[hellosailor]

Scratching my head and wondering, Giu, so I have to ask:

And why is this news to you?

The sad state of the airline industry has been common knowledge in the US for years. Flyers and flyer web sites have widely discussed this. And some airlines (I give Delta the prize) simply lie all the time every time because it is easier to make up stories than to find out the truth and risk telling it to the customer.

On the other hand, I give big kudos to American Airlines, who have uniformly gone the extra mile (no pun intended) to give me answers when I ask questions. If I ask "Where is the incoming equipment coming from? Is it on time?" the gate agent and the desk agent are both willing and able to look up the tail number and find out where the plane is--which tells me if it might take off on time once it gets in.

Look up "Rule 240" which can be magic words in the US--but only if you have a real ticket, which the airlines now often charge an extra $25-50 for for.

Our FAA allows the airlines to duck out of many things if a flight has "weather" problems (including Rule 240) but many airlines often say "weather" in order to get out of their responsibilities--while the FAA database and official records show weather was not reported and not logged by them officially.

Personally? I go to the FCC web site and log into the official Flight Notification System. It will then send SMS messages to your cell phone, or email, every time there is a change in airport status for the airports you have selected. (Note, government intelligence is at work here, you must log in AGAIN to stop the chatter!)

So when the airline tells me my flight will be leaving on time...but the FAA tells me there are three hours delays where the equipment is supposed to come from, or ground holds stopping all traffic on my route, I know better.

There are also some nice real-time flight trackers out there, mostly subscription based, that will tell you the status of flights in the air, and the airports, so if the airline tells you "You're gonna fly Continental equipment tail number N1428E today" you can actually find out where that plane is--or isn't.

Means you need web access on your cell phone, or WiFi in the airport, but the point it--they can only screw, ergh, fool, some of the folks all of the time. The rest of us can look them in the face and say "Gee, isn't that funny, the FAA says you're lying to me." And then, Rule240 sometimes says you're entitled to the first seat out on any other carrier. Which the airlines HATE to give you, because they may have to pay full list price for the same-day seat.

TFB, they're the ones who think "market demand pricing" is a good idea.

It also helps to find out what city your carrier is "hubbing" out of. Those that orient all their flights from a hub airport which is often subject to weather closures (some are worse than others) are going to be messed up worst. If a fly sneezes in Atlanta,Ga, Delta shuts down the entire East Coast, because they can't fly without Atlanta. Continental? Dunno, supposedly Cleveland, Houston, and Newark, which means when Newark is snafu, the entire Northeast will be down too.

Airlines were a good thing from the dead past. The Airline Industry? A sad reminder of what used to be "Airlines". And remember to bring along a major credit card, you'll need to swipe it in order to use the lavatory, or deposit five dollars in exact change to open the lav door now. (Sure, I might be kidding about this one. Right now.)