On 2007-12-16 09:35:11 -0800, (Paul Tomblin) said:

In a previous article, Bertie the Bunyip said:
Dudley Henriques wrote in
:
The airline situation is going to the dogs. It's actually getting to
the point now between the airlines, the FAA, and ATC, that I really
don't want my family to fly any more.


There's a couple I definitely wouldn't let my family on, though I sometimes
have to position on them, I really don't like it.


Can you name them? My wife and I were looking at Alaska cruises this
year, and the longer ones all seem to require you to fly on Alaska
Airlines at some point. I don't know about you, but I get the impression
that they didn't learn their lesson about shoddy maintenance after the
MD-80 jack screw crash, so I'm real reluctant to fly on them.

The only glitch we had this year was coming back into Vancouver B.C.
Our ship was a little late docking because another was delayed in
departure. We had to dash to the airport and hope that our bags caught
up with us. Our bags did not arrive in time for inspection and we had
to get into the extremely long security line. Finally our bags showed
up and I held our place in line while Jane got them checked.

When we got to the initial checkpoint they took our boarding passes and
passports, but then they did not give me Jane's boarding pass back.
They denied they had ever had it until finally someone found it under
the counter where it had fallen. Another long line for x-ray screening,
well over an hour.

Then finally a mad dash with just five minutes to spare before takeoff.
I get up to the gate and the lady tells me to be patient and wait my
turn (there was no one else at the gate desk). Finally she deigns to
tell me that we are on a 15 minute delay for maintenance and that they
had announced it and that I should have known about it. I bit my tongue
hard.

Another fifteen minuted delay. Another. Another. Another. Finally, we
get assigned to a different flight three hours later. So, yeah, Alaska
still has maintenance problems, but they are of the delay type, not the
"it's broke but let's fly it anyway" type. And I loathe TSA, US Customs
(the only part of Canada we were in was the bus trip from the ship to
the airport, but we had to go through all the paperwork anyway) and all
the other bureaucratic nonsense we had to put up with.

But the cruise was great.
--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor