run and managed although the concessions are leased to private operators. So it takes a lot of likemindedness to get to where the OP wants. It's not just a case of a few guys getting together and calling Dominos.

MSP keeps a stock of (free to use) cots, blankets, and pillows for stranded passengers.

When there are overnight flight delays, I've seen DL staff at MSP stand in the hotel shuttle bus area to help confused passengers and pass out bottles of water.

Maybe we're just Minnesota nice?

As someone who grew-up on the Nassau/Suffolk border, I'm pretty sure a good portion of Suffolk (and the Long Island Railroad) would disagree with you. (As would the ACS data showing that the number of Suffolk residents commuting to Manhattan daily is steadily increasing). Southern Connecticut is also clearly "a New York City suburb." But even if you only consider Nassau-- the county that JFK abuts-- there's a range of 8 to 18 inches as of this morning. The snarky comment said it was "3 inches."
In addition, the dig was at the entire East Coast. I'm pretty confident that Suffolk County, NY, Connecticut, and Massachusetts are all on the East Coast.

Philly...2 inches. Newark...6 inches.

It's snow. I get it. Some people like it, some people hate it. But at some point, you're like...c'mon...it's winter, what do we expect? Does the degree to which we freak out about it *maybe*...just slightly...become a bit excessive?

"Biggest storm in history"*...until next month's storm... ;)

And I'm not saying we're immune: some people around here lose their freaking minds when we get a foot of snow, as if it has never happened before. People run to the grocery store and buy all the bread, because I guess you just gotta carbo-load when it snows. But the Northeast really seems to take it to another level on the panic scale.




*Unclear if this is the history of the entire planet since upright hominids have occupied it, the history of cable news networks, or just de Blasio's history as mayor...

I've seen news reports today about Laguardia pulling out cots and blankets last night for stranded passengers. I know other US airports have recently too. It's not all doom and gloom and treat everyone like cattle in the US.

If the predictions of the storm had been for 2 inches or even 6 inches, people would not have panicked. The fact that people rushed the grocery store when there were only 3 inches of snow is irrelevant, since the predictions were of 2 to 3 feet.

As someone who has lived all over the country, I've found the midatlantic and South to be far worse on snow than the Northeast. Have you seen folks respond to 1 inch of snow in Atlanta? I know it's trendy to sometimes bash the people who live on the coasts as effete elitists, but suggesting "the Northeast" as a whole overreacts to snow as opposed to the good humble folk of Missouri or the rest of the country is asinine. Don't believe everything you see on Fox News.

Agree on MSP
 

I agree! Not only are there mats and blankets everywhere, there is a nursery area with a crib and quiet area for rocking a baby. Maybe they aren't prepared to feed everyone but they do a respectable job of keeping passengers as comfortable as can be expected.

I agree the airport is not the culprit here.

Back in the "old days", 15-20 years ago we got stuck a few times due to weather and Continental (rest in peace) came to the rescue. Notable, one was in Denver and another in Cozumel.

Nobody here is complaining about the lack of airport hotels. They seem to expect that the local airport authority doesn't provide everything for free.

Most airport properties subscribe to the local distressed traveler system and most carriers hand out the little flyers with the dial-in on them. Alternatively, those who are not able to take the risk that they may wind up having to pay for a hotel and perhaps a meal, can take travel insurance.

Couple years ago I took my daughter to LGA for a flight back to college, a big snow hit a couple days earlier and things were just getting back to normal, for being a couple days after Christmas. Tons of people were waiting for the next available flight, camped out on cots. Surreal scene.

They pull them out for any PAX overnighting not just ones who are stranded. PROPS for that and for that reason I will fly via MSP and do short over nights if needed.

The reason airports don't do more for passengers is because they don't have any competitive reason to. No one is going to choose where to live, or where to travel, based on the quality of services offered at the airport. Flight schedule, perhaps, but no one ever said "let's live in X because their airport has more amenities".

In cities with multiple airports, they are usually run by the same authority and therefore do not need to compete with each other either. Los Angeles is one of the few places where several airports in close proximity are run by different agencies, but they don't have to worry about weather.

Interestingly, airports that are losing traffic to neighboring airports often come up with some sort of passenger retention mechanism. CVG had a rewards scheme a few years ago to stem the loss of passengers to DAY and CMH, I'm not sure if they still do.

Awesome CO Pilot
 

Must of been approx. 6+ years. We were delayed for a few hours either ewr-yyz or yyz-ewr cant remember. We finally started boarding but then were told it will be an hour + till we would be clear take off. Twenty minutes later Stewardess announced, We have ordered pizza, compliments of the captain. Those were the days when passengers were happy on 737 short routes and crews were happy with their employers!

On Friday night, I got into the Delta concourse at CVG and noticed they had pizzas (at least 2 dozen) and blankets and pillows out for those folks left overnight.

As one who lived in Illinois and Missouri, snow is annoying, but not a big deal. For the coasters like this guy, even a foot should be no big deal, but he must listen to MSNBC.

Agreed that they sometimes over-react, but there are areas that are dealing with over three feet of snow, 70 mile an hour winds and power outages. The fact that they are not able to define the exact area it will hit means that surrounding areas need to be ready to deal with it. If NYC had had the above, it would have been pretty difficult to deal with. The fact that they prepared for it and it didn't come - well, that is just icing on the cake! The last storm that Buffalo dealt with - not the norm and they prepared the best they could. There were still people that were stranded at their homes and unable to get out to get to work, store, etc. for up to a week.

Unless you have lived through that, you really shouldn't comment. I remember trying to keep the house warm with two little ones when our power was out for over a week after an ice storm. Sometimes we get what they predict - sometimes we don't.

Fox News...LOL. All of the networks were absolutely going mental. For all I know Fox was doing less blizzard coverage as there isn't a good way to tie this storm directly to Obama. ;)

I too have lived all over, including Chicago, DC, and Denver. Also spent a lot of time in Western NY and Canada. All places that get snow...but don't totally panic about it.

DC probably falls into the category of places that shut down easily with small snowfall totals (I remember days when everybody worked from home because of 3-4 inches), but the hysterics and proclamations that the storms were "historic" and of such an epic proportion that we'll talk about them a century from now were not there.

I do like the pictures from Boston, though. They got a lot of snow and will probably talk about it until the next time they get a lot of snow.

I personally don't freak out over snow; I'm in DC where there was a 2 hour delay at work, but showed up on time with no problem.
My response was due to unnecessary nastiness about millions of people who live in a different part of the country.
If I made a post generalizing about the millions of people who live in the heartland and their views on _________, I'd expect to be called out too. It's petty, unnecessary, and mean-spirited.

Because the airports would not be in business if it were not for airlines -or the traveling public?

I'm sure a city like Kansas City would handle 6 inches to a foot of snow like it's no big deal, and there wouldn't be closings... Oh, wait.
http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2013/...ssouri-kansas/
http://www.kansascity.com/news/local...ut-begins.html
http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascit...zona-rosa.html
http://www.bizjournals.com/kansascit...-closures.html

Good find sir!

What possible incentive would an airport have to spend resources treating passengers like "valued clients" and competing for their business? If you have to catch a plane, where else are you going to go?

You guys are missing the point. I'm not saying we don't ever close things for snow: I'm saying we don't proclaim to the world that our snow is history-making and a disaster of epic proportions. We don't flip into wall-to-wall 24 hour weather news mode every time it snows. I don't suddenly feel the need to rush to the store and buy an insane amount of carbohydrates. ;) There's less drama about it, even when it jacks up the normal flow of business/travel for a day or two.

But fine, you guys carry on. I'm wrong about this, and I look forward to visiting the Great January 2015 Snowstorm Museum when it opens next year. I mean, if it's the biggest storm in history, it should get a museum, right? @:-)

Are all stop signs in Kansas City written in French?

Everything is relative. Fortunately I never had to experience this, which was Regina in 1947. I will note, however, that snow in February here usually persists until April at least ( although this year it has unseasonably melted to give e brief respite). I'm not sure that I would have been happy dealing with this for months, although the impact on work etc would be brief I would expect. Life must go on
http://www.newstalk650.com/sites/def...r%20Regina.jpg

No...just the Missouri ones.

ERrrr, isn't KC in Missouri