A 2.5 hour cushion is simply not enough imo. I agree US airlines are horrible, thus you need to prepare. I am taking a flight next week on two separate airlines within the US, I built in a 5 hour cushion, believe it or not.
I had this same situation once, missed the flight from Chicago to ZH, because of a late connecting flight from the boonies (it was due to weather though). I believe Swiss Airlines, charged me CHF 200 francs to book on the next days flight. It made me a little angry, thankfully my travel insurance reimbursed me.
All I know is that most of the pilots I've seen on the regional airlines look like they're barely old enough to drive, let alone fly a plane.
Don't believe me? Just look at a few of the pilots I had on recent flights...
And it's not just the small, regional players. Here's a new recruit at Emirates, just days from getting his wings:
In on holidays usally preferred overnight transit, enjoying an evening in the chosen transit city. Sure, you pay a hotel-night, but it is enjoyable and you have no trouble with connection. And I on complicated roundtrips usually took cities like New York, Atlanta, Cairo or Athens as "forward base" with full overnight stays (or more) in both directions
Young, ambitious, flexible, attentive, not yet fixed, unprejudiced folks !
to be expected NOT (yet) to suffer from
> dementia
> Altzheimer
> senility
> too high alcohol level
> sclerosis
Well at least the American airlines don't fall to this level yet - check this one out!
March 11, 2010
Flight cancelled due to drunken crew
Thomas Lifson
According to Der Spiegel (German original here , computer translation here ), Ukranian security forces cancelled a Donbassaero Airlines flight and arrested a pilot, co-pilot and cabin attendants at the airport in Simferopol, Ukraine for being falling-down drunk (" sturzbetrunkene "), with blood alcohol levels between 3 and 3.5 parts per thousand (versus 0.8, the legal level for drunk driving in many states).
Big deal! What you think auto.pilots are here for
I am not sure why the OP is upset. Seriously. I fly a lot and I miss many connections especially in winter. I try to select flights that allow me a bit more time between connecting flights. They cannot delay departing flights as it would have a ripple effect.
I am not sure if anybody is at fault. United is doing a remarkable job in the current climate.
I understand the OP in so far as what wrecked his nerves was the point that he was overhere and his wife overthere. I had this on the travel-trip of my parents mentioned above, when they were enroute to a cruise starting in Miami. The BA flight ZRH-LHR was cancelled and the later one missed the connection. The short connection in my view was the mistake of the travel agency. They next day managed per standby onto PanAm to Miami, and was I got the confirmation of the PA station manager Heathrow that my parents had departed I took matters up by telex with the cruise company in Miami. On arrival there my parents got picked up, just managed to get the luggage and then were sent down to the seaport by a special taxi of the cruise company. On arrival beside the steamer all bridges except one were already lifted and the steamer under full steam. When they were up, the last bridge were lifted and when they were doing the check in the steamer departed out of harbour. What was necessary for me was to keep calm and not get nervous by repeated phone calls of mom. But calm her down and coordinate action. I got a telex from the cruise company after their steamer had left MIA cruise terminal confirming that everything had worked out as agreed, and then was relieved.
The mistake of the OP was to be swept away into emotions by the problems of his wife. I would say that the only available option was the departure a day later clearly became obvious at the time of departure of the flight into Chicago.
I as a civil aviation man know many tricks and many ways but sometimes simply have to realize that my original schedule was doomed. Flexibility and the ability to develop alternative schedules in such situations become things of paramount importance. Priority should have been to talk with Swiss in order to secure the seat on the flight a day later, AND to get a decent room in a nice hotel in Chicago for the overnight stay. As the word says "no panic on the Titanic" !
The Michael Moore movie Capitalism: A love story has a section on the airline industry. Regardless of how you feel about Michael Moore, what is reported in the movie is very troubling. Fierce competition, low salaries ($19K starting salary), pay cuts, pilots on food stamps, retirement benefits destroyed, low moral.
It is not only M.Moore, but "Sully" Sullenberger (a registered Republican) the Hudson hero that made a devastating report to congress on the airline industry but nobody paid any attention.
Sullenberger is completely right. If you know civil aviation from "inside" you know that much of it is a complete mess. One of the messiest companies of the 1970ies and 80ies and 90ies in fact was Swissair. This is why Chief Bruggisser tried to solve the matter by a "flight forward" !
Hi
Got to be brief.
20+ years in airline business, ca.1200 flights.
The core problem as I see it:
" She was told by a representative there, that they guaranteed she would catch her next flight."
The UA rep shouldn't make unrealistic statements like that.
In fact, she should have said exactly the opposite "We can NOT guarantee the connection".
In the old days, maybe they'd have meeters to whisk your wife off for a Tarmac Transfer straight to the doors of the Swiss machine, but these days
unless you're travelling in First, it ain't gonna happen.
Sorry. End of story.
Edited: Read Alain de Button's latest little book on the Airport. He says something about people who can't handle the stress when something goes wrong. In de Button's case, it was the business man arriving late and missing his flight and the hissy fit he threw.
I checked Mr Big Computer (don't ask!):
Your wife's inbound UA flight UA6081 arrives 1735hrs in Chicago.
Due to the time change it looks like a 9 minute flight :-)
IND ORD 1726 1735
The outbound LX flight LX009 departs at 2030hrs from Chicago
ORD ZRH 2030 1100*1
It's just under 2 hours connection time.
Should be OK to be honest...
However, personally I would never do a <2 hour transit Domestic->International in the US especially at the monster that is called O'Hare.
International->Domestic in the US, I wouldn't consider anything less than 3 hours as you have to clear Immigration.
But my friend please RELAX !
Nobody died, no one got injured.
Your wife missed her connection.
Everything's fine.
I do not really believe that the UA stewardess wanted to say they guaranteed , but rather believe she did say so by slip of tongue. If they however really meant it, it was a rather silly promise, as it must have been clear already during the flight that connection would be most extremely critical if not practically impossible.
Agree.
I do recommend buying your wife for her next trip
Alain de Botton
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Week-Airport...pr_product_top
Enjoy!
I bought a copy of this at Birmingham Airport some time back.
(I don't necessarily recommend it for your wife, tho'... )
[](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Box-Malcolm-MacPherson/dp/0006530451/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268821223&sr=1-1)
One account involved a (iirc) Mexican airliner. The aircraft was in a
descent, unnoticed by the crew, and that if unchecked would lead to
ground contact (wot a loverly euphonium!).
The ground proximity system gave a warning ("glide slope") then it
followed up with "PULL-UP, PULL-UP". The warning was ignored by
the flight crew, and the last words on the cockpit voice recorder were
"Aw, shut-up Gringo!!!"
.
I have that book as well - for me the highlight is Denny Fitch (as mentioned in earlier posts). Read what those guys did to get the crippled United DC-10 on the runway. They saved hundreds of lives.
Or perhaps the JAL 747 that lost an engine on departure from Anchorage - see teamwork in action.
BTW, the "shut up Gringo" is *I believe* a widely quoted but incorrect Internet Myth.
Here is the CVR transcript for the incident in question, an Avianca 747 that went into the mountains near Madrid
http://www.fomento.es/NR/rdonlyres/D...66/Anexo_A.pdf
It seems that until the last second no one told the Captain he was about to hit a mountain. See how long the WHOOP, WHOOP PULL UP commands went on for. Easy to sit here and say "WTF were they doing?" but clearly teamwork had broken down...
Nothing at all wrong with the aircraft and no "gringos" around either.
Sorry.