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Hello all!

Well, I'm back. If you read nothing else in this message, please just note that: AIRLINES IN THE US ARE AWEFUL!

Here was the plan: I was making a work trip to Norway then the UK. At then end of the work portion of my trip, my wife was going to meet me in London to spend a nice weekend there sightseeing. She has never been there and would have been a GREAT way to celebrate our soon to be 10th anniversary. As you can probably tell things did not work out quite as expected.

First, I am from Pittsburgh. I had a flight from Pitt to Newark, NJ then another flight to Norway. My flight out of Pittsburgh was delayed about 3.5 hours. Why? Who knows. The weather was nice. It was most likely due to the airplane not being full enough. I BARELY made my flight to Norway. The only reason that I did make it was because it was slightly delayed and the connecting gate was very close.
Noray was nice. It was the first time that I've been there and things went well with work. Unfortunately, I didn't have much time for anything BUT work, but that was ok by me.
On Thursday I flew from Norway to London and spent a couple of nights in Bournemouth, UK. It was also very nice. I have been there before so I kind of knew what to expect. I didn't really have any "play" time there either as all my time was taken by work.
My wife was supposed to leave Friday and arrive in London on Saturday. On Friday, EVERY flight from Pitt to Newark was CANCELED. Continental airlines would NOT re-route her through another city. All they would do is refund the ticket.

Ho-hum. That REALLY screwed things up for me. I was REALLY, REALLY looking forward to spending the weekend in London with my wife. I spent many hours planning out every detail of the trip to make things go as smoothly as possible. It isn't easy arranging babysitting for 3 kids over the better part of four days. All of that work was flushed down the toilet!

Since my wife was no longer coming to London, I wanted to change my travel plans to return on Saturday (instead of Monday). Nope. The airlines would not budge. That is unless I forked an extra $1500(USD) to them. They did eventually agree to let me return on Sunday. So, I fly back to Newark and wait to catch my connection to Pittsburgh. CANCELED! Why? Again, who knows. They were able to get me on another flight later in the day, but man was I mad.

So. Let this be a lesson. If you have to fly in the US do not count on getting to your destination at the PLANNED time. Your flight has a good chance to being cancelled/delayed/whatever. The entire airline industry in the US is currently a mess. I've heard that before, but I had NO IDEA how bad it actually was until this past week!

Blah!

-Ron

Lol, gutted.

Wow! You made me happy because I'm european and I can travel by ship/train to both countries w/o problems... Sorry if that made you even more angry/depressed ;-P

I would like to apologize on behalf of Accoun.

Why???

I'm starting to get a bit worried about flying in general recently. When I went on holiday in July (from London Gatwick to Stanford Florida) the flight was also inexplicably delayed (for an entire day though, so it kind of screwed a day of holiday up :/) and everyone I have spoken to since then who has been on a flight to or from the US has been delayed for apparently no reason also.

Curious

As an added note, we were told that our plane had been struck by lightning and that's why it was delayed; for some reason, I think this story is quite unlikely

Lightning should be incapable of delaying an aircraft in reality. As a bit of a plane nut, I've seen photos of the fuselage of a 747 being tested in a hanger, white light flashing across it but no problems inside. The likely reason is that lax laws on maintainence etc. in the US cause aircraft to develop a problem and keep flying with it until something breaks and the aircraft is delayed.



Source: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/boeingaerospace/2003889663_boeing180.html

Actually, I think the BIGGEST problem is money. All of the airports on the East Coast (all of New York's, Philly, Washington DC) are always at capacity. Only so many flights can take off/land per hour. Airlines currently overbook passengers on flights (in the chance that some do not show). They also overbook the number of flights per day out of those busy airports. By definition, they can not possibly takeoff/land every flight that they have booked each day. They are banking on having some mechanical issues and/or weather issues that cause delays/cancelations. On a perfect day that those things do NOT occur, they will cancel not-full flights in order to fill the slots with other scheduled flights. If you have a day with bad weather that slows down the capacity of the airport then EVERYTHING goes to hell.
Personally, I think the airlines should have some kind of financial responsibility to their customers for having good service. If a flight is delayed or cancelled, the airline should have to pay some kind of penalty to a paying customer. I mean, after all, if you try to change your itinerary to take a different flight, YOU have to pay a penalty.
The only US airline company that I have never had a problem with is Southwest. I don't fly a whole lot, so I only have a small sample of experiences, but it is most definitely in an AWEFUL state.

I remember reading somewhere that there are clauses in the Air-lines sales guidelines that say if a customer's flight is canceled, they can ask to be put on another flight from a different air-line.

Look it up, it might save you delays next time you fly

Amen. Flights in the U.S. are never on time. I flew not to long ago, all my planes were late. (It was a multi-flight trip.)

I've used continental before and they leave a lot to be desired.