I am so done with air travel for now

In the early days of air travel, the saying was, "Got time to spare? Then go by air!" Those days have returned, apparently.

I have not flown since before the pandemic and I have been avoiding it too.There really isn't a need or desire at this moment.Since we moved to NC a whole lot of new vacations in the Southeast are now in driving distance for us,and it's only 675 miles to drive to my mother in NJ,so for now there's no need to get on a plane.Over the years we have flown to many places,California,Hawaii,Europe and the Caribbean,so for now we are okay.

Maybe some day but not now.

Plus they pack you in like a sardine.really resent that.

Personnel shortages and the price of fuel have made flying rather untenable lately.

My brother and mother were to fly from Florida to Kentucky for my son's graduation.

Unfortunately, they did not make their flights, but fortunately, it was their connecting flights that were canceled and they found out before beginning their travel. So they never flew out of Florida only to get stuck in some connecting city's airport.

We were  going to fly to Californis in September. After watching the newscasts of the insanity going on at the airports this past week we decided to cancel. I blame the airlines becuase they are booking people onto flights without crews. 

This is my airlines story, and it is no better than any of the previous ones on this string.

My family and I were making our third attempt at going on a cruise to Alaska as the first two were cancelled by COVID. The third attempt was scheduled for a May 2022 departure. In every attempt to cruise, I had Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL) schedule our airlines flights to and from the ship as part of the package; this will become an issue.

Roughly 30 days prior to departure NCL sent an e-mail with the itinerary for our flights through Alaskan Airlines. It was to be a straight through flight with side-by-side seats so I could properly care for my special needs son. I was instructed to log into the Alaskan Airlines web page and confirm my seating along with any other needs such as my sons wheelchair and transport issues. Within that week I accessed the site and completed all the processing. Evidently within a day or two of my confirmation Alaskan cancelled the flight, but did not notify me; instead they notified NCL who booked it. I was unaware of the cancellation until just days prior to departure, when I was logging back into the Alaskan portal to choose our dining selections for the trip. They indicated the flight was cancelled and a refund sent (to NCL) weeks previous. The airlines indicated to me that it is policy to notify the agency or person reserving the flight, not the people flying (?). 

WARNING: If the cruise line schedules your flights, they are the one who receives the flight cancellation, not you. This can be compounded when they agree to the refund but do not notify us. They also did not reschedule us on a replacement flight (?). 

I just happened to see the problem when I logged into my NCL on-line account. Looking at my flight information 5 days prior to departure, they did not have anything for any departure flight(s)... no flight to the ship,... none. I called NCL and they did not have an answer as to why they asked for a refund but did not reschedule a flight(?) They also could not tell me why I was not notified (?). They then tried to get answers but after two hours on and off hold and numerous systems excuses said they would call me back in an hour or two once they figured out the problem and a solution. They never called me back. 

Now being an urgent issue, I called back the next day. After being transferred to several different people I was finally told that they did see a Delta Airlines flight in my plan now with a connector in St. Paul to Seattle. I asked them when it was posted to my plan and why I was not notified?. They indicated it was posted the previous day (after my call), but had no idea how the error occurred or why I was not notified of the new flight arrangements. I expressed my concern over having to rework everything through Delta on a very short notice. I was then instructed to go on-line and confirm the Delta reservation and work with them on my son's wheelchair and conditional needs. At that time I found that NCL reserved three individual seats, none of them together (which is a necessity for my son). I immediately called Delta to talk to someone to resolve the seating issue. After over an hour wait, they were unable to reassign to joint seating because of the last minute booking done by NCL. In this case Delta gave me the NCL party line speech about no guarantee of side by side seating. Then they told us that we could sit together if we upgraded to first class ($2,000.00 more, which they said was non-refundable since it was an NCL reservation package deal). Since we were fully committed now and had to sit with my special needs son, we were resigned to accept the upgrade (thanks a lot Delta).

WARNING: If you choose to have the cruise line set up your flights, beware! Several things they do not tell you is while you are guaranteed to fly together, that does not mean together, it means on the same plane, but not necessarily side by side together. I suppose that may be the reason why they did not call me back after obtaining a last minute replacement flight (lack of a straight through flight, or lack of seating with my son as needed.)

At this point everything finally appeared to be going good until the airlines sent us a text on the day of departure at 15 minutes after midnight telling us our first flight from Columbus to St. Paul was delayed by 4 hours. This created a crisis as the delay would not let us connect with the next flight from St. Paul to Seattle to get us to the ship. I immediately called the NCL Emergency Line but they could not help find a way to the ship after looking through 6 different airports. After several more phone calls to various NCL POC's throughout the night nobody was able to assist us (most likely because of the time of night when the problem occurred).

The end result was nobody had a plane flight that could arrive in Seattle prior to the ship's departure; so we lost out on a cruise again. And don't even get me started with travel insurance! So far after a great amount of time and persistence, I 've received around 70% of the money back, but I am still in the process of trying to get the rest of my money back from NCL and Delta. 

We are D-O-N-E with cruises and now all together DONE with any flying for the near future!

Ben / DRUMS01

I'm just a local guy, nothing fancy.

Anyway, I've never had the urge to go far away.

or even go to closer places any more than 30 or so miles.

It's just all too much trouble and hassle and (to me) a waste of time and money.

In my time I've seen enough, no reason to throw money up in the sky or where ever.

disastermaster

I'm just a local guy, nothing fancy.

Anyway, I've never had the urge to go far away.

or even go to closer places any more than 30 or so miles.

It's just all too much trouble and hassle and (to me) a waste of time and money.

In my time I've seen enough, no reason to throw money up in the sky or where ever.

I grew up in a very small town in Vermont. The local machine tool factories were lifeblood of the community. Many kids went from high school to the factory. I knew I wanted something more.

I did well enough in school and sports to get scholarship offers from the local state school and one located outside of NYC. I went to New York for the adventure.

I joined ROTC there and got an active duty commission and an officer to go to Cold War Germany. Went to Desert Storm from there and spent the next couple of decades traveling for the Army.

Now that my youngest son is virtually out of the house, I plan to go out an see more.

I think I lived a rather uneventful life. My first years as an adult were running around NYC seeing the sights, learned how to scuba dive in college, moved to Mannheim, Germany at 23, spent my 26th birthday knocking down the Berlin Wall and my 27th waiting for the ground war to kick off.

Learned how to jump out of airplanes, got married, moved to Texas, did two more deployments as a captain, had my first child.

Then I turned 30.

Earlier this year the wife and I planned a trip to Italy for mid September.  After a nightmare returning home from Vegas (me) and a disaster returning home from Denver (her) we decided Italy can wait.  Instead we booked a place with friends in the Outer Banks, NC.  4 1/2 easy hours to drive, it will be the off season so not tons of people, and best of all no airport.  

Rob Gronovius

I think I lived a rather uneventful life.

Now that's a good one Rob! In light of what you wrote it's plain to see that you were writing history!

Drop me a line if you ever visit Poland. Good luck with your travels!

Paweł

My Wife and Daughter leave for South Korea this week. Holding my breath all goes well.

Hi Eugene!

        If you were to come to New Braunfels,TX. And visit our Rail Museum, you would  ,upon entering the Boxcar where the "N" scale layout is, See, our "Tongue in Cheek" attempt at humor concerning the "Stuffing of Aircraft!" It's the old Prop plane with the rounded nose and weird fuselage. With a "Cattle Car" in place of the passenger area!

Hi!

      I haven't flown Commercial Aviation since I was in the service .Why? There was an Air-Crash at a very busy Eastern Airport, In the late sixties. It concerned the 747. Sixty two of us out of 245 survived a Crash upon Landing. Turned out the wheels were still up! I was already exhausted from a flight across Europe then the Atlantic! I was in First Class But it wasn't that great back then. A wee bit more room and better service, But that was all.

      After the investigation, turned out the Hybrid Instruments were showing all wheels down and Locked. I was in a seat upstairs just forward of the last two Ports on the Starboard( Right Side ) of the plane. Landing that way at 160 knots is surely a wake -up call! I had my license, As fate decreed I earned enough to Purchase three planes and yes, for a while I owned all three at once! Sold them after 1982. 

      They were all "Old Dogs" as far as planes go. A B-25 that hadn't flown since the War, A Cessna 182-with floats,Salvaged from an Auto Wrecking Yard, like the MONOGRAM kit! and a basket case Piper J-3 bought from and old farmer, My missus and I really enjoyed restoring those old Birds. But I have not, nor will I fly commercial ever again. I seem to have a very strong Mental block putting my life in someone elses hands at altitude!

Rob Gronovius

 

 

disastermaster

I'm just a local guy, nothing fancy.

Anyway, I've never had the urge to go far away.

or even go to closer places any more than 30 or so miles.

It's just all too much trouble and hassle and (to me) a waste of time and money.

In my time I've seen enough, no reason to throw money up in the sky or where ever.

 

 

 

I think I got it from my parents. They were forced to leave Indonesia as children when the country gained its independence from Holland. They moved to The Netherlands, got married and moved to the US. A church sponsored their move and my dad was given a job in the local factory. My mom worked in the school cafeteria.

 

I grew up in a very small town in Vermont. The local machine tool factories were lifeblood of the community. Many kids went from high school to the factory. I knew I wanted something more.

I did well enough in school and sports to get scholarship offers from the local state school and one located outside of NYC. I went to New York for the adventure.

I joined ROTC there and got an active duty commission and an officer to go to Cold War Germany. Went to Desert Storm from there and spent the next couple of decades traveling for the Army.

Now that my youngest son is virtually out of the house, I plan to go out an see more.

I think I lived a rather uneventful life. My first years as an adult were running around NYC seeing the sights, learned how to scuba dive in college, moved to Mannheim, Germany at 23, spent my 26th birthday knocking down the Berlin Wall and my 27th waiting for the ground war to kick off.

Learned how to jump out of airplanes, got married, moved to Texas, did two more deployments as a captain, had my first child.

Then I turned 30.

 

I've read all of these posts of frustrating experiences and I feel for all of you.  My wife was scheduled to fly to New Orleans recently for a conference for work and her flights were rescheduled and ultimately cancelled.  She became so frustrated that she cancelled her reservation for the conference.  The purpose of this post is how do you think this mess with the airlines' scheduling will affect the upcoming I.P.M.S. Nationals?  People not getting their flights, models getting lost with luggage etc. I realize that a lot of people in the U.S. will drive(price of gas is another issue)but what about the people coming from abroad? 

tjs

MR TOM SCHRY

I've read all of these posts of frustrating experiences and I feel for all of you.  My wife was scheduled to fly to New Orleans recently for a conference for work and her flights were rescheduled and ultimately cancelled.  She became so frustrated that she cancelled her reservation for the conference.  The purpose of this post is how do you think this mess with the airlines' scheduling will affect the upcoming I.P.M.S. Nationals?  People not getting their flights, models getting lost with luggage etc. I realize that a lot of people in the U.S. will drive(price of gas is another issue)but what about the people coming from abroad? 

tjs

I think it will really impact the attendance. Folks will get stuck in cities when connecting flights are cancelled, flights will be overbooked, security lines will be abnormally long (new normal?), rooms will get cancelled by folks not able to make it due to travel issues.