I'm looking at the Reuters photo in this article at the Daily Mail and thinking it looks like a very cleanly sheared off vertical stabilizer, the part I wondered about in the post below this one. If this came off, it's possible it could have caused a breach in the pressurized section of the fuselage, which is one of the error messages sent by the plane's on-board diagnostics. A commenter at the Wall Street Journal also mentioned that the first error message received was a notification that the rudder had reached a travel limit, i.e., it was against the stops. That is what caused the failure of the vertical stabilizer on AA587.
Showing posts with label airlines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label airlines. Show all posts
Monday, June 08, 2009
Monday, August 04, 2008
Bag Karma
Rand Simberg reports on a mis-adventure had by his baggage on a non-stop flight on American Airlines over this past weekend.
In a case of what I'm calling "Bag Karma" I had the same thing happen to me on a business trip the week before last. It was the first time I had flown on US Airways since they instituted the $15 bag check fee. On the return trip from Washington Dulles to Phoenix the bag check agent put the wrong label on my suitcase, even as she was verifying my name, destination and checking my ID. She handed me my claim check (which I still have) and promptly put another passenger's baggage label on my bag. I got home on time but my bag went to Daytona Beach via Clearwater/Tampa. What it cost them to get my bag back to me by flying it to PHX via Charlotte and then deliver it to my door has to have cost them far in excess of what they collected on the fee.
The airlines could probably go a long way towards solving their profitability problems by just getting their act together on baggage handling. If they route correctly in the first place and take a few extra minutes to do so, if that's what it takes, then they won't be inadvertently running a costly, free cargo service on the side, with all the extra fuel that burns and employee time spent running around tracking errant bags.
As if the baggage problems weren't enough; In further silliness, as of this weekend US Airways is charging for non-alcoholic drinks on its flights as well ($2 for a bottle of water). They're justifying it on the basis of fuel cost for the weight of drinks they have to carry aloft. This is going to backfire on them too. I'm flying on business again next week and I'll bring my own water bottle on board ($1.49), thank you very much. Now they will carry the weight of the water bottle they want to sell me plus the weight of the bottle I'm going to bring and they won't get the revenue. Someone is focusing on the trees and completely missing the forest.
I'm getting very tired of being nickeled and dimed at every turn by the airlines, with the notable and welcome exception being Southwest. Charge a ticket price sufficient to cover the cost of getting an adequately hydrated me and my baggage to my destination on time and I promise, I won't be complaining.
In a case of what I'm calling "Bag Karma" I had the same thing happen to me on a business trip the week before last. It was the first time I had flown on US Airways since they instituted the $15 bag check fee. On the return trip from Washington Dulles to Phoenix the bag check agent put the wrong label on my suitcase, even as she was verifying my name, destination and checking my ID. She handed me my claim check (which I still have) and promptly put another passenger's baggage label on my bag. I got home on time but my bag went to Daytona Beach via Clearwater/Tampa. What it cost them to get my bag back to me by flying it to PHX via Charlotte and then deliver it to my door has to have cost them far in excess of what they collected on the fee.
The airlines could probably go a long way towards solving their profitability problems by just getting their act together on baggage handling. If they route correctly in the first place and take a few extra minutes to do so, if that's what it takes, then they won't be inadvertently running a costly, free cargo service on the side, with all the extra fuel that burns and employee time spent running around tracking errant bags.
As if the baggage problems weren't enough; In further silliness, as of this weekend US Airways is charging for non-alcoholic drinks on its flights as well ($2 for a bottle of water). They're justifying it on the basis of fuel cost for the weight of drinks they have to carry aloft. This is going to backfire on them too. I'm flying on business again next week and I'll bring my own water bottle on board ($1.49), thank you very much. Now they will carry the weight of the water bottle they want to sell me plus the weight of the bottle I'm going to bring and they won't get the revenue. Someone is focusing on the trees and completely missing the forest.
I'm getting very tired of being nickeled and dimed at every turn by the airlines, with the notable and welcome exception being Southwest. Charge a ticket price sufficient to cover the cost of getting an adequately hydrated me and my baggage to my destination on time and I promise, I won't be complaining.
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