Dateline NBC
 

FYI --- Tonight they are going to have an hour long show on airlines "behind the scenes". Looks to me like it could be pretty interesting.



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I saw the add for this on TV the other note. It looks really good. I suggest anyone who has the time watch it. This may be the icing that gets Congress to do something!

I just watched the east coast feed of the NBC nightly news, and this may be a sampling of what they are doing. It showed gate agents saying that flights would be on time, when NBC was tracking the incoming flight and already knew the flight would be late (in one case 2 1/2 hours late). Gate agents were just repeating what they saw in the computer, so obviously information was not getting updated in a timely manner by "whoever" is tasked with that duty.

<edited for spelling>



[This message has been edited by tom911 (edited 03-13-2001).]

It was a good show. It is quite clear now that the airlines lie on purpose. Very sad state of affairs and if my Congress person wants to enact legislation, I would support them even though I am not normally for the G regulating airlines.

The arilines deserve everything that is coming their way!

I also watched and enjoyed it, although I didn't learn anything from their "five pointers." But I was impressed enought with Midwest Express to promise myself a trip with them in the very near future.

I followed their website links to check out the flight trackers, and found an amazing FAA website. Given that Dateline was good enough to tell us about it, I'm posting the link to the Dateline site instead of the direct links.

Scroll down a little ways and look for the inset titled "Check your flight status" and click on the FAA link. You'll find up to the minute updated world wide airport advisories, which may include links to other interesting and useful sites, airports with ground delays, de-icing delays, closures, and other airport information. (For example, Seattle was experienceing weather delays until 55 minutes ago, there is a current volcanic ash warning for airports near Ecuador complete with links to 3-hourly satellite images, Kansas City is currently "experiencing Gate Hold and Taxi delays of less than 15 minutes in length," and so on.)

So the next time an agent in Baltimore tells you there is an ATC delay at ORD, you can double check for yourself.

Most of the time you can check the arrival board (for your gate) to determine how long your delay is going to be.

Well, I think it is a decent show as well. No the usual Dateline show... (I actually find ABC's 20/20 more offensive)...

The baggage part is pretty realistic. Of course, not everyone will face the six days wait, but the dealings at the baggage claim office ring a bell on my ordeals with United bag service last year. The waits... the hassles...

The Dateline website is quite fun. It is nice to know the Maui to Oakland flight opearted by Aloha was always late...
La Guardia also rang the bell. I could not believe that even Southwest had a flight that ran 95% late. United and Alaska also topped a couple lists...

The service comparison is the best. Although comparing Delta's redeye with a Midwest Express's daytime flight is not too fair, it is somewhat true. Look at the seats -- both were MD-80s... Also the infamous summer harvest mix. Now, the meals are so different. Even if it compares a meal DL flight with Midwest Express, it will never be the same (and also the Omaha steak by DL). I believe that MK serves real snacks (sandwiches) or at least chocolate chip cookies on redeye flights... NOt to mention the "coat hanging" and "wine refills" aspect... Midwest gets some nice publicity here.

Now, I have a thought -- will I see this episode of Dateline NBC on my next NBC In Flight by United? It will be a great show to watch from a United's BUF to ORD flight.

Carfield

I thought the show was sensationalistic and unbalanced. It did not focus nearly enough on the inadequate ability of the ATC system to cope with growth, the culpability of millions of rude and obnoxious air travellers in contributing to surly employees and barely mentioned the fact that most people are getting exactly what they want: lots of flights and really low fares.

Dudster, you're not an airline employee or a major airline stockholder, by any chance are you? You seem a little surly yourself.

I think parts might have been overly harsh on the airlines. Using October as the "target" month was a bit harsh. Things at NYC airports have improved drastically since then. Shuttle flights only sit on the runway for 5-10 minutes now instead of the 45-90 that we were sitting on the ground at the end of last year.

As to the airlines giving consumers exactly what they want, I dont' think so. I think consumers would gladly see the frequency of LGA/ORD flights go from 8 flights a day to 7 flights a day if those 7 flights were on time. The problem is that unless ALL the airlines cut back that one flight, NONE of the airlines would see on-time ratings improve. And, as we know, that would be collusion, which is illegal.

I understood them to state that the flights were at "around the same time". Don't recall hearing that the DL flight was a redeye.

All in all, I enjoyed it. I came away with one opinion... the airlines are doing everything in their power to get re-regulated. I agree with one of the interviewees... if this were a restaraunt, I'd walk out!



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Bob

Some people would sit in the cargo hold if it would save them $100.00. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/rolleyes.gif

I thought parts of the show were quite good and other parts were of little or no value. As for the good: I thought their discussion of tracking flights from early in the morning to late at night and knowing that the flight would be delayed even though the airline said it would be on time was enlightening. The enlightening aspect was that airlines could easily provide this info to gate agents but don't. As for the five tips, I found them useless as I already knew them. As for the baggage handling segment, I found it to be journalistically unsound. After all, they went to the Newark baggage claim area and sought out people whose bags had been lost. Who knows if they talked to others whose bags had been lost but didn't air their stories because the bags came on the next flight. They certainly didn't talk to the people who got their bags. All in all, it was an interesting show because it was about airlines (a subject I obviously love), but it was a little sensationalized which is par for the course for Dateline. And what's with Stone Phillips?

NBC’s "Dateline" examined Department of Transporation statistics for every month in the year 2000. They found that the best time to fly out of Detroit Metro with the fewest number of delays is early in the morning, from 6 to 7 a.m. or at the end of the day, from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. The worst time for flight delays is in the evening from 6 to 8 p.m.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/wdiv/20.../334775_1.html

QuickQuestion for you well-informed viewers:

Where was Stone?? (which airport?)

DCA

That was actually the first Dateline I have ever watched all the way through. Perhaps because it was on a topic of great interest to me. I thought it was very good. Some people have commented that some of the information, such as the 5 tips, was not helpful, but the masses aren't FF nuts like myself.

The most interesting segment was on Midway. I've never flown them & never considered it until watching the show. Zooming in on the meals was a nice touch but to me it goes beyond that. If an airline is willing to do the extra in certain areas they are listening to paxs. I actually checked out their website & priced a few flights to see. They didn't seem that bad.

For me, paying F on domestic flights is not something I like to do. However, I can't stand the cramped seating & limited leg room. So, Midway's $600 flights seem like a happy medium. Has anyone ever flown this airline?

As for the lost baggage, I don't have that problem. After I flew AA Orly-JFK a few years ago & found that my only bag would be landing at LAX in 5 hours, I have never checked baggage again.

The show was entertaining, but awfully NY-area-centric. Continental got tagged awful hard (in the baggage horror stories, and a lot of the "DELAYED" monitors were shot at Terminal C at EWR) just because it's cheap for Dateline's New York-based crews to go over to Newark and shoot. But the United Shuttle at SFO would have been a better portrait of the ninth circle of hell.

Wasn't it an omission to have no airline industry person on the show at all? They said the Air Transport Association declined their interview requests, which I found odd, but what about Bethune or Kelleher or someone who makes good TV, holding up the airlines' end of things? This would've been a good opportunity for CO or WN to fly the flag against industry consolidation.

The best part to me was seeing blithe airline personnel make stuff up on camera -- like the US flight attendant who blamed a flight delay on rogue blimp traffic.

KiraNarise - It was Midwest Express, not Midway. Although I understand that Midway is comparable in comfort, not so much on the meals though.

All in all, a pretty entertaining, if not terribly enlightening show. I especially loved that guy's bag getting a free trip to Portugal!

No, I'm just a plain old frequent flier [full disclosure: I was at one point a SWA shareholder]. I think that the Airlines are to some extent being scapegoated for problems that are the result of a much more complicated combination of contributing factors and parties. I'm also quite displeased with the rush of our legislators to attempt to "fix" these problems by drafting "passenger rights" legislation that will inevitably do nothing except maybe come back to bite us in the a**. This is, of course, typical of congress to attempt to find simple solutions to complex problems. I would much rather have them work on properly funding the FAA and local airport authorities. If they really do want to re-regulate the airline industry then they should be looking at regulation that addresses the structure of the industry, where many of these problems arise, rather than the symptoms (passenger experience), not that I support such legislation.

I'm also annoyed by the incredible amount of ignorance and obfuscation that fuels much of this debate. Whether it is Stone Phillips misrepresenting take off time as departure time or Strom Thurmond admonishing airline executives for advocating deregulation in the 70s when it was the government (the Civil Aeronautics Board) that advocated deregulation and the airlines who were opposed to it.

Frankly, I'm also a little bit tired of people complaining all of the time. I'm not saying that the airlines don't have problems and that there aren't legitimate complaints, but all travel is subject to uncertainties and I think some people need to just learn to take things in stride.

As for me being surly -- well I admit to being occaisionally short tempered, but I'm usually quite pleasant.

I thought the program was rather sensationalistic. As someone mentioned, the luggage piece seemed slanted. The on-time piece was interesting. The point about the potential for airlines to have better information about delays was good, although even there Dateline perhaps gave the impression that airline employees weren't being honest when in fact they were probably just reporting the information from their systems. All the allusions back to the "golden age of flying" just made me sick--no discussion of how low prices are now and how accessible airtravel is to all segments of the population. Also, the Midwest Express comparison is also unfair. Only at the end did they point out the significantly higher prices (although I think it's a great option for business travelers).

My overall beef with the program is that I think the airlines respond to consumer preferences to a significant extent (although not completely of course). If an airline could make more money by offering better meals, or more room, or a better luggage tracking system, it would do so. (And United and American have put in more room.) But, ultimately, many consumers will still go for the ticket that is $100-200 cheaper, especially if they're flying a family of four. So the airlines don't make all those improvements, while at the same time trying to keep business travelers happy.

I did not watch the Dateline show and admittedly lack extensive experience with either, but IMHO, Midwest Express >>> Midway! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Trying to determine how long a flight's departure will be delayed isn't quite as easy as Dateline made it out to be.

On the one hand, an airline may pull out a spare aircraft, or may cancel another flight to provide the a/c for your flight. An airplane has a schedule, but isn't committed to that schedule with no possible changes over the course of a day.

On the other hand, the aircraft may be available but crews may not for various reasons.

Tracking a nose # doesn't guarantee you a certain departure time (and it wastes the reservations agent's time). If you leave the gate area and a spare a/c is found, you could miss your flight.

I enjoyed the show (for the subject matter, not so much for their suggestions http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif ).

I don't like defending airlines either, but I also found the Dateline episode to be extremely sensationalistic and one sided. I was especially annoyed by the Josh Mankiewicz piece comparing Delta with Midwest Express. There was a point in his piece where I thought he was about to make a case in defense of air rage.

Anyway, if you want to try out Midwest Express, it's only $158 this weekend from NYC to points in the, uhhh duh, Midwest, including Warren Buffett country http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif
http://dir.travelzoo.com/Air.asp?id=37067

Must ticket by tomorrow though...

How about that dufus woman that checked her glasses AND contacts and then was in trouble when they didn't show up in New York? They didn't admonish her in the show, as they should have IMHO.

If you really want to check on ontime statistics try this link: http://www.bts.gov/cgi-bin/oai/ontime_js.pl

Although I didn't learn much I did watch the entire show and found parts of it pretty funny, particularly the blimp story. I wonder if maybe she was joking and they cut out the part where she said so.

Agreed. Rather than even suggesting it was a foolish move the piece made her out to be a victim of the big, bad airline. As I listened, I thought, "You've got to be kidding!?"

I was hoping that one of Dateline's five "tips" at the end of the show would include something like:

"Never place any items such as eyeglasses, contacts, medication, etc. in your checked luggage. Always keep it in your carry-on bag."

Alas, I was disappointed.

[Dunce hat on] I admit that I did that... once.


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Bob

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Ken hAAmer:
[b]
I followed their website links to check out the flight trackers, and found an amazing FAA website. Given that Dateline was good enough to tell us about it, I'm posting the link to the Dateline site instead of the direct links.

Ken,

I followed your instructions, but didn't find any FAA website there. Have they removed the link or am I missing something? Can someone please post the FAA link? It sounds useful.

I, too, think the show was rather remedial. And yes, while I represent a more experienced flyer than the general public who watched the show, I still think it was rather "sensationalistic."

I would have liked a more ballanced approach. Did they interview agents about passengers demmands? Did they ask agents what passengers might do to be better prepared?

Did they show examples of things that often go right?