Vox

Travel Tips - again

Time to update this entry with more tips.

• Put your name on your bag. Seems obvious. Remarkably, we see 30-40% of bags come through with no name on the baggage tag, and another 10-15% with the wrong name listed (not the name of the person who checked it). Not so obvious, put your name inside your bag. This could be as simple as including your business card or as permanent as painting it inside - whatever. I'm sure it comes as no surprise that luggage gets lost - why not make it easier to get your belongings back. Don't believe this is a major problem? - This company has built a very successful business on lost luggage.

• Airlines have no control over the weather - 1. And yet, we are constantly blamed. This past week was a week of storms here in Phoenix, Thursday was especially bad. I had passengers screaming at me about how incompetent my airline was due to the delay they were facing, when directly behind us was a large window looking out onto the tarmac - closed because of the hail storm. Do you really want to try to take off in a hail storm? I even have people tell me, on a regular basis, that we "do that on purpose". Believe me, if we could control the weather we wouldn't use our powers to strand you at the airport so we can hear you scream.

• Airlines have no control over the weather - 2. When you are flying off for that ski weekend, remember why you chose that particular destination - the snow. Well, the very thing that makes it an attractive city for winter sports, can make the airport close. And no, we don't do that on purpose, either. If a flight cancels due to weather (which is really, truly beyond airline control) you are on your own for accommodations until the next available flight. I repeat, the next available flight - just because a flight may go out first thing the next morning, if it's full you don't get on. If a flight cancels due to maintenance or some other factor in our control, we will feed you and put you in a hotel - weather you are on your own.

• Airlines will not inconvenience other passengers for you.
  
  
  • We don't roll back passengers. If you are on a 2:00 flight to Denver that gets delayed till 4:00, we won't bump the passengers from the 3:00 Denver flight. You wouldn't believe how often this one comes up, and you wouldn't believe how many people don't get the concept.
    
  • We don't hold flights. Yes, it sucks that your inbound flight was late and you missed your connection. No, it isn't fair to make that connecting flight late causing those passengers miss their connection or be otherwise inconvenienced.

• Check the local time. If you are making a connection, there is a good chance you are in a new time zone. Chances are, if you were listening you'd have heard the flight attendant make an announcement of the local time. We regularly have people who miss their flight because their watch was an hour behind (or get mad about the delay because their watch is ahead). Ask what the local time is and plan accordingly. Many airports don't have clocks. I don't know this for sure, but I assume it is to avoid problems if they were to get out of sync or stop. Regardless, any employee will tell you the time. Most gate agents, when you ask about your flight, will tell you some version of "we'll be boarding your flight at 6:00 and it is 4:30 now" or "we will be boarding your flight in about an hour and a half, at 6:00" Why not just take a minute to ask?