cesco.g

If you are flying out of Germany this weekend and looking to be bumped, you can virtually bet on it.

As reported elsewhere flights on some NorthAtlantic routes have been extremely full. The situation from Germany / especially Frankfurt was very tight again last weekend, with overbookings by 100+ on certain flights. E.g. on UA 916/917 a 747-400 was substituted for the regular 777. The First Class lounge at the FRA RCC has been transformed into a waiting area for pax "without seat assigments", while a section of the regulat RCC area has been cordoned off for F-class customers.

Coming out of Germany yesterday I learned that the situation is loading up again for this weekend. If you happen to fly out of FRA you can help yourself to a nice comp -and as a VDB assist UA in the process as well.

Markieg

Sorry to put a downer on this but you'll face delays and/or cancellations over much european air-space over the summer. The European Union are attempting to create a single air traffic control body but the indivual countries ATC bodies are resisting this, primarily on safety grounds but probably because it will mean job cuts. Yesterday the French ATC were on strike, causing major problems and Spain and other ATC's have similar actions planned for the short term. The news reports are that internal EU flights are very badly affected with long hauls affected to a lesser degree.
Just a note of caution for you none europeans,
MarkieG

cesco.g

If you are flying out of one of UAs German gateways (FRA, DUS, MUC) you should be affected minimally at best.
Despite the strike over in France, e.g. yesterday's flight FRA-SFO left slightly delayed due to ground traffic at FRA, was routed over Scandinavia, and arrived with a 10 min. delay in SFO. Also connections from other countries (except France) were mostly on time.

Here's the flight arrival info on the other UA flights ex-Germany yesterday:

UA # 917 FRA-IAD: 29 min late
UA # 941 FRA-ORD: 3 min. early
UA # 945 FRA-ORD: 18 min. early
UA # 963 MUC-IAD: 9 min. early
UA # 977 FRA-IAD: 1 min. early
UA # 983 DUS-IAD: 13 min early


[This message has been edited by cesco.g (edited 06-20-2002).]

ozstamps

With Germany in the crucial Soccer semi I am amazed any good German will be on ANY plane going ANYWHERE.

I saw on this morning's news that Michael Schumaker who will be driving at 300 mph or whatever in the European Grand Prix as Germany play has had special controls added to his $100,000 steering wheel to allow him to follow 'live' the soccer scores. Hope the result is not too close, for the sake of his heart and health. Imagine tearing into a sharp corner decellerating 5 gears from that speed and seeing the USA team just scored with minutes to go!

I was in Copenhagen, London and Dublin airports in recent weeks as those countries' teams were playing. The whole place stops to gather around TV screens. Almost zero interest at USA airports, but if they somehow beat Germany ... who knows.

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~ Glen ~



[This message has been edited by ozstamps (edited 06-20-2002).]

Mark Rogers

I was at "The Barge" (a British pub owned by Richard Branson) in Narita watching England play Argentina. The place was filled with British, Argentinish, Japanese, German and U.S. fans, although it was mostly British, including quite a few drunk Virgin Atlantic FAs. What a great time, especially after England scored. After the game it was just one big party.

ozstamps

Mark - I hear ya!

I was sitting on a BD flight Dublin to LHR June 11 loaded to the eyeballs with Irish. It was to depart at the time the Saudi/Ireland match was to play around midday. We were held on the ground for an hour or two as a Virgin 747 had made some kind of botched landing at LHR or whatever and partially blocked one of the runways.

There was almost a riot on board when they announced this over the PA as the pax all wanted to decamp and go back to the big screens in airport!

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~ Glen ~