Since hedging on fuel contracts became much, much more important than serving passengers.

I once, operative term, once, flew an airline that had festival seating. I thought I was at a Who concert. The flight attendant looked at me without empathy and briefly deigned to inform me that’s the way they did it.

Parenthetically, how much service, even essential service, can one expect from someone making minimum wage?

No, but seriously. Who is responsible for staffing the gangway and deciding which gate a plane should be going to? This is not a one-in-a-while thing. This kind of stuff happens all the time.

IBM used to have these desk tags, saying “Think!” They were trying to remind their employees to Think. I do not think anyone is interested in the concept any more. Thinking on a job is too hard. Whether it is thinking about giving out bad loans or whether it is thinking about where to park a plane.

More specifically, whoever took your money for transportation is responsible for your comfort.

Stanley,

Thanks for letting me riff. I, like Jeff, would also pay for the content of this blog.

With respect.

JFK is an embarrassment to this country! The airport is dirty, poorly laid out and employs some of the rudest people on the planet. I avoid it if at all possible and suggest others do the same. What a shameful first impression this airport gives to international travelers visiting the US for the first time – I would not blame them if they turned around and flew back home, but then again they would have to deal with JFK staff to arrange that so I guess it is really not an option!

I suspect a union was involved…

JFK bites, why not fly into LaGuardia?

We’ve been suffering for 15 years through construction and annoying $15 “airport improvement fees” tacked on to every flight. Now we have waterfalls, moving walkways, reasonable restaurants, native artwork, and just this week opened a new rapid transit link direct from airport to downtown hotels and cruise ships.

It takes a ton of planning, foresight, and political will, but eventually you can get there from here.

everyone was accross the street watching the METS lose. seriously though, it’s much cheaper to fly into Kennedy than Newark so quit your yapping.

your logjam problem is a combination of jfk ground control (faa) and the airline. the port authority has technical control over the entire airport (leased from the city for a zillion dollars a year, by the way) but everything having to do with aircraft movement is handled either by the feds (as with customs) or the specific terminals the flights either originate from or go into. logjams are mostly caused by delays (or the repositioning consequences). the port authority leases the various terminals to each airline or consortium, as in terminal 4 (granted, not ideal but this was the way Idelwild was originally laid out) but has no role in running them. distances from runway to terminal can indeed be a pain but try flying in and out of denver or o’hare sometime! actually, i think jfk is pretty good given the weirdness of the layout. something like $8 billion invested there in the past decade. in my opinion, the only disfunctional terminals are delta’s but they don’t have the money to do much about it at the moment. the real problem with jfk is getting there on the van wyck. better than it used to be but the traffic can be brutal. to be fair, however, not as bad as CDG or Narita. try the airtrain – not perfect by any means but relatively fast and cheap if you don’t mind the slightly irritating transfer

The airline industry is about as cool as a fart in church. To ask these questions is similar to asking a 3 year old why they just touched the red hot range.

The mind blowing part of this whole thing is the potential of the service. If you really stop and think about how cool it is that you can fly from one part of the world to another, it’s all the more perplexing that they’ve managed to make their customers so miserable.

What industry has ever done less with such a tremendous offering?

I’ll guess at the answer. Airlines measure plane use by block time, the time that the blocks are taken off at the gate to the time the blocks are put on. More plane use is good, so by that measurement, the time you spend on the tarmac is good. Next, airlines measure turn-around time. Shorter is better. So they wait until they have everything in place to make a quick turn-around, and put their passengers in a state where they want to get off the plane fast.

Well, have you considered that it might be karma? Have you done anything nasty to anyone lately? Just a thought.

It could just be a crappy airline at a crappy airport of course. I am astonished to hear that people in New York City might be rude to someone. Imagine that.

We also know another reason not to allow concealed weapons on airplanes.

OK, Bing, here’s the serious version:
Approach Control (airport people) guide you to the airport and hand you off to Tower Control (airport people). After you land, Tower hands you off to Ground Control (airport people). Ground directs you to the airline terminal area, and hands you off to the Airline Control (AIRLINE PEOPLE). They decide which gate you get, and the airline is responsible for providing the gate people.

Sounds like you need to yell at the airline.

Personal opinion version:
Everyone thinks New York is the place to go to ‘Be Somebody’. That’s why it’s so busy and crowded. If you don’t believe me, just try to get a cab.

At least they let you off the plane, even if it did take a while.

They could have made you wait in the plane until morning when airport managers and TSA came to work, as happened in Rochester last week.

It’s only a matter of time until some airline bean counter figures out how much they can save on each flight by not having to carry all those pesky passengers. I hope he get his bonus in cash, because a check might not clear.

Bing,
Haven’t you read the new Obama health care plan? There is a clause that says that all airlines must now park their planes at the end of the terminal so that passengers have to walk farther. By walking more, you will lose weight and be healthier!! Won’t that lower our health care cost? (just kidding)

Why would grid lock be any less debilitating in air travel than any other facet of transportation.

Obesity has many forms; simply, growth is self defeating once expansion tips the balance of efficiency to inefficiency.

Look back twenty-five years from today; then try to imagine what transportation wil be like twenty-five years from now.

Looks like a real disaster in the making? Seems like a disaster in the making to me.

We shall overcome?

Recovery is clearly at hand. Executive level whining, a solid leading indicator of economic revival, is spiking!

Seriously Bing, this is what makes your life a ‘living hell’? Try waiting for a six-by ride out in the bush, and getting thrown out at 35 mph by a bunch of angry ROK marines because you wanted your damn cigarettes back. JFK is effing paradise. Get a grip man!

Atlanta (Hartsfield-Jackson) airport is much worse.

The parking is even better. Had to drop someone off, got them and their luggage up to the departure area, then went back outside to the car. Got in a great long line of cars trying to leave. Missed the 1-hour mark by 3 minutes. Had to pay an extra $3.00 for the privilege of waiting in their payout line. What a scam.

New business venture – Bing Airlines. We allow passengers to fly for free and generate revenue by bombarding our captive audience with advertising. Steve Jobs then jumps on the bandwagon with the Iplane and redefines the user experience with crazy ideas like not having to wait half an hour for disembarkation. Problem solved.

Actually, JFK is not that bad,,,, I just came from Europe and when you compare JFK airport with Mexico City, Barcelona, Madrid, Milan and Rome, specially Rome!, JFK is a model of efficiency,,,, DFW is my favorite

TO THIS YOU CAN ALSO ADD THIS COMMENT: THE SAME THINGS HAPPEN IN FORT LAUDERDALE FLORIDA COMING FROM DOMINICAN REPUBLIC, SHORT FLY BUT NEED IMIGRATION CHECK, LATE AT NITE FULL PLANE ONLY 2 AGENT DOING THE CHECK OUT.

JFK experimented a while back with staffing the entire airport with friendly, helpful people from the midwest. The experient failed due to the long commutes involved, and the general inability of people from Ohio to successfully locate the Lincoln Tunnel.

JFK returned to using the surly union workers we all know and love.

I’m not sure what planet La Guardia goes to for staffing, though. Everyone there is always happy and friendly. Perhaps they’re all getting a cut of whatever is getting flown in from Miami.

RE “not as bad as CDG or Narita”

Mory, don’t compare JFK to Narita. You could eat off the floors in Narita, it is so clean. Everyone who works there is helpful and friendly, no matter where you come from or what language you speak.

The train ride to Tokyo is a bit long, but you can take a luggage cart down the over-sized escalator, get a ticket from a vending machine, and be on your way faster than you can hump your gear to a cab at JFK. You’re probably going to get where you’re going faster out of Narita than out of JFK, even with the long haul on the train.

JFK’s so dirty you could grow row crops in the concourses.

I was just daydreaming about the pleasures of a long train ride. The dining car with good food served on real china, a nice roomette with two berths, and the rhythm of the rails under me as I slept. Wow.

But as I recall, the railroad barons did their best to undermine that experience too — they preferred freight, which doesn’t eat, need a bathroom, complain, care about the temperature, and isn’t in a big hurry. The passenger stations got run-down, and the service got worse. The airlines stepped in where the trains left off.

I don’t know. I avoid airports that I hate, and lately I’m using air travel as little as possible. We can only vote with our feet, and that is what I am doing.

American airlines is responsible for their terminal and management of gate access along the ramp. The distance you had to taxi is just relative to where the plane came to stop vis a vis the location of the terminal. If the wind was blowing in the other direction, you would have stopped next to the terminal.

Having to wait so long at the gate was probably due to a lack of staff to park and unload the aircraft.

The service is in the hands of many different areas of responsibility from the airline to the FAA. The “airport” is just a compendium of these players. But, look to the airline for service complaints.

With your experience in air travel, pay attention to the basic elements of what affects the experience and who is providing that service. That should be the locus of your complaints (or gratitude).

My daughter is 3 years old. She received a flower girl gift bag from her Godmother at her Godmother’s wedding in Boston & brought it on the plane. We were seated in row 29, seats D, E, & F. Shortly after exiting the plane, we realized we had forgotten it under the center seat in front of us. We were told we could not go back onto the plane to get it, even though the plane had not been cleaned yet & had not been sent to the hanger. We were sent to baggage claim services, filled out a form, waited for them to make a call up to the gate, & we were told someone went onboard to check for it & they did not find it. I went to AA Check in counter to find a Supervisor. I was told the plane still was not cleaned & one AA employee at the check in area went up to physically check for it. He returned, stating it was not there, & that maybe a passenger took it. This was an impossibility since we were the last ones off the plane & the canvas tote was covered by pillows and blankets. I then remembered I had placed a pair of expensive Ed Hardy adult sized sunglasses in her tote while on the flight. I realized that the flight attendant that found the tote also found the glasses, & if they returned the tote bag w/ childrens gifts in it, the glasses would come into question. Who would not return a toy filled, fusia trimmed ~9″x11″ canvas tote with a note inside for a little 3 year girl named Sadie? You tell me. Please. Things do not vanish into thin air. She is devastated. The Fusia trimmed small tote from the company is out of stock. The Cape Cod kids T-shirt and toys were from local stores from an area where none of our family or friends live. The letter was never even opened…

3 American Airlines customers will never fly American Airlines again.