Another PHL disaster

The PHL curse strikes yet again. After arriving two hours late, due to weather, last Sunday I arrived at Hertz a little before 2 a.m. to find that, while my name was on the Gold board, there was no car in the stall indicated. So I went over to the Gold office to find that they were closing up and sending us, there were more travelers in my position, over to the main office. This did not look too good, as there was already a line of at least twenty people waiting and only two agents. Luckily the opened a 'Gold' line with intially two agents. However, very quickly one of the agents disappeared, without any explanation. There was no visible manager at the office, no-one directing anything at all. The one person being handled in the gold line seemed to have some problem with his reservation and so I had to wait about twenty-five minutes before being helped. I was the next person in the Gold line, and I felt very sorry for the the five or six people behind me, as it seemed they would have a long, long wait.

During all this a manager surfaced briefly, looked at all the irritated people and disappeared again. The agents behind the desk seemed to have been dragged from everywhere, because the one that took over the 'Gold' line, had to ask other Hertz personnel about completing almost every part of the rental agreement. And yes, this was all being done by hand as the computers were down for their nightly maintenance. So when I was finally at the counter, it took another 15+ minutes to complete my paperwork. I walked across to the stall number that the agent had written down, and drove towards the exit almost over 45 minutes after arrival.


As the guard checked my paperwark and car, he looked a couple times and then, can you believe it, told me that I had the wrong car and that I had to go back to the office to sort it out. This really ticked me off as It was now after 2:30 am and I wanted to get to my hotel. The 'ghost' manager happened to be wandering the lot nearby, so the guard called him across. He also offered no other solution than returning to the office, so I removed my luggage from the vehicle and walked across to the competition (Avis). In spite of a line of people at the Preferred office, out was off the lot in less than 15 minutes.


I sympathize, a little, with Hertz that weather problems play havoc with the arrival of clients and pickup of vehicles but they need to find better ways to treat their regular customers.


Questions/comments for Hertz:

1. While there are still cars on the lot, why is the car allocated to me gone?
   
2. If my car is used, why was my name not removed from the Gold board?
   
3. If you know that the computers will be down, but still expecting a number of clients, why not print out the rental agreements before the system goes down, saving time when the client arrives. (They do this to have the RA hanging in the car for pickup, so it cannot be a big deal. Just need a special version, without vehicle number, which is the only thing that needs to be filled in at the time of pickup)
4. If you end up seriously inconveniencing your regular (Gold) customers, offer something, for example a free tank of gas. [In my case I normally use much less than a 1/2 tank anyway]

Sorry, Hertz a SUDOK for you. Any rental company can rent a car, but it takes a good location to handle difficult situations well.

Pi.. Poor Planning Punishes Passengers

Unfortunately, as much as I love flying Delta, occasionally they do make mistakes. Two weeks ago was a howler......

It started with my flight out of PHL. Although evrything looked OK there, delays were being psoted for the ATL bound flights. Thunderstorms was the reason given, and normally I do not worry too much because all flights get messed up, including the connecting flights. But to be on the safe side I decided to ask whether I could go standby on the flight which is scheduled to leave one hour before my flight. This actually occurred just as they announced that my flight, a commuter jet, was delayed by a couple of hours, making it leave at least 30 minutes after the previous flight, instead of one hour before.

Much to my surprise I was called up for the new flight, but ended up with a middle seat fairly far back. Little did I know how much I would regret that decision. We finally leave the gate, and then spend forever on the taxiway. All the time I am looking at the time, and doing caculations to see if I would make the revised departure time (delayed) of my connecting flight.

As we landed at ATL, I checked my clock and then immediately called up the flight status for my connection. According to the website, the flight was still on the ground with a departure scheduled 15 minuets later. As it was departing from a gate close our our arrival gate I began to hope that I might be lucky this evening. We taxied over to the concourse, then the pilot cam on and said that our gate was still occupied, but that the other aircraft was loaded and would be pushing back very shortly. To cut a long story short, we stood outside the gate for a full hour after our arrival.

In the meanwhile, using my PDA with its Internet connection I was able to see that my connection flight left about 15 minutes after we should/could have deplaned. Adding insult to injury, while waiting I found out that the flight home before my connection was delayed even more, and I could have made that one, if we had not sat outside the gate for so long.

I understand, or at least try to understand, when airline operations fall to pieces because of weather conditions. But in this case I feel that Delta made a really stupid mistake by not arraning an alternative gate. This would of saved a number of passengers an unexpected night in Atlanta.

While Delta was probably claiming 'weather conditions' so not taking any responsibility for overnight expenses, if I had not been so tired (it was after all after midnight by the time we deplaned, I think we could have had an argument that it was not the weather, but poor planning and execution of their bad weather procedures that forced us to miss our flights.

The final mix-up occurred next morning, when I checked in for my 'replacement' flight. The evening before, on my way to the hotel, I had called Special Member Services to complain that I had bee rebooked on a 10:30 am flight next day. I was told all the earlier flights were full and that this was the first confirmed seat they could offer me. I asked to be placed on waitlist for the first flight (07:30 am), which was done. When I checked in in the morning, the selfservice machine just gave me a boarding pass for my 10:30 flight. Expecting a seat request for the 7:30, I quickly went to the Crown Room and asked why I was not listed for the 07:30. The agent checked everything for me and found that there was a single seat, at the back of the plane but aisle. The good news was that, now being confirmed in a seat, I was eligible fo the upgrade list. Given how busy things were, I did not even expect to get the upgrade, but my luck had turned. So there was at least one glimmer of sunshine in my trip.

But seriously Delta, please try harder and plan better.

Delta moving forward on technology again

Delta made some great news known this week, they are going be the first of the big airlines to offer WiFi on all their doemstic flights. The first aircraft will come online in the fall, and apparently they will be starting with the MD-88s. This is good news because those aircraft normally do not have an entertainment system. So now for $9.95, or $13.95 for longer flights, the entertainmnet will be 'surfing'.

Some of the comments in the Delta blog are suggesting that elite status travellers should get discounted or free access. I wholeheartedly agree!

Fly Delta into the future!

Thanks Delta

iPhones for the family

My wife and younger daughter have been anging to get iPhones for quite a while. When the 3G was annouced at the much reduced price, we had to bite the bullet. Being on the return trip from our RV trip (see earlier post) we were unable to join the throngs lining up on July 11th. After that it turned out to be quite difficult to find one, let alone two. We tried the two Apple stores in Orlando, I even made plans to drive to New York from South Jersey, to their flagship 5th Avenue store. But last weekend we managed to get our two in Orlando.

I am quite impressed with the user interface on the phone, and the large screen. Unfortunately, the iPhone is missing some key features that I find very useful on my Treo. They include Voice Command, Bluetooth A2DP (stereo), tethering, cut and paste, memory chip expansion, turn by turn GPS, MS-Office compatibility, to name a few. Some of these are no doubt available now, or soon, in the Apps Store, but I will wait to see what the Windows Mobile phones such as the HTC Touch or Samsung Omnia are like.

It has been interesting to see how my wife has taken to texting, even in this short time, now that she has an easy to use keyboard instead of a phone pad. The fact that the messages get delivered immediately is also a plus since her experience with T-Mobile was frequent delays in the delivery of the text message which I was sending. I will blog in a few weeks about her experiences with this new toy.

Philly good omen?

Well I finally switched back to travelling in and out of Philly. On my first "return" trip to PHL I am very happy to report that my flight arrived exactly on time. In fact pretty much the only hitch was my name missing on the car rental car assignment display. It was great to be at my hotel not too long after midnight, instead of somewhere between 1:30 and 3:30 a.m.

Thanks Philly, hopefully a good omen for my upcoming flights

Weather discrepancy

Last week I was getting ready to leave for my 90 minute drive to EWR and decided to check fly.faa.gov. The FAA was showing 75 minutes delays at EWR, due to low ceiling (low clouds). I have complained earlier about how quickly these two runway airports back up, so was not surprised. However, on the drive up to the airport I was surprised that the sky was beautifully clear, so reckoned that the delays would be over. I checked the flight status on pda.continental.com and my flight was confirmed as 'On time'.

As I rushed to the gate (I had left the office a little later than planned) I noticed that there were a lot of people standing around at the gate. Yes, the flight was not boarding on time. In fact, about twenty minutes after the official boarding time, the display board at the gate suddenly had a new departure time, ninety minutes later than scheduled. So even in good weather EWR continues to be plagued with delays.

In flying in and out of EWR over the last 12 odd weeks I have had only one flight, in or out, that left on time. So time for a change, I an going to give my nemesis, PHL, another chance.

Useful gadget

A while back I mentioned how much I love my TomTom GPS solution running on my phone. One of the problems has been finding a place to balance the phone on the (rental) car dashboard. After having the phone fall off, normally at an inconvenient time. My GPS came with a windshield holder, but it is quite a large piece of equipment, and by briefcase is already pretty full. So I decided to get an airvent holder, and found I should have bought one of these much sooner. This gizmo holds the phone so that the screen is easily visible while driving. When using the car charger cable the phone battery, which normally runs hot while charging, is kept cool by the air coming out of the vent.

[Sorry no pictures of the phone in the holder, as I used the phone to take the pictures]

Back to Blogging

It has been a while since I posted anything here, partially because I took a break from flying up and down to South Jersey. Getting away from the hassles of boarding passes, malfunctioning monorails, security lines and delayed flights, I drove from Central Florida to Jersey. There is a little method to my madness, we have an RV and I took my wife, our dogs and our cat along for the ride.

We arranged to spend the July4th weekend in South Jersey, and used it as a base for visiting Philly and New York. Of course, July 4th was reserved for Independence Mall in Philadelphia. There was something special about visiting Independence Hall on Independence Day, 232 years after the deed was done. We also watched the Philly fireworks, in the rain, but have to admit that once you have enjoyed the Disney extravaganzas, you are spoiled for life.

But I am back to travelling, so posts will start coming again.

Stefan

Delta moves to paperless checkin

Delta has just announced that they will join Continental in offering paperless checkin. delta's initial foray into this technology will take place at their main terminal at LGA. Having used this on my recent departures from EWR, I am looking forward to DL rolling this out across their network, especially their main hub ATL and my home airport MCO.

The future looms closer

Overloaded hubs....

As you will see from my posts, my recent travel has been in and out of EWR and PHL. One of the disadvantages of both of these airports is that they are both effectively only 2 runway airports. And yes, I know that PHL has a small runway used by some commuter planes but most aircraft, including commuter jets use the 2 main runways. As both airports are also hubs (EWR = CO, PHL = US), this means that things can get very busy at peaks times. Any small weather problems can really mess things up. So on my recent trips to or from the NorthEast almost every flight has had more than usual delay.

Even when there are no weather problems, I have had bad experiences. About a week ago on a flight out of EWR there was an initial delay of 45 minutes, due to the later arrival of the incoming aircraft. Once we finally left the gate we waited over an hour before we could even take off. This on a day when there was absolutely no bad weather any where up or down the Eastern seaboard. In other words the delay was purely due to scheduling too many departures at the same time.

I wish there were a way that the airlines could be penalized for making these bad scheduling decisions. Oh, I forgot, they can....avoid those airports or airlines!

Delta Down on Information?

Dear Delta,
One of the benefits of flying on your airline is the ability to get information about stand-by and upgrade list status from the screens at the gates of many of your aiports. One quirk has been that your flagship international concourse E at Harstfield never had these screen. I always put this down to the fact that this concourse had been equipped just before the screens were available.

However, today I noticed that some of the E gates have been remodeled, and still no status screen. The only reason that I can think of, is that international travel does not involve as much stand-by and upgrade travel. But you still have quite a few domestic flights leaving from the E concourse.

I sincerely hope that this is not the start of the removal of the status screens from all of your gates. This is easily one of the most useful tools for frequent fliers and much appreciated by all of us.

Delta, please, say it ain't so....

StuffBak WORKS!

Earlier this week I was devastated to find that I had dropped my phone while travelling. I knew roughly where I had done so, so retraced my steps, but to no avail. I tried all the usual things, calling the phone, sending an SMS message and calling the 'Lost and Found' at the car rental where I dropped the phone. I was just getting ready to call ATT to order a replacement when I received a call from StuffBak, saying that my phone had been found and helping me arrange for its return. For those who do not know this service, StuffBak sells stickers, at electronic retailers, office supplies stores or online, which offer a reward for calling an 800 number (or accessing a website) if an item is found. Each sticker has a unique code number, which enables Stuffbak to relate it back to the owner. I my case, it was a Hertz employee who found it and called Stuffbak.

I have had these stickers on various items for a while now, unfortunately not on some items that I have misplaced over the last couple of years, so this was the first time I had actually lost a tagged item. Of course I was very pleased to receive the phone call as I had really given up hope. StuffBak claims a 75% success rate, and while I originally thought this might be advertising hype, I now believe them. In fact I am so happy about this that I am recommending that my employer join their corporate program.

Thank you StuffBak

N.B. More Kudos to Hertz as well, their 'Lost & Found' department voicemail promises only return calls if an item is found, but they did call me to say that my phone had not been turned in to them. Once again, great service from Hertz. It is this kind of service that keeps me coming back.

Misery at Liberty

As you will notice from my posts, I have been travelling with Continental quite frequently in the last few weeks. One of the reasons was it helps me avoid my least favorite airport, PHL. I am having to rethink my strategy though, as this trip, both out and return I had some bad experiences with the AirTrain monorail at Newark. On Sunday night, when the train runs as a single line shuttle, combined with technical problems, it took me over an hour to get from gate to rental car. On the return trip, again there were technical problems, so this time it took only 45 minutes to get from the rental car facility to the terminal.
On Sunday evening I sort of understand that they use the 'quiet' time to do maintenance, but why not start at 2 am as there seemed to be enough irate passengers arriving between midnight and 1. The troubles today were at peak time though, so should not happen.

I have always wondered why the Port Authority installed such a tinker toy type monorail anyway. They should have ordered the Disney monorail system. These sleek, reliable trains run 365 days a year, with hardly any problems. But they probably cost a lot more than the AirTrain.

You gets what you paid for......

Back to Old Fashioned Flying?

On my flight up to EWR last night, I felt like I had taken a step back into the past. Due to weather in the North east we had to wait on the ground in Orlando, and stayed parked at the gate. I was surprised to see the Captain coming through the cabin, handing out flight crew (wings) pins to all the children on board. I can remember when I was young that getting such a pin was a big deal. Of course, flying is not the big adventure that it used to be, but it was nice to see Captain Beattie bringing back some of the magic.

Paperless Check-In

For a while I was jealous of Continental's trial at IAH for paperless check-in. This involved displaying a special 3D bar code on your cell phone, which could be read by both TSA and at the gate. Well, I have to wait no more. CO have recently extended this facility to include departures from Newark (EWR), as well as Washington national (DCA).
It is really fantastic to be able to take out your phone and be scanned through. On my latest trip, someone in front of me at the TSA line used his phone and a number of people were asking the TSA officer about it. Even the gate agent was pleased to be able to do this, obviously not a lot of people are doing it,.....yet!
It finally looks like the US is catching up with Europe, where cell phone check in has been available for quite a time. Now just to hope that this capability spreads to other airlines (Delta, are you listening?) and airports all over the US.

Update: The day after this posting, I read in USA Today that NWA are starting paperless check in at Indianapolis. Begs the question why not at Minneapolis or Detroit. So maybe DL will get this functionality via the (merger) back door.

Even more penny pinching? Award travel price hikes!

I am afraid that my favorite airline, Delta, has blotted its copybook. This concerns the 'junk' fees that are charged for the so-called free, award travel. I happened to be looking for flights to Europe, using Delta's excellent award travel calendar. Having found some flights I noticed a major discrepancy in the extra fees, depending on whether the flights were actually booked on Delta, or one of the SkyTeam partners, Northwest or Continental. In the past I remember paying about $50-70 per ticket to Europe, so I was very surprised to see that DL is now charging over $200 in extra fees. NW and CO flights were still at the $50-70 level, for the same itinerary.
So, is this an underhand way to reduce the cost to the airline of award travel? Come on, DL, not the way to treat your hard travelling supporters.

The dreaded PHL curse strikes yet again

This evening, as I drove through the airport to the car rental returns, I noticed that there was a major backup of traffic approaching the terminal. Not wanting to spend 20-30 minutes in the shuttle bus to the terminal, I decided to use shanks pony (foot power). The Avis lot is just across the road from the Marriott and I had seen signs in the terminal pointing to the Marriott. So I figured that would be the way to go. I should have known better! Still, I did get a good exercise session out of it. It turned out to be quite an odyssey, with not real route and very little in the way of signage. The few signs which I saw were also pretty confusing. So 15 minutes later I finally arrived at one of the terminal A security checkpoints. The silver lining to this cloud was that I had found such a little used route that the checkpoint had absolutely no line at all; it was hidden away in a corridor.

The, further to the JD Power survey, boarding through Delta's gate A13 was a total disaster in terms of layout to accommodate anxious passengers and a very poor PA system, which made almost all announcements virtually unintelligible.

Sorry JD Power you got it wrong

Nifty site for mobile data users (kudos to CO)

Hats off to Continental for their mobile web site pda.continental.com . In addition to all the usual things you would expect, you can also check on the status of the standby and upgrade lists, as well as taking a look at the seat plan, to check if that seat next to you has stayed empty. I have always been please with Delta's policy of displyaing the upgrade and standby lists at the gate, if they have the plasma screens installed. But not every Delta station has this equipment. The Continental site means that you can get that information at any airport.

Of course CO is also at the forefront of switching to paperless check-in. In IAH, DCA and soon EWR you can check in on your mobile, receive a barcode on your phone and then have TSA check your details through a scan of the barcode. The gate scanners also read the barcode, so ...no paper. Of course there is now a very strong argument for making sure that you keep your phone well charged.

Well done Continental, you are well tuned to the busy, mobile traveller.

More penny pinching

AA have just announced that they will be charging $15 to check the first suitcase. This is in addition to the $25 that was already in place for the second bag. So now the "full-service" airlines are beginning to act like the discount airlines like RyanAir, who charge extra for about everything except the air in the plane. I know that the current fuel prices are causing a crisis in the airlines, but why not just bite the bullet and increase ticket prices. Instead AA is trying to collect more money via a sneaky backdoor because so many people check bags nowadays, due to TSA security.

So it will not be long before there will be charges for: carry on bags, soft drinks, peanuts, window seats, aisle seats, exit seats....seat belts?

Who did they ask?

The local Philadelphia radio and TV stations were crowing this week about a JD Power report that placed PHL as the number 1 airport in customer satisfaction. Who did they ask? Or were they handing out cannabis cookies? While the new terminals are a major improvement over the old concourses, there are still many problems, e.g. traffic and the disorganized car rental lots. So #1 seems a little strange.

Further erosion of frequent flyer rights (UAL)

United has decided to remove the 500 mile minimum for mileage and elite qualification mileage. This means that only actual mileage will be accrued. AA also has the same rule, probably for longer that UA. This will be interesting to see whether my favorite airline, Delta, decides to follow suit. It will actually be difficult for them to do so, since UA and AA both use miles or segments for elite qualification. Delta got rid of segment qualification when they introduced MQM, and if they try to follow UAL's lead, there will be a lot of very unhappy campers, who used to make elite status on short flights, that will now miss that privilege.

Change to FAA rules, or safety violation?

I have been flying Continental recently, as this gives me a direct flight to NJ for my current project. As I am not eligible for upgrades, I was glad that I could get my second favorite seat, in the exit row. I was surprised to notice on both the flight up, as well as the return flight, that not of the cabin crew came to the exit rows to give the usual (FAA mandated?) exit row pep talk. On one flight this would have been useful as it would have alerted the crew to the fact that the passenger next to me, luckily only two of us on this side of the plane, did not have her seat in a fully upright position during take-off.
Kind of makes you uncomfortable when you see that the crew are a little slipshod in their attitude.

Scheduling Inflexibility

The dreaded PHL curse strikes again. On my first return flight from my new project I arrived at PHL about an hour before my flight. Hoping to relax for a few minutes I went off to find the Crown Room. To my surprise I discovered that the club was about to close, even though there were still 60 minutes until the departure of the last Delta flight.
You would think that Delta could have adjusted their opening times to close 30 minutes later, in order to incorporate the passengers of that last flight.

Sorry Delta, time for another 'soduk'

A week later I managed to arrive 20 minutes earlier, so did make it into the Crown Room. Once inside though, the food and beverage service had already been closed down, although one of the agents kindly went into the closed kitchen and brought me a soft drink. I also found out that the opening hours have not been chaanged because effective July 1st the last flight will be leaving at 7 p.m. Still showing you inflexibility DL-PHL.

Blowing My Own Trumpet?

A while back I blogged about the free WiFi available at airline clubs, decrying the lack of free access at the Delta Crown Rooms. You will also see that I did have to eat crow, after getting a reply from Delta to my email to Customer Service. In this reply, they indicated that free access had been available on request since some time last year. I thought that I must have missed a communication from Delta somewhere, but a week or two ago I received a general marketing email, highlighting....free WiFi at the crown Rooms.

Did my email to Customer Service (including the link I put in it to this blog) cause Delta to realize that they needed to publicize this benefit?

TomTom Traffic Rocks

When I switched to my Treo750m I treated myself to Palm's GPS solution. this includes a matchbox sized (for those of you who can remember matchboxesu BlueTooth GPS receiver and TomTom software. As consultant who often visits different clients, travels to different client locations, having a tool that helps me find my way is indispensable. The small GPS receiver does have one disadvantage, it is so small that it is easy to fforget about it. I did in fact leave it in a cab on one occasion; luckily was able to reach the driver who brought it back. All it cost me was a big, fat tip.
In addition to the standard voices, I have downloaded, for a nominal sum, driving instructions read by John Cleese. So my journeys now have Fawlty Towers touch.
Recently I noticed a new bar and icon on the side. On tapping it, I discovered that it controls TomTom Traffic. This week I was using the GPS on my way back to the airport, and was surprised to be directed along a different route than I had seen when checking directioms back to the airport earlier in the week. Pleasantly surprised, ecause it was taking me along the road recommended by locals in the office to avoid traffic jams. Initially I though that this was just coincidental, and that the new route was shorter. However, as I approached the airport, I was warned that there was a traffic jam ahead. The instructions showed that I should take the next exit off the highway, to follow an alternate route to the airport. As it was, I was coming off a bridge and could see that the traffic jam had resolved itself. But it is nice to know that the navigation program is looking out for you. In that not what technolgy is all about?