[hack]

I don't get the hatred of O'Hare; I never have a problem there. But it is nice having the whole airport to one's self in Detroit.

[The King]

It's nice. People don't like it because it's so big. Whatever. Midway is a shithole.

[RugbyPike#11]

I don't like it because I was stranded there for over 24 hours and their biggest airline has the worst fucking customer service in the world.

[hack]

United? Sucks, but no airline is worse than Delta. I'll pay extra not to fly Delta. The nice thing about United is that when I complain I get a voucher for $50 or $100 instead of more stupid miles.

[RugbyPike#11]

Generally, they all suck pretty bad. I think who you hate ends up getting based on the random horrible experiences. I was on a flight out of Grand Rapids to Charlotte through Chicago. My Grand Rapids to Chicago flight was delayed, causing me to miss my flight out of Chicago to Charlotte. United had cancelled an earlier flight from Chicago to Charlotte, which put me about 20th on the standby list for the last Sunday night flight to Charlotte. Of course, I didn't get on the flight.

Because my missed flight was caused by weather and not caused by United (their words, and the cancelled flight from earlier putting me so far down the standby list was irrelevant according to them), I didn't even get a hotel voucher for that Sunday night. They told me that they could put me on a flight through DC, and I would get home Tuesday evening. They said that's the best they could do with available flights in their alliance. Oh, and I was closing on my home Tuesday morning. They didn't care. Totally unbelievable.

After leaving the ticket counter in shock, I did my own research. There was a 6:00 AM direct flight to Charlotte through US Air, one of United's alliance partners. I got a United ticket person to switch me over to US Air, but the US Air counter was closed for the night so I couldn't get on standby for the 6:00 AM flight. At this point it was 1:00 AM, so rather than get a hotel to sleep for 3 hours before coming back through security at 4:00 AM, I just stayed all night at the airport. After camping out near the US Air ticket counter, I got on standby for their flights to Charlotte. The 6:00 AM flight was ultimately cancelled because they didn't have enough people on the flight. I watched United tell over 20 people that there were no direct flights to Charlotte the next morning. I bet if we added over 20 people to the US Air flight, it would have had enough passengers.

Either their employees are liars, grossly incompotent, or their systems lack the capacity to check available flights within their own alliance. I ended up getting a flight on standby later that Monday. I ulitmately made it home for my closing, and I vowed to never give my hard-earned money to United again. I wrote a letter of complaint to those assholes, and never received a voucher, an apology, or a response of any kind. Fuck United and O' Hare! That's what I say.

[hack]

Terrible. Just terrible. But it's gone far beyond logic by now. I thought that they were like banks or phone companies -- the one you know best is the one you hate most. But Delta had a ton of trouble absorbing Northwest and led the league tables in the bad categories last year. At one point I had a person on the phone explaining to me that one of the unions had won a battle with the airline and its employees felt so entrenched that customer-service complaints skyrocketed immediately. I don't know if that's resolved yet, and I think ultimately you're right, but for a while at least Delta was definitely extrabad.

One thing about United is that their mileage card makes false promises of lounge access, which I wanted as I'm trying to work my way up on Star Alliance after ditching Delta and Skyteam. And, with that, I'm off to DTW shortly. Flying Lufthansa, but I'm sure somewhere in the process someone will screw me out of something I'm entitled to.

[The King]

I like United and US Air, but it's all a preference. If you fly enough they all fuck you over in the long run.

[hack]

Lufthansa told me I had exit row and then on the second leg stuck me a row behind. I'm assuming an honest mistake, but...

Flew the new A380. It's freakin HUGE. Took forever to deplane and get baggage.

[The King]

Try being 6'4" and flying on these small motherfucking planes. I ALWAYS request the aisle. Gives me a little extra leg room until the beeyatch on the beverage cart nails my elbows.

[hack]

I have not tried that, and am not likely to any time soon.

[Lou Stefanic]

I totally agree, spam-bot. We're on the same page here.

[RugbyPike#11]

Smiledora's post makes more sense when read in a Scottish accent.

[hack]

The Scots vs. Siri videos proliferating on youtube are sometimes quite funny. I am nowhere with an internet connection suitable to post any at the moment tho.

[Dave Bing]

Don't know where to put this. Just f'ing neat. A hidden station under New York. Like something out of Batman.

Travelettes New York City?s Hidden Subway Station

[hack]

Nice find, thanks for posting. I gotta see that next time in NYC.

[tin mad dog]

That's cool. I'll have to check that out soon.

I know that on the Q train, when leaving Brooklyn and heading to the Manhattan Bridge, you can see some cool artwork if you look out the north side of the subway car.

[tin mad dog]

Here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/01/ar...gn/01zoet.html