Originally Posted by Allen in Montreal
My thoughts exactly. I have had computer hard drives ripped out of my checked baggage never to be seen again (three months of images gone). I will not put cameras, lenses or anything tempting in checked baggage.
however, you can not check in your bags until 4hrs before the flight.
You guys see this in the LA Times today?
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...,7410211.story
A law to regulate carry-ons is nothing but a subsidy to the airlines. It won't make your flying any more fun or any easier. Since the airlines (most of them) can't seem to make money by providing good customer service (because of incompetent management) they're looking to the government tit. I find it stomach curdling that we are moving more and more to the place where the biggest industries look to big brother for special regulation to help them -take- our business instead of -earn- our business.
The more government regulation we get the worse we are served. If there was sufficient competition in the airline industry they'd have to work hard to make us happy customers or lose our business and go broke. As it stands now they look to big brother to cure their problems - customers be damned. Look at the crazy rules about how long they can hold you on a plane sitting on the ground. It looks like legalized kidnapping to me. But we must like it that way since we put up with it?
I find it astounding that we continue to fly on carriers who treat us poorly. Sometimes we have to choose poor service as its the only option that is available on a particular route. Otherwise, when you fly, please pick an airline that treats you like a valued customer. As we are herded around by the TSA we forget that we're customers, not cattle. Speak up! Let them know how you feel with your feet, with your wallet and your votes!
Thanks for calling this to my attention. I have notified my congressman re the potential financial impact on his constituents if the bill passes as written.
Henry, prior to Reagan deregulating the airlines the service was vastly better, the planes were not packed with passengers like sardines, there were actually empty seats and overhead room available, and the airlines did not overbook every flight forcing people to get bumped. On the other hand the deregulation greatly lowered air fares. But back in the 1970's flying was an upscale experience, now even a Greyhound bus is more comfortable than flying coach.
As for there not being enough competition, you really don't know what you're talking about, the competition is fierce, and that's why they're going out of business. They keep having to undercut each other and themselves to be competitive.
So you have to ask yourself, do you want cheap tickets or good service, because it's damn near impossible to get both and as the margins are so slim, the slightest jump in fuel prices means the success or failure of an airline.
Personally I'd rather pay $100 or $200 more for a ticket and have service like the good old days. The way I have worked around these issues is that when I travel for my work I only go business or first class just to be certain I don't have issues bringing my gear and film on board. So because people want to bring their socks and underwear into the cabin I have to fly first class to insure that my cameras and film get on board. And because of the inconvenience and expense of that when I have to travel within North America, coast to coast, I drive. So as far as large carry ons, I say charge them. It'll also make it faster getting on and off the plane and is safer than having overloaded luggage bins over head.
Yeah, thank goodness the last few decades have seen so much regulation eliminated in the US, like repealing Glass-Steagall. Ending that really served the country well -- if one appreciates massive financial crises.
+1
I think you would be surprised. The average airfare paid now is cheaper in nominal dollars than it was before deregulation. In real dollars, I think you would find that airfare before deregulation was higher than current fares by a factor of about two. The typical $400 airfare would not, therefore, be $500 or $600 in 2010 dollars, but rather $800 in 1978 dollars, which means more like 2600 of those 2010 dollars. The effect has been that airlines have now become a reasonable travel mode for people of modest means, which was not the case before deregulation. That has greatly increased demand. It's tough having to share the airplane with all those normal people, I admit.
(By the way, it was not Reagan who deregulated the airlines. It was Carter, in 1978.)
The problem is that the market will not bear the price that was built into the business models of most of the major airlines. But they have had 32 year to revise those business models. They keep working at the margins. Only Southwest Airlines has adopted a fundamentally different business model since that era, and my observation of Southwest is that 1.) they are usually cheaper, 2.) they consistently provide good service, and 3.) they have been consistently profitable. The majors argue that Southwest doesn't have to run a hub-and-spoke network, but, frankly, that would be the point.
There have been many ways in which airline competition has been distorted. One is that airports are often dominated by one carrier, giving them an effective monopoly on that destination. Just try to fly into, say, Minneapolis without touching Northwest/Delta's high prices, for example. Minneapolis is one of the most expensive flying destinations in the U.S.
Another distortion is Internet pricing. I like Internet pricing. I don't like the variable way in which airlines report their prices for supposedly equal comparison. That is the reason airlines are now charging for snacks and checked baggage--so they don't have to include the price for those basic services in their online price comparisons. I call that bait and switch, when the advertised price is subject to substantial increase for normal basic services.
I would not mind checking my bags if the airlines could be clearly and directly held responsible for their mishandling of those bags. I sat on a plane operated by a major airline three weeks ago, at Dulles, and watched as the baggage gorilla stood at the conveyor and swiped bags headed for a certain destination off the belt to the left to tumble five feet down to the pavement, and swipe bags for a different destination to the right, also five feet down to the pavement. The bottom layer of bags provided cushioning for subsequent bags. When he needed to put a bag on the cart, he threw it. I did not see him place one bag--they all caught air before landing. There is no excuse for that. Had I been a bit quicker with my iPhone, I'd have video of that on YouTube.
The only time I check a bag is when I travel with cameras. I carry the cameras in a backpack to carry on with my briefcase, and check my clothes (my tripod goes with my clothes). This is a case where a monorail view camera is utterly unacceptable, heh.
When traveling on business and bringing only cameras that I can fit in my briefcase, I do not check bags. I can survive a 10-day trip with what fits in a truly legal carry-on (which is 22" long, and that has always been the limit). I travel 2-4 times a month by air.
When my wife travels with me, however, life gets ugly in a hurry!
Rick "who does not need three alternatives of clothing for every day plus every evening of a trip" Denney
Check in camera gear? Nuts! We've had baggage shredded, dented, and lost. Not to
mention the distinct risk of theft.
Brian, Sal -
I do know what I'm talking about.
And I am old enough to remember when flying was a coat and tie affair. But that has little to do with our current state of affairs. It was Carter who signed the bill abolishing the CAB. The so-called "deregulation" isn't that at all. Its more properly called "we're changing some of the rules but not enough to let the market work".
As Rick stated, after 30-something years some airlines have developed a -real- business model and are successful today. Others, due to inept management and their past and current reliance on the government tit are losing their shirts. Many have already died natural deaths and others will follow.
Read this and tell me about being wrong:
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/A...egulation.html
There's still plenty of government control and it makes it harder for the good guys to thrive and keeps the weak on life support much to the industry's (and our) detriment.
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