Posted by Seth on January 17, 2012 under News | 
Allegiant apparently decided to leave a quarter of the plane behind on a flight last week, arguably due to understaffing their station in Lafayette, Louisiana. According to passengers the agent working the ticket counter simply walked away with about 30 customers still in line trying to get checked in and obtain boarding passes. The passengers claim this happened more than 60 minutes prior to the scheduled departure while the airline claims it happened 32 minutes prior, actually inside their published 45 minute rule.
The part of the story that simply doesn’t make sense at all to me, however, is this claim from an Allegiant spokesperson:
We made every effort to contact the flight crew and hold the plane, however, we were unable to do so.
In what world are we living that an airline is unable to contact the crew operating a flight while the plane is still on the ground? Did they not have the number to connect with the local station office? Or the gate? Or the pilot? Or the tower? Or the ACARS system? Seems to me there are a lot of ways they could have held the plane; it is shocking that they all failed.
The other rather awkward part about this is that they’ve basically admitted they are understaffed at their stations. Having the same agent responsible for the ticket counter, baggage and the gate is just begging for something to go wrong. It is certainly possible to share some of those responsibilities amongst a limited staff, but if there’s really only one person doing that stuff then they’ve got a problem.
And this brings us back to the post title. Always check in online in advance, even if you think you’ll be at the airport in plenty of time. There are so many different things that could happen – many of which I’ve personally experienced – where having already completed that online check in process more or less saves the day. It is a couple moments out of your life at any point in the 24 hours leading up to the flight that can mean the difference between making the flight or not.
Posted by Seth on May 29, 2009 under Flying, News |
Another new carrier plans to take to the skies over America in early July, with an almost certain future – a quick failure. JetAmerica plans to operate service based out of Toledo, Ohio, just up the road from Columbus, Ohio, the recent failure home of SkyBus. It probably is no coincidence that the “brains” behind the operation happens to be the same guy. This should be interesting.
Service from Toledo will include South Bend, Indiana; Melbourne, Florida; Lansing, Michigan; Minneapolis, Minnesota and Newark, New Jersey. The service will not operate daily on any of the routes; they are taking after the Allegiant Air approach of service a couple times a week to each destination. But unlike Allegiant, the destinations being served are not particularly high demand at either end as best as I can tell. Newark and Minneapolis are hubs for Continental and Northwest (now Delta), respectively. If there was demand for those flights they probably would be operating already in many cases.
The carrier is also having trouble with the concept of pricing and their “no gimmick” claims. All tickets incur a $5 “convenience fee” for the booking, so the $9 fare sale is actually $14, with the $5 tucked into the “taxes” section of the record. Yeah, that would be a gimmick.
And they are actually operating as a scheduled charter operator rather than regular commercial service. This makes a bit of a difference when it comes to passenger rights and other details of the operational aspects of the carrier. It isn’t necessarily bad, but it certainly qualifies it as a bit sketchy. At least it means that they will have relatively new airplanes flying around for them.
Finally, they are financing a large part of this service with FAA-provided grant money from the Small Cities Air Service program. Money in this program is supposed to be used to help stimulate service to underserved markets. Toledo qualifies for this service to the tune of $400K and the local airport authority has kicked in another $200K. That’s not enough to operate an airline for very long, hence the prediction of the quick demise
It is hard to believe that folks are willing to continue throwing good money at bad ideas. Fuel prices are slowly ticking back up and the economy is rather in the tank still. Even if it weren’t the chances of success with this carrier would still be miserably low. But the guy keeps getting paid do start up these airlines and then, eventually, screw over customers and investors. That is just sad.
Lots more useful thoughts on this new airline over at Hudson Crossing.
Posted by Seth on July 25, 2008 under Uncategorized |
For the past several years the airlines have been pushing passengers away from their call centers, ticket offices and airport facilities for purchasing tickets, preferring to handle the transactions online to save money. After all, programmers and servers are cheaper than call center employees on a per booking basis.
But when the airlines start charging for bookings online something is just plain wrong in my opinion. American Airlines led the charge, initiating a $5 online booking fee for reward tickets effective back in June. And then Spirit Air, a carrier known for charging money for just about everything, actually introduced a $10 “web convenience fee” for the “convenience” of booking a flight online. Of course they didn’t just increase their fares by $10. That would make way too much sense and they wouldn’t be able to hide the booking fee in the fine print at the end of the booking process. Of course, I think that such a practice is actually prohibited by the US federal government and it doesn’t matter anyways because they pulled the fee out of their systems. But it is ridiculous that they even tried. Allegient Air does have a web-based convenience fee, but they sell the ticket with no surcharge at the airport. I’m convinced that they just know that no one will do that and so they pocket the extra $11.50 for each passenger.
I know why the carriers don’t just bundle everything into the fare and call it a day, but these practices are really nasty in many cases. It just reeks of slimebag tactics and certainly makes me want to have nothing to do with any of the carriers involved.
