Apologize for the Light Blogging
I have been dealing, almost non-stop, with major airline problems the last two days. We boarded our flight at LaGuardia at 3:30 and pulled away from the gate, on time, at 3:50pm yesterday. At 6:45, after spending all that time on the tarmac, they cancelled the flight! So, I had to get another hotel room and it was the fifth time since the last week of January I've had to spend an unexpected night on the road due to "weather" (PIT+ORD+BNA+ORD+LGA for those keeping score).
Here is the irony: There were no storms within 60 mi. of LaGuardia! The big storms were more than 200 mi. to the west and not along our route-of-flight. But, because the airlines (and, to be fair, the FAA) do not deal with weather proactively, they make the same mistakes over and over again. Not only does this cost their airlines money and goodwill, it takes a tremendous unmeasured toll in productivity. I had work to do that is being seriously delayed because of two half-days of airline nonsense.
So, this took up literally half my day yesterday and half my day the day before. And, given there are still thunderstorms around NYC, I'm not super optimistic about today.
Even worse: I'm flying out again Saturday to give a presentation on Hurricane Sandy for a University of Colorado forum in Denver Sunday morning!
I argue that the problem is 2010s traffic flying with 1940s technology. Fixed beacon points are still used for approach/takeoff. Add a 50000 foot cloud over some of these 'gates' and voila, you're not going anywhere, especially in high traffic areas like the Northeast and Chicago.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the "NextGen" GPS based system will help.
Why are you concerned about coming to Denver? Current forecast for DEN on Saturday is 10% chance of T-storms, which falls under the "CYA" threshold for T-storms.
Not concerned about the wx in DEN. I dread flying these days in general. Plus, United, even in ideal weather, has become very difficult to do business with. Delay after delay.
ReplyDelete