Mokka mit Schlag » Travel

Remember when you could cut the lines at the airport by using those new-fangled kiosks all the non-techies were afraid of? Then when you could check in at home and print your own boarding pass (and incidentally edit its PDF source code to bypass what little security the ID checks provided)?

I think those days are over. (Except for editing the boarding pass source code. That still works.) This morning at JFK the smart move would have been to wait till you got to the airport to check in. The line for offline checkin was nonexistent. The line for online baggage check was wrapped around three times and growing fast, and this was at 5:15 in the morning. Heck, you probably could have showed up at the airport with no reservation and oversized luggage, bought a one-way ticket using cash, and still gotten through the line faster.

The general public has finally discovered the wonders of online check-in, and in a completely predictable tragedy of the commons, it’s now just as slow as regular check-in used to be, except we’re doing more of the work. It’s like thirty years ago when everyone started using self-serve to save money, and soon self-serve prices had risen to where full-service used to be.

For a while, I’ve thought that Google Maps’ driving directions are inferior to Yahoo’s and MapQuest’s, though Google Maps are superior in other respects. In particular, Google tends to send me on strange, winding paths through local neighborhoods instead of taking slightly longer but more direct routes down major thoroughfares and highways. However recently that changed.
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I got pulled over for extra screening at JFK this morning. Apparently my lunch set off the alarm bells. I had a ziploc bag containing a smoked turkey leg and some baby carrots. None of the security screeners could guess what the turkey leg was until they opened my bag, but they did let me through with it. I could swear I’ve carried on turkey legs before, but maybe next time I’ll bring sandwiches.

Makes me wonder: what other dangerous foods could you get on board with? Leg of lamb? Hard salami? Does stinky cheese count as a biological weapon? And should I really be uploading this post through the airport wireless network? (Too late to worry about that: the post just autosaved. Thanks WordPress.)

Over the years I have rented from every major U.S. auto rental chain with the exception of Avis. Over that time I have had almost every problem imaginable with almost every one of them: extra fees tacked on at rental time, cars that had mechanical failures, cars missing pieces in the lot, cars that simply were not available despite a confirmed reservation, cars that could not be dropped off where I was supposed to drop them off, rental offices that were closed during their operating hours, insurance that I didn’t need but was required to purchase anyway, “unlimited” mileage that wasn’t, outrageous gas prices, gas I was charged for but didn’t use, frequent flier miles that were promised and not credited, and more. About the only aspect of car rental service I’ve been lucky enough not to experience is what happens when your rental car is in an accident or stolen.

The latest variation was on a trip to California where I planned to spend some time birding on windy mountain roads with very small pull-offs. Consequently I’d reserved a compact car at Dollar. Instead they saddled me with an effective tank, possibly the single longest car or truck I’ve ever driven. Over six days they claimed to be unable to find a compact car to replace it with.

Recently it occurred to me that there is exactly one car rental company I have never had a problem with or a complaint about: Hertz.
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In all the brouhaha over JetBlue stranding passengers on airplanes for hours last Wednesday, one thing I haven’t seen explained until now is why this specifically happened to JetBlue. Usually when we hear a story like this, it’s at a major hub airport like Detroit that’s primarily served by one airline. JFK is a hub for JetBlue, but unlike Detroit or Atlanta, JetBlue is hardly the only airline with a lot of planes there. What did JetBlue do wrong that other airlines at JFK didn’t? The New York Times seems to have figured that out. In brief:

• Other airlines canceled more flights sooner due to the weather.
• Communications within the company broke down. Pilots and flight attendants were not able to get assignments.
• The reservation system was overloaded so passengers could not get through to humans.

A lot of this is blamed on both the rapid growth and low cost structure of JetBlue. They hadn’t built enough slack into their systems to handle an event like this.

How many times have I been at the airport waiting for a delayed plane? I’ve lost count. Dozens of times, and I’m not all that frequent a flier. Sometimes I’ve waited almost an entire day. How many times have the airlines told me the flight is delayed before I left my house? Exactly once in over thirty years of flying, and that was almost twenty years ago. Something needs to be done.
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