Fly Continental...the Airline That Gets You Nowhere

[Giulietta]

Stick
its not that at all...its just plain lying to people...they siad they couln't get the plane to the door...they said many things

everyone else left....that is the weird thing...they lied

I understand the bad weather..but Lufthansa, Brithis, American Portugal, even the God Damn Air France...ah theres a joke, Iberia, United all took off!!!!

All of them, and so did the 3 or 4 planes that took of from the gate we were in...

That's why we didn't buy THE WEATHER crap....

I know when its weather...there's 100 planes going no where.....

[sailingdog]

The main reason that airlines asked the feds to require ID to fly is to eliminate the black market in cheap airline tickets... It was a business decision, not a security one, regardless of what the Feds say.

If the requirement to show ID was really a security one, the TSA goons at the security area would have access to drivers license databases and the reservation ticket databases. Without that, there is nothing that they can do that actually contributes to security, as security guru Bruce Schneier has pointed out several times. From one of his articles:

The photo-ID requirement is presented as a security measure, but business is the real reason. Airlines didn't resist it, even though they resisted every other security measure of the past few decades, because it solved a business problem: the reselling of nonrefundable tickets. Such tickets used to be advertised regularly in newspaper classifieds. An ad might read: "Round trip, Boston to Chicago, 11/22-11/30, female, $50." Since the airlines didn't check IDs and could observe gender, any female could buy the ticket and fly the route. Now that won't work. Under the guise of helping prevent terrorism, the airlines solved a business problem of their own and passed the blame for the solution on to FAA security requirements.

[hellosailor]

Giu-
The problem with flying EU airlines in the US, is that once you hit a port of entry, the flights usually continue by "code sharing" meaning, one airline is really flying, and another is pretending they also run the plane. In this case, a US airline will really be flying--and the "code sharing partner" will be the EU airline, which is really powerless. (For US customers flying overseas the role is often reversed when a smaller US carrier shares someone else's plane.)
I would bet TAP won't take the tickets, because Continental isn't willing to pay full price for the seats. And, as long as "wx" is the documented reason, Rule240 doesn't apply and TAP can't *force* Continental to pay for the seats. Any reason besides wx, and you'd have a different set of rules, although I do recall a friend getting stuck in PA or OH overnight when an airline (I think Continental) played the same game. He said "We've been delayed by weather, don't pick me up at the airport" and when I went to the FAA web site...funny thing, no WX delays posted at any of the airports.
Kids in grade school here have a taunt: "Liar liar, pants on fire".

Of course it could be worse, is there an Air Siberia perhaps? Trying to deal with weather delays over the colder parts of the world?

From what I heard Jet Blue and a few others (perhaps Continental) chickened out early and cancelled their flights while other airlines didn't. Because they didn't want to gamble on the expenses of a clean-up if they did get snowed in, and crews and aircraft all had to be put up overnight and sorted back out the next day. That can cost them an awful lot--so this is a financial decision, not an aviation safety one.

As SD points out, part of the dog-and-pony show over airline security is simply that the airlines were having massive expenses as frequent fliers bought "free" tickets and resold them for cash, instead of letting the miles go unclaimed. The airlines stopped that expense by insisting the ticket could only be used by the one named party--purely a business greed decision.

The US public still hasn't quite figured out that 9/11 had nothing to do with airline security, it was possible only because the US, unlike the rest of the world, had a formal policy of surrendering the cockpit, and not having air marshals on board. (The sky marshal program was shut down in the 80's after the same greedy airline industry lobbied Congress and said "it costs too much". I'd have stuck the airlines with the entire bill for 9/11 and said good luck, and if they all went bankrupt...that's their business too. The 9/11 flights could never have happened on ElAl, or even on Air Pakistan. Which damn well ought to mortally embarass us.)

[sailingdog]

The other thing that people were doing was buying two round trip tickets and selling one-half of each to essentially create a cheap trip flight without the restrictions of normal cheap flights, like having to stay over a Saturday night, or flying from A to B to C, for far less than the two one-way flights would have cost. The FAA ID requirement meant that this technique of beating the airline fare structure restrictions was essentially dead.

Korean Air Lines has also never had a hijacking IIRC. They have trained security personnel on every flight... and the only plane they've lost as I recall was one shot down by the Russians.

[hellosailor]

SD-
People still buy RT's and throw out half. The airlines frown on it and claim that if you do it too often, they'll blackball you. Or, if you don't fly the first leg, they won't honor the return. AFAIK scare talk not a real problem yet.

KAL: Maybe the hijackers don't want to fly KAL in the first place? Or maybe, no one wants to hijack a plane TO KOREA? The loss of KAL-007 was, IIRC, finally blamed on a navigational error where the nav system on the plane had the wrong data loaded in it, resulting in the plane overflying a classified Soviet military installation. (We'd shoot down a Russian plane overflying Cheyenne Mountain, too. People forget that.) And then, to make matters worse, USAF reconaissance flights apparently routinely flew in the shadow of commercial aviation in that area--giving the Soviets double reason to think it was a USAF aircraft in their shoot-down zone. "Ooopsie".

"They [KAL] have trained security personnel on every flight" So does pretty much every airline, around the world, even back in 2001. Except, the US carriers, who still think sky marshals cost too much.

Of course, two years ago, a ticket desk attendant changed my seat and then gave me aboarding pass in someone else's name (double booking the seat) and none of the sharp TSA staff who looked at the pass and my ID noticed that the names didn't match, until two of us tried to sit in the same seat.

Department of Homeland Insecurity, I call it. And I'm taking orders for the polo shirts, so we can fly in proper uniforms.

[sailingdog]

Yes, but selling the other half made doing it far more affordable than it is today. It was also harder to track people doing it, because they didn't have the ID requirement back then.

Yes, the Russian shoot down was a tragedy... and due to navigational error, at least that was the conclusion they came to.

KAL's reasons for having security personnel aboard have to do with their unfriendly neighbor to the north.

Oooh... put me down for polo shirt... navy or royal blue if you've got them.

[tdw]

I believe that Continental is known as Contemptible in the world of avaiation.

[Cruiserwannabe]

Giu,check this out
http://www.petitiononline.com/VNICOLAI/petition.html

[hellosailor]

The latest excuse, which seems especially popular at both LGA and Newark, is that "there isn't enough de-icing gear" which translates into "The Port Authority, who is legally untouchable, has decided they don't give a damn about losing a day or two of business every year."

IIRC there are only two de-icing trucks at LGA, I waited an extra hour one morning after an ice storm because of that. You figure, if they launch every two minutes when they are busy clearing up a backlog, that's 30 planes per hour that need to be de-iced. Fifteen planes per truck. You'd have to be a pretty good truck driver to VISIT, let alone de-ice, fifteen jets in one hour.

But of course trucks, truck drivers, and thousands of gallons of de-ice fluid (alcohol and blue dye, no?) have got to cost money. It's cheaper to screw the rubes, since no one, not even the Governor or legislature, can really make the PA/NYNJ do anything.