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Encounters with the TSA



 
 
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  #291  
Old November 11th, 2003, 09:05 PM
Wet Racoon
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Default Encounters with the TSA

Malcolm Weir wrote:
But still, it's entirely *sensible* that the longer route involving a
change of aircraft should be cheaper. It's less attractive to the
consumer because it takes longer and involves a change, and it can be
provided at lower cost since each segment consolidates traffic between
many city pairs.



If you view sale of such itineraries as a way to fill otherwise empty seats,
then yes, it makes sense to "dump "inventory as lower prices, just like a seat sale.

However, when your network is made up of mostly such connecting itineraries,
it is one reason why your airline cannot compete with the ilks of Southwest.
There is no way that it costs the airline less to fly you via chicago versus
putting you on a non-stop flight. Consider the additional landing/takeoff
costs, gate costs, luggage transfer costs, extra staff at gates, and the costs
when flights are delayed/cancelled and you have a bunch of stranded people at
the connecting city (hotels, meals etc).

This is another of those funny pricing schemes such as charging more for A-B
than you do for A-B-C.

At one point, this big money losing airlines in the USA will have to dump
their virtual pricing schemes and start charging what it actually costs for an itinerary.
  #292  
Old November 11th, 2003, 10:37 PM
mrtravel
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Default Encounters with the TSA

Wet Racoon wrote:

However, when your network is made up of mostly such connecting itineraries,
it is one reason why your airline cannot compete with the ilks of Southwest.
There is no way that it costs the airline less to fly you via chicago versus
putting you on a non-stop flight. Consider the additional landing/takeoff
costs, gate costs, luggage transfer costs, extra staff at gates, and the costs
when flights are delayed/cancelled and you have a bunch of stranded people at
the connecting city (hotels, meals etc).


But.. compare the costs/revenues of having a plane fly 1/2 full from
SJC-Miami or having a full plane from SJC-ORD and a full plane from
ORD-MIA. An extreme example, of course, but the principal issue is that
a hub and spoke system is cost efficient.

  #293  
Old November 12th, 2003, 01:14 AM
Malcolm Weir
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Default Encounters with the TSA

On Tue, 11 Nov 2003 15:05:46 -0500, Wet Racoon
wrote:

Malcolm Weir wrote:
But still, it's entirely *sensible* that the longer route involving a
change of aircraft should be cheaper. It's less attractive to the
consumer because it takes longer and involves a change, and it can be
provided at lower cost since each segment consolidates traffic between
many city pairs.


If you view sale of such itineraries as a way to fill otherwise empty seats,
then yes, it makes sense to "dump "inventory as lower prices, just like a seat sale.


No, it's the reason *why* the airlines structure themselves the way
they do. Nothing to do with "dumping" inventory.

"Hubs" make very little obvious sense to the consumer; they make all
kind of sense to the airlines.

However, when your network is made up of mostly such connecting itineraries,
it is one reason why your airline cannot compete with the ilks of Southwest.


You evidently have little idea that Southwest is absolutely delighted
to sell bazillions of nice connecting itineraries. Which makes *that*
observation of yours rather silly.

There is no way that it costs the airline less to fly you via chicago versus
putting you on a non-stop flight. Consider the additional landing/takeoff
costs, gate costs, luggage transfer costs, extra staff at gates, and the costs
when flights are delayed/cancelled and you have a bunch of stranded people at
the connecting city (hotels, meals etc).


Even without dealing with the fundamental observation that it really
does cost the airline much less to fly you "via Chicago" in the cases
where they *don't* offer a non-stop flight (because flying via Chicago
gives them revenue, and the alternative gives them nothing), you
appear hopelessly deluded in thinking that airline tickets are priced
based on *cost*. This hasn't been the case in the USA since 1976.

This is another of those funny pricing schemes such as charging more for A-B
than you do for A-B-C.


No, it's an entirely sound business model, and is identical to the
models used by phone companies and interstate trucking companies, not
to mention the overnight delivery companies. It works.

The fact is that what the airlines are doing is selling tickets based
on the idea of incremental cost. A flight from A to B will cost a
certain amount of money regardless how many seats are sold, and then
there's a relatively small incremental cost for each passenger. If
you don't have enough customers willing to pay for that route, you
will lose money. But if you use a hub-and-spoke model you can make
money from people who want to fly from A to C, D, E, and F *in
addition* to those wishing to fly to B.

*AND* the lovely thing is that if you have (say) 100 people per flight
willing to fly A-B, you have to use a roughly 100 seat aircraft to
economically service that route. If you *add* (say) another 50
people, you can use a (roughly) 150 seat aircraft, whose operating
cost-per-passenger is lower. That becomes even more relevant when the
demand fluctuates: you can cushion changes in the demand by using
excess seats for hub-and-spoke traffic.

At one point, this big money losing airlines in the USA will have to dump
their virtual pricing schemes and start charging what it actually costs for an itinerary.


Which will surprise you, and not in a good way.

Malc.
  #294  
Old November 12th, 2003, 04:25 AM
Miguel Cruz
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Default Encounters with the TSA

Wet Racoon wrote:
However, when your network is made up of mostly such connecting itineraries,
it is one reason why your airline cannot compete with the ilks of Southwest.


Southwest has lots of connecting itineraries. I think they only have one
non-stop coast-to-coast route, for example, and an awful lot of people fly
them coast-to-coast.

There is no way that it costs the airline less to fly you via chicago
versus putting you on a non-stop flight. Consider the additional
landing/takeoff costs, gate costs, luggage transfer costs, extra staff at
gates, and the costs when flights are delayed/cancelled and you have a
bunch of stranded people at the connecting city (hotels, meals etc).


On the other hand, consider the decreased fuel costs for shorter flights,
the ability to consolidate passengers on larger planes, greater chance of
filling those planes, and so on. I don't think it's clear-cut at all.

I also find it unlikely that they would all be working so hard to lose
money.

miguel
--
See the world from your web browser: http://travel.u.nu/
  #295  
Old November 12th, 2003, 04:44 AM
Vitaly Shmatikov
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Default Encounters with the TSA

In article ,
Miguel Cruz wrote:

However, when your network is made up of mostly such connecting itineraries,
it is one reason why your airline cannot compete with the ilks of Southwest.


Southwest has lots of connecting itineraries. I think they only have one
non-stop coast-to-coast route, for example, and an awful lot of people fly
them coast-to-coast.


Not to argue with your main point, but Southwest has at least three
coast-to-coast nonstops out of BWI: to SJC, LAX and SAN.

  #296  
Old November 12th, 2003, 02:47 PM
me
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Default Encounters with the TSA

Malcolm Weir wrote in message . ..
On 11 Nov 2003 05:34:24 -0800, (me) wrote:

[snip]
Self Labeling becomes important when, and only when,
their label falls off. Then, your label will help them figure out
whose bag it is. Putting "London" on it ain't gonna help much.


Exactly...

Putting your destination phone number/address can. Your frequent
flier number won't hurt either.


My "bag tags" are my FF number and AA's "If found, contact any AA
office" request and their 1-800 number.

I've been known to write my
flight numbers on it too.


I tend to work on the basis that (since I normally fly AA) they can
find out where I am...



After a particularly circuitous routing of my bag, I had it
explained to me this way (USAir, but I presume many work quite
similarly).

If your bag isn't on your plane then this is probably what's gonna
happen. If it just missed your plane, they will wait until the
next flight that goes there. If that flight isn't until tomorrow,
they will check to see if there is a connecting set of flights
that will get it there today. If so, fine, if not, it will probably
wait until the next direct flight tomorrow, exceptions being if
the only direct flight isn't until late afternoon or early evening.
Once there, they will determine how to get it to where you are.

If you bag went to the wrong city, it gets worse. They will
send it BACK to the city OF ORIGIN. Not the city where it got
misdirected, but where you started. From there, it will be determined
where the bag should be sent next. Almost without fail, where it
will be sent is to the original destination city. This will be true
whether that is where you now are or not. About the only way to
stop this is to instruct them to hold it in your city of origin.
All this may accomplish though is that it will go to your original
destination, and then be returned to your city of origin.

Now, once your bag gets to the original destination city, that
is often the first time anyone particularly cares about any instructions
you have given. At that city, you can choose to have them hold it,
or instruct them to have it delivered to someplace such as a home, office
or hotel. However, as shocking as this may seem, it's not exactly a
high priority for them. It will come off the plane, and go around
in circles on the belt for about 20-40 minutes first. Then, they
will collect them all and start figuring out what they have. Then,
they will begin to make arrangements to have it picked up and delivered.
The closer your deliver point is to the airport, the sooner it will
get delivered. If you are in a city down the road an hour, you'll
be put on a van which is making alot of out of town deliveries,
and the bag that is furtherest out get's delivered last.

Based upon several experiences with this issue, this is how I've
figured out to handle it. Go to baggage claim and be prepared
with the following info. 1) The baggage tags. 2)The name and
address on that tag you have on your luggage 3) Your hotel/office/
where ever that you want to have it delievered, include phone number
where you can be reached too.

Now, start asking questions. They will fight you on this, especially
if there is a line, but try to establish whether they already know
that your bag didn't make your flight. If yes, try to establish the
best case scenario for the arrival of your bag. This may be the
next flight in (which may be just in a couple of hours). If so,
I strongly suggest that you hang around (or come back) and retrieve
it yourself. If you are staying at a hotel VERY close to the
airport, or can otherwise have it delivered in the general
vicinity, you can arrange to have it delivered. However, if it
doesn't arrive on the next flight, it is preferable to be there
to conduct further negotiations.

Now, if they will actually figure out where your bag is, you can
try some other negotiations. If you just flew into LAX,
and it was a direct flight, there are a boat load of other airports
in the larger area. Consider having it flown into John Wayne
or Burbank, or one of the other many airports in the area. This
works best if the bag is still at your airport of origin. Otherwise,
if you give such instructions, they may send it back to it's origin
first, then on to John Wayne which isn't really what you wanted.
I'd only suggest this though if you are intending to actually
go there to retrieve it. Also, if it doesn't show up on
that next flight, they have things like shaving kits and the like
which they can give you. They can also tell you what you can and
can't buy/rent whilst you wait on your bag.

Now, nightmare scenario. My plane to DCA got canceled. So I
VERY QUICKLY rebooked onto a flight into BWI. I was headed to
Pax River so it wasn't all that much different to me. However,
my bag didn't follow me. It got sent, with all the other
canceled flight bags, to it's original destination of DCA.
When it got there, it's back to MCO and then sent to BWI where
they arrange to have it driven to Pax River (it reached me
about 24 hours later). The sad part was, if I had known
then, what I know now, I would have just driven over to
DCA and picked it up myself. I could have even potentially
told them at DCA what had happened and they would have
just "claimed" it and had it sent to me from there.
  #297  
Old November 12th, 2003, 09:55 PM
Sleepy Raccoon
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Default Encounters with the TSA

me wrote:
If you bag went to the wrong city, it gets worse. They will
send it BACK to the city OF ORIGIN. Not the city where it got
misdirected, but where you started.


Wrong. Once the bag is declared unclaimed, it is sent to the baggage dept,
declared misrouted. They enter its tag number into the computer as well a its
current location, and will then plot the "best course" for your luggage to get
to its intended destination.

If your bag was sent from LAX to LHR instead of CDG, when it gets to London,
they will see it should have gone to Paris and will put in on the next flight
from Lodon to Paris. It will not go back to Los Angeles.

Now, if it were sent from LAX to Podunk instead of Paris, it is likely it will
have to fly through LAX to get to Paris from Pudunk if Podunk has only
sertvice from LAX.

or hotel. However, as shocking as this may seem, it's not exactly a
high priority for them. It will come off the plane, and go around
in circles on the belt for about 20-40 minutes first.


Nop. Lost luggage is tagged with a special sticker that baggage handlers
recognize. They do not put it on luggage belt, they bring it to baggage office directly.

Where the luggage will go around and around is when it gets misrouted to a
airport that offers no connecting luggage service and/or is a port of entry
(all luggage goes on belt to go through customs. Then, they must wait for
luggage to be unclaimed before they realise there was a problem.

But at airports that handle connecting luggage, they will look at the tag to
determine whether the bag needs to be claimed at that airport or be put on
some connecting flights. In doing so, they discover it was misrouted, and then
enter its tag in the computer and find the best route to have it get to its
intended destination.

At the time the luggage is found, the handlers at that airport will likely not
have access to the information you provided when you declared the luggage "lost".

For instance, if you fly Airline X from A to B, then airline Y from B to C,
but your luggage ends up on airline Z from B to D, then the "Z" folks at D
will send a message to airline Y advising they have found your luggage. That
message gets automatically added to your lost luggage claim.

Until someone sends a message to your airline advising luggage was found, your
airline only knows that you filed a lost luggage report and they have no clue
where your luggage is.

What this is important is when you are on a multi-leg trip. If you instruct
your airline to deliver your luggage in a different city because you'll be
there the next day, the folks who find your luggage won't know and will only
see the original tag. And it is only once it gets within the airline's
jurisdiction that there is even a small chance it might be intercepted and
luggage tags changed to reflect the new city. This depends on whether
recovered bags get sent to baggage office in each connecting city so their
status can be updated, or whether the baggage flows transparently in the
"system" until it recahes its destination where its tag results in it being
sent to baggage office instead of luggage belt.
  #298  
Old November 13th, 2003, 02:20 PM
me
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Default Encounters with the TSA

Sleepy Raccoon wrote in message ...
me wrote:
If you bag went to the wrong city, it gets worse. They will
send it BACK to the city OF ORIGIN. Not the city where it got
misdirected, but where you started.


Wrong. Once the bag is declared unclaimed, it is sent to the baggage dept,
declared misrouted. They enter its tag number into the computer as well a its
current location, and will then plot the "best course" for your luggage to get
to its intended destination.

If your bag was sent from LAX to LHR instead of CDG, when it gets to London,
they will see it should have gone to Paris and will put in on the next flight
from Lodon to Paris. It will not go back to Los Angeles.

Now, if it were sent from LAX to Podunk instead of Paris, it is likely it will
have to fly through LAX to get to Paris from Pudunk if Podunk has only
sertvice from LAX.


International, I'm sure, is handled quite differently for a variety
of reasons. But I know for a fact that one particular bag was handled
domestically much as I described.

or hotel. However, as shocking as this may seem, it's not exactly a
high priority for them. It will come off the plane, and go around
in circles on the belt for about 20-40 minutes first.


Nop. Lost luggage is tagged with a special sticker that baggage handlers
recognize. They do not put it on luggage belt, they bring it to baggage office directly.


Not in my experience. Everytime my bag was delayed and I hung around
to collect it later (or returned). It ALWAYS came out on the belt.
I watched as other bags were retrieved and piled up for dispersal.

[snip]
At the time the luggage is found, the handlers at that airport will likely not
have access to the information you provided when you declared the luggage "lost".


Yup. That's sorta the larger point. You can talk their ear off of the
person at luggage claim, but only so much of that info is going to
get to the person who is actually going to reroute your bag.

[snip]
What this is important is when you are on a multi-leg trip. If you instruct
your airline to deliver your luggage in a different city because you'll be
there the next day, the folks who find your luggage won't know and will only
see the original tag. And it is only once it gets within the airline's
jurisdiction that there is even a small chance it might be intercepted and
luggage tags changed to reflect the new city. This depends on whether
recovered bags get sent to baggage office in each connecting city so their
status can be updated, or whether the baggage flows transparently in the
"system" until it recahes its destination where its tag results in it being
sent to baggage office instead of luggage belt.


Multi leg is a nightmare because of the "lag" in the system. By the
time your bag gets to anyone who realizes that the original destination
is no longer the current desired destination, you could easily
be home.
 




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