Now for the Unfriendly Skies

After detailing to you my good experience, I must advise you of some of my bad experiences as well.

I was supposed to fly to Atlanta and connect up to a flight to Pensacola, FL. Only, the flight from Newark was delayed and delayed and delayed and finally took off 4-1/2 hours after it's scheduled departure. The delay was caused because the incoming flight which should have been used for our flight, although delayed due to weather,was diverted for use by another outgoing flight, primarily a company decision. Of course I was worried about the Pensacola flight but found out that it too was delayed. It was on a different airline and my attempts to take a different flight on a different airline to get to Atlanta on time was thwarted because the airline threatened to cancel the balance of my ticket if I didn't fly out on my originally booked flight.This would have necessitated the purchase of another ticket for the remaining segments at walkup rates. Also, the Newark to Atlanta portion would have been forfeited and a ticket on a competing airline would also have been at walkup rates.

There is a new model to the old game of airline profit maximization. It used to be a low rate for a round trip which starts in one week and returns after the following Saturday night. This allowed the leisure traveller who usually stays over a weekend to benefit at the expense of the business traveller who does not usually include the weekend in his travel plans. That has pretty much been scrapped. The latest ploy is to increase fares as the time for the flight approaches. Maybe this has become possible because the fare algorithms effectively sell the flights out. It is something that the savvy traveler needs to consider.

I have drawn up a list that I intend to send to the committee chairmen of the House and Senate committees that deal with air transport.

Here is the list:

Flight cancellations and delays which are caused purely for commercial reasons or by mismanagement.

Exorbitant ticket change fees

Ticket cancellations to correct typographical errors

Cancellations of an entire itinerary when one segment is missed causing the passenger to have to pay 5 or 10 times the original price in order to get back home,.

Assigning the worst seats to certain classes of tickets without notifying the purchasers.

If any of you have any other suggestions regarding where the public is being taken advantage of by the airlines, please post a comment..