THE U.S. AIRLINES CHAOS - PART 3

Continental Airlines

All of my flights to, in and from the U.S. were with Continental Airlines. CO is one of two U.S. airlines which operate non-stop routes between the U.S and Israel, along side El Al. The second airline is Delta, which started an ATL-TLV route back in March 2006, and is starting a JFK-TLV line in March 2008. The Newark-Tel Aviv route is considered one of the most successful routes of CO, proved by the fact that it operates two daily flights, both on board its largest plane, the 777.

The type of plane was one of the factors I considered when deciding which airline to fly with. CO is one of only two U.S. airlines that have not passed through bankruptcy in the last few years (the other one is American Airlines). It has a fairly young fleet of planes, and a large order of new Boeing 787 in the books. But apart from that, CO is no different from most U.S. or international airlines. The one thing that I can mention as above the average for a U.S. airline is that in the flights from Newark to Miami and back (some 2.5-3 hours long) we were being served with a small sandwich, a bag of chips and a candy bar. I remember a year ago, flying with AA from Los Angeles to New York for approximately 5 hours, we haven’t been served any kind of food, even not symbolic. So I can credit CO for that.

The important thing for me as an Istraeli traveler is that CO operates the 777 on the TLV route, with its large cabin and the personal video screens. This plane is sure to make a very long flight a bearable one. I will pay some more credit to the 777 in a separate post.

THE U.S. AIRLINES CHAOS - PART 2

DELAYS…DELAYS…AND MORE DELAYS

I booked my December 2007 travel with CO way back in August. All of my flights were regular scheduled flights. Here are the time performance data of those flights:

* Flight no. 85, TLV-EWR, Dec. 3; scheduled take off 11:15; actual take off 12:40; reason: plane take off from EWR to TLV delayed.

* Flight no. 238, EWR-MIA, Dec. 4; scheduled take off 10:40; actual take off 11:05; reason: unknown.

* Flight no. 539, MIA-EWR, Dec. 11; scheduled take off 15:55; actual take off 17:07; reason: NY area air traffic congestion.

* Flight no. 90, EWR-TLV, Dec. 11; scheduled take off 22:50; actual take off 23:20; reason: unknown.

This record is surprising and predicted at the same time. As I have written in the last blog entry, at the time of the booking I was well aware of the big delays problem in the American travel system, and that has brought me to several decisions concerning my desired timetable. First, I was scheduled to land at EWR late Monday afternoon. If I were to book a connecting flight to MIA that evening, there may have been a chance that I will miss it if the flight from TLV landed behind its time, which it did. So I preferred to book my flight to MIA for the next day LATE morning hours, and spend the night in an airport hotel. Driving with me in the hotel shuttle were scores of passengers with hotel vouchers from CO, due to flight cancellations…

Another decision I made dealt with the flight back home: I could have taken a morning flight from MIA to EWR, then take the afternoon flight to TLV, landing Wednesday morning. Instead I booked an afternoon flight from MIA, and a night flight from EWR, making me a lot of room in between, which has proved very wise due to the 70 minutes delay in MIA.

It’s worth mentioning that another CO flight from MIA to EWR the same day (no. 439) that was scheduled to take off at 14:40, took off just minutes before my flight, at 17:02…

So that’s why those delays were predictable. At the same time, I found myself surprised that not even ONE of the flight took of on time, because, generally speaking, there were no negative collateral conditions. Let’s start with the weather: In TLV and In MIA the weather conditions were ideal. In EWR, both in December 4 and December 11 there was some rain, but nothing more than that (there may have been a snow storm a couple of days after). Nothing in the weather could justify any delay.

There were no airport congestion, either. I spent many hours at each of the three airport, and most of the time they were half empty. The reason is, of course, that I planned my travel to take place between Thanksgiving and Christmas, in order to avoid the travel frenzy of the holidays. And indeed that what happened, as I enjoyed uncrowded airports, hotels and parking lots… except for airline delays.

If only I could blame all of this on the specific airline I flew with. The sad truth is that this kind of performance is shared by all U.S. airlines and has become the plague of the industry, as anybody who tracks the issue in the papers and in the web fully knows. So we are only left with one alternative, which is to plan our trips in advance according to this knowledge, and pray that the only delays will be as minor as those.

THE U.S. AIRLINES CHAOS - PART 1

In December of 2006, exactly one year ago, a severe weather system over the central part of the U.S. caused American Airlines to divert flights from its Dallas hub to Austin airport. Some of those flights did not deboard their passengers in Austin, waiting for the weather to clear so they can take off to Dallas. The result was very bad: some planes stayed on the taxiway for as long as 8 hours, with their passengers stranded in, with no food or drink, lavatories in a horrible condition, babies screaming and so on.

This negative experience inspired one of the stranded passengers, Kate Hanni, to start a public movement to create a passenger’s bill of rights, which will impose on the airlines basic rules of service, among them a limit on the time they can hold passengers on a standing plane.

One year after, we still do not have a passenger’s bill of rights, but it seems that the subject of the American commercial aviation industry have become one of the main news makers since the Austin incident. Things have gotten so bad, that no other than the President of the United States addressed the issue twice publicly in the last few months, promising to do what ever its administration can in order to improve the situation for the American traveler. Stories about the woes of travel (especially domestic travel) appear on a daily basis in cable TV news, in papers and on the Internet. The general message is clear: air travel in the U.S. does not work well; service is bad; delays are common; this should be fixed.

For the last couple of weeks I had the opportunity to experience the situation personally, when I traveled from Tel Aviv to Miami, via Newark , and back. I flew with a U.S.-based airline, Continental, so my itinerary included both international and domestic flights.

My general conclusion is not positive. The state of American air travel is grim.

Wanting to travel from TLV to MIA, I had many alternatives. There is the non-stop El Al flight, which operate 3 times a week; there are several flight options with European airlines - British Airways, Swiss, Iberia, Lufthansa, Air France - with connections at European hubs; and there are two options of flying with U.S. carriers: Delta via Atlanta and Continental via Newark. After thorough consideration, I chose to fly with Continental.

Although this was my first flight with CO, I assumed there aren’t many differences between this carrier and other U.S. carriers that I have traveled with over the last few years in both international and domestic routes such as American Airlines, Delta and Air Tran. My assumption was generally right, and the few differences were to CO advantage.

For the next few entries of this blog I will post some of my observations on this travel with CO, and try to explain my negative conclusion.