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Moderator, I think this voluntary bumps thread is going to turn into an Omni thread given some of the responses & you might might want to move it over there.
On a dif note & I think there's a thread floating around somewhere, some airlines are allowing folk to donate miles to help some of the soliders. I realize some will say the airlines should give them free tickets, etc, but that's not economically viable. And if a ff has miles they're willing to donate, then why not allow them a mechanism to do so. Some of the airlines have also lifted the restrictions so it's not costing the soldier/family $2K to get home once they get back to states. ------------------ Sharon |
AA press release on their program to donate miles:
Here |
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by tom911: AA press release on their program to donate miles: Here</font> The airlines have already decided how many free seats they'll allocate to charity. They will take their rightful tax writeoffs for those seats. Whether you and I donate 0 miles or a million miles, they will donate X seats per tax period. They set X - not you or I. A better way to donate your miles would be to redeem them for a paper award certificate and then donate that to the charity of your choice - generally to one about to have an auction fundraiser where someone will buy the ticket at auction and use it for their vacation, with the money going to the charity. I have seen this many times at live auctions for major community organizations (2 F tickets to Hawaii will fetch a couple grand) and AFAIK this activity doesn't run afoul of the programs' don't-sell-your-miles terms. To me, this is the cleanest, most honest way to donate miles to charity. The obvious restriction is that you have at least 25,000 miles to donate - whereas AA's website will probably take any amount. |
To those who know their history this seems similar to the famous WW2 ad "The Kid in Upper Four" by the New Haven Railroad, explaining how train passengers would be standing because half the railroad cars were transporting troops coming home from the Pacific coast.
Except it is not the same. Because in that case the railroad management just decided (probably in 30 seconds or less) to make their cars available. In the current case the airline just cannot bring themself to make the management decision to do so. Why can the station manager at BWI not just say "they go first", and then sort out the remaining seats. Possibly because the airline are so beholden to priority by elite status or adherence to budgets to be able to make any judgement in cases like this. It seems the airline are way out of step with the society they operate in and take their revenue from. |
Come to think of it, this is hardly the first instance I've seen of United using national interests to advance its own pecuniary motives. Right after 9/11, I had to take a business trip to Las Vegas. This was about mid-October of 2001. United had used 9/11 as an excuse to require everyone to report to LAX at least three hours before the flight. They cited "heightened security" as the justification.
I got there, as requested, three hours before my flight. There was a line of 182 passengers at ticketing at 10:00 a.m. in LAX on Thursday. There was only one agent at the entire United Counters, to check in all 182 passengers. United had decided to use 9/11 to reduce costs by RIFing most of its personnel. Of course, there were little American Flags flying at every empty United counter. It took nearly 2 hours in the ticket line to get my ticket. I then got through the security lines in about 5 minutes. |
When I read this letter/post, I started crying because I thought - "wow, what a NICE story for once. . " Not once did I think anything more than that. Then I see some of the responses here and have to wonder "Wow. ..how do people live with such negativity and cynicism about everything?"
Thanks to the original poster for this story - it renewed my faith in human beings. Perhaps once in awhile we're supposed to suspend belief re: airlines, business, etc. and just look at the goodness that is around us? |
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by SkiAdcock: On a dif note & I think there's a thread floating around somewhere, some airlines are allowing folk to donate miles to help some of the soliders. I realize some will say the airlines should give them free tickets, etc, but that's not economically viable. And if a ff has miles they're willing to donate, then why not allow them a mechanism to do so. Some of the airlines have also lifted the restrictions so it's not costing the soldier/family $2K to get home once they get back to states. </font> As to helping the soldiers to get home rather than having to pay a fortune, that has (or may be) helped by a new law. See story at http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?...4&archive=true Some quotes: <font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Troops traveling from the war zone on a little R&R will not have to foot the bill for plane tickets home. A new law diverts $55 million from the Army’s Operation and Maintenance fund into a personnel fund so that the service can pay for domestic flights for troops coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan on the military’s 15-day Rest and Recuperation program. . . . From Iraq, vacationing troops leave Camp Champion in Kuwait and fly free on military-chartered civilian planes to one of four designated airports: Rhein Main Air Base in Frankfurt, Germany; Baltimore Washington International Airport, Maryland; Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport in Georgia or Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport in Texas. From there, troops were on their own in paying for airline tickets to hometowns or wherever they chose to spend their two weeks of R&R, until the provision — an amendment to the $87.5 billion Iraq supplemental and sponsored by Rep. Jim Ramstad, R-Minn., and Rep. Dennis Moore, D-Kan., and which was signed into law Nov. 6 by President Bush. . . . And it is retroactive, which means the hundreds of troops who already have taken leave can seek reimbursement for those tickets, Rep. Moore said. However, the Army hasn’t finalized details and officials have questions about the the law, such as whether it can even be applied since there is another law that prohibits the government from paying expenses while a servicemember is on leave status, according to officials at Army Central Command and those tasked with managing the R&R program. </font> The story also mentions that as of Friday 14 November, over 60 million miles had been donated through www.heromiles.org alone. |
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by ldsant: When I read this letter/post, I started crying because I thought - "wow, what a NICE story for once. . " Not once did I think anything more than that. Then I see some of the responses here and have to wonder "Wow. ..how do people live with such negativity and cynicism about everything?" Thanks to the original poster for this story - it renewed my faith in human beings. Perhaps once in awhile we're supposed to suspend belief re: airlines, business, etc. and just look at the goodness that is around us?</font> Also kudos to the guys who give comp bumps FC to soliders coming back. To a lot of these guys, the little sacrifice means a real lot to them. |
How many soldiers chose not to come all the way home because they thought the available airfares were too high?
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I agree with Dovster above on the need for both types of solutions. What we need are more people & politicians who think for themselves on each issue instead of swallowing the Party Line of either Left or Right hook, line & sinker.
Shame on Oceanbound 222 http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...orum/frown.gif! Here's a ?? 4U: If a woman is attacked by a hoodlum/bully on the street & some even-stronger man, such as a boxer or Black Belt, whoops the butt of the hoodlum to defend the lady, would you call the rescuer a bully, too? I remember that duking it out with an obviously weaker person is only half the deinintion of a bully: one who starts trouble/intimidation or picks a fight with a weaker person. ------------------ Play the travel game 3 vacations into the future! |
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by Counsellor: A Day at Baltimore Airport The writer and his wife live in LA and both work for Uncle Sam. Dear Friends and Family, I hope that you will spare me a few minutes of your time to tell you about something that I saw on Monday, October 27. I had been attending a conference in Annapolis and was coming home on Sunday. As you may recall, Los Angeles International Airport was closed on Sunday, October 26, because of the fires that affected air traffic control. Accordingly, my flight and many others were canceled and I wound up spending a night in Baltimore. My story begins the next day. When I went to check in at the United counter Monday morning I saw a lot of soldiers home from Iraq. Most were very young and all had on their desert camouflage uniforms. This was a change from earlier, when they had to buy civilian clothes in Kuwait to fly home. It was a visible reminder that we are in a war. It probably was pretty close to what train terminals were like in World War II. Many people were stopping the troops to talk to them, asking them questions in the Starbucks line or just saying "Welcome Home." In addition to all the flights that had been canceled on Sunday, the weather was terrible in Baltimore and the flights were backed up. So, there were a lot of unhappy people in the terminal trying to get home, but nobody that I saw gave the soldiers a bad time. By the afternoon, one plane to Denver had been delayed several hours. United personnel kept asking for volunteers to give up their seats and take another flight. They weren't getting many takers. Finally, a United spokeswoman got on the PA and said this, "Folks. As you can see, there are a lot of soldiers in the waiting area. They only have 14 days of leave and we're trying to get them where they need to go without spending any more time in an airport then they have to. We sold them all tickets, knowing we would oversell the flight. If we can, we want to get them all on this flight. We want all the soldiers to know that we respect what you're doing, we are here for you and we love you." At that, the entire terminal of cranky, tired, travel-weary people, a cross-section of America, broke into sustained and heartfelt applause. The soldiers looked surprised and very modest. Most of them just looked at their boots. Many of us were wiping away tears. And, yes, people lined up to take the later flight and all the soldiers went to Denver on that flight. That little moment made me proud to be an American, and also told me why we will win this war. </font> |
Seems to me that war will always exist on this planet, as long as people continue to believe in different Gods.
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It looks like he sent that story to every website on the planet. He isn't only a judge, he does the PR for DoD as well. http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttr...m/rolleyes.gif |
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by haveric: I just wonder why our government feels it's ok to leave people @ BWI and let them figure out their way to wherever they may actually live.</font> I sat next to a SGT last night on the US PHL-BWI flight and would have been more than happy to go out of my way to offer him a helping hand if he had needed it-- cell phone usage, car ride, whatever. (as a matter of fact, I offered but he said that everything had been taken care of for him) These guys are out there doing a job that most anti-war armchair quarterbacks would run from, risking their lives-- the very least they deserve is a phone call or a ride to a hotel. I may not be out on the front lines, but that certainly doesn't mean that I can't/shouldn't offer to do a little to help someone out every now and then. I'm sure that many FT'ers have already done this (or already do this frequently), but I'd like to make a suggestion to everybody... The next time you see a soldier sitting in an airport waiting for a flight, at the very least take the time to thank him/her for serving-- I'm sure they will appreciate it. |
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by AllanJ: What happens if a soldier is unable to get back on duty after leave, for want of an airline seat?</font> An even bigger tragedy, IMHO, however, would be essentially taking a day away from the soldier's leave just so that you could get home sooner. These guys are given 2 weeks to come home, and then they're back out to Iraq. Given that scenario, I'd happily volunteer to give up my seat-- a few hours, an afternoon, an evening is more crucial to them than it is to me. We can debate whether or not the airlines are doing their part. We can debate whether or not the airlines should ask for passengers to volunteer. We can debate whether or not passengers who volunteer should be compensated. But none of these will change the way I feel about this personally. Take my seat and I'll fly on the next plane. EDIT: FWIW, the airlines can keep any compensation they offer for doing this, as I'm not interested in it. Or better yet, give the voucher to me and I'll give it to the soldier who can make use of it at some later time. (I guess y'all can tell I've got some pretty strong feelings about this. http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/wink.gif ) [This message has been edited by clrankin (edited Nov 24, 2003).] |
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