Tag: airports

Hate to see it, but it’s not like it isn’t deserved

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

NBC: Fewer international tourists are visiting the United States; economic losses estimated to be ‘staggering’

Like the subject says, this is one of those things that most Americans probably wouldn’t like to see or know of, but at the same time, it’s not like it isn’t deserved, and I can only hope that there are more businesses whose owners and managers that voted for the dumbass orange turd in Washington are being affected by this over those who didn’t.

Like, America was no saint of a destination before dumbass orange turd took office again, but now that he is, I can’t imagine why anyone outside of the United States would have any real inkling of desire to visit it, save for experiences like, Disney World or Las Vegas.  But frankly, even those probably have better alternate options, like the numerous other Disney properties in Europe or Japan, and casinos in Macau or Italy.

I always go back to this particular story of how I came back from an international trip, and had a layover in JFK, and had to clear customs there before catching my next flight back to Atlanta.  I remember seeing these foreign tourists struggling immensely to get through customs because they spoke little-to-no English, and the customs agents were all salty New Yorkers who spoke nothing other than English and basically the faces of these tourists were miserable and scared, and I felt bad that this was basically how their trip was starting in the United States.

Meanwhile, mythical then-gf and I had gotten back from Germany or Korea or wherever we were, and the customs agents in all these places spoke English, weren’t miserable New Yorkers, and were by and not entirely unpleasant experiences getting past them to our destinations.  I remember when we got out of the airport in Munich, and there were already holiday booths and vendors and it was airy and pleasant, and compare that to walking out the door of JFK or any American airport, which is usually just a lot of unhinged drivers trying to pick people up, power-tripping security blowing whistles and screaming at people, and just a whole lot of ugliness, and I always wonder why anyone with a brain would actually want to visit the United States.

Furthermore, like the above photo shows, there’s a meme out there of all sorts of countries around the world, where people say they’re going to visit, when they’re really referring to small sections of each respective country; like all the weebs who say they’re going to Japan are really referring to Tokyo or Osaka, all Koreebs are really visiting Seoul when they say Korea, Paris to France, London to England, and frankly most Americans aren’t aware that Amsterdam is but a city in Holland and not the country itself.  The same applies to the United States, where most anyone from outside of it, when they say they’re coming to visit America, really is saying they’re visiting places like New York City, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Washington DC, or Disney World (obviously not Orlando).  Everywhere else is pretty much not America as far as the eyes of the average tourist goes.

All the same, as much as I hope nobody I know is affected by the financial windfall of dwindling tourism, it’s one of those scenarios where it’s smirk-worthy with that I told you so kind of vibe, that this was inevitable to happen with the current political regime that basically has told everyone else outside the country to fuck off, and them being surprised that nobody wants to come visit anymore.

It’s like if people are getting hurt by this development on account of shitty leadership, a lot of people have nobody to blame but themselves for voting for a leader who’s so racist and xenophobic and is the chief reason why tourism dollars are evaporating and that nobody wants to come visit America.  But at the same time, it’s not like this should be anything of a surprise, once our glorious leader kept flapping his gums about America’s so-called superiority, so I guess all I can really say at this point is, owned.

I feel like this was probably one big misinterpretation

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

DFP: Bomb threat on a Spirit Airlines flight in Detroit forces evacuation

I just want to start off with, I understand that bomb threats are no laughing matter, and good on all airline, airport, local and county personnel and authorities for doing the right thing and evacuating everyone and ensuring that all was green.

But I just feel like given the combination of circumstances, location, time, and nature of people who are flying Spirit Airlines, there’s probably some critical context missing from this story that probably leads to everything being one gigantic misunderstanding.

First of all, this happened in Detroit, which is one of the saddest and most depressing places in the country that I’d ever been to.  It’s a blue-collar place with a feeling of defiance of defeat in the actual city itself, and much like airports like Atlanta, Dulles, the airport is located way the fuck far away from the actual city proper and are the only things that stretch the city zone maps to retain the name.

Did you also know that Detroit has the highest concentration of Middle Eastern immigrants in the country?  This was news to me when I first was told this factoid, but then when I was on the prowl for as many Tim Horton’s locations as I could find, I found one inside of a Middle Eastern grocery store, and I realized such factoid was probably right.  Somewhere in this paragraph is the unfortunate stereotypical parallel between painting those of Middle Eastern descent or appearance with bomb threats on airplanes, and my mind assumes that this could’ve been one of those Harold and Kumar moments where someone might have seen a brown-skinned person on the plane and lost their shit, leading to this whole debacle.

Second, most everyone knows the jokes, memes and stereotypes that go along with Spirit Airlines.  I’ve flown with them more than I care to admit, because it’s hard to ignore a $97 RT versus a $397 RT on Southwest or Delta for a 90 minute flight, so I’m quite well aware of them myself on a first-hand experience.  Unruly, loud, hostile, and other pejoratives to describe the people who fly on Spirit Airlines, it wouldn’t be a far stretch to imagine the word “bomb” being muttered by any of these folks, regardless of the context, but as the FAA and TSA and whatever government agencies have conditioned us, bomb is bomb, and when the tragic word is whispered, shouted, muttered, uttered or screamed, all systems come to a halt, and the authorities are sent in.

Third, check the time of when the incident was reported – 7 am.  Which means that this flight was boarding at like 6:15 am, which means people have been at the airport since like 5 am or earlier, and I don’t care who you are, when you’re on that crack ass of dawn flight, there’s a way higher chance than normal that you’re not going to be in a good mood.  Now multiply that being in Detroit, and flying with Spirit Airlines, and you’ve got an entire aircraft full of extra ornery motherfuckers who are well past beyond edge, and somewhere along all these circumstances the word bomb popped out, and then all shit hit the fan.

Again, kudos to all those involved in security and operations for following protocol and ensuring the safety of everyone on the flight and in the airport.  But given all the moving parts and variables in this situation, I can’t help but feel like there probably is a whole lot of things that were taken out of context and lead to a wholly excessively unnecessary scenario.

Matthew Stafford’s wife put him into a no-win situation

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

US Weekly: LA Rams QB Matthew Stafford judged by the internet for sitting in first class while his wife and four daughters sat in coach; unbeknownst to the many, it was arranged by his wife

Talk about a true no-win situation to be put in here, and the wonder if his wife set him up or not.  NFL quarterback sits in first class, while his wife and four daughters sit in coach; at first blush, it sounds like a chauvinistic asshole flexing his status as a man, a breadwinner, and a professional athlete against his wife and kids, plopping himself into the comfort and luxury of first class, while they all get to sit in the pleeb class.

Naturally, as the internet goes, first blushes and knee-jerk reactions are all any targets get, and Matthew Stafford is now branded an asshole, a douche, a selfish pig who has no respect for his wife, his kids, all women, etc, but then we come to find out that this whole thing was set up entirely by his own wife, who seems to like to tout that they have a no-nonsense travel policy:

I told Matthew, ‘Listen, point A to point B. There’s a flight. Let’s just get on it. It’s fine,’”

If there’s one thing I’ve learned about marriage, a wife, or women in general, when a woman says to you “It’s fine,” the shit is already Chernobyl and there’s nothing you can do about it, except begin damage control.  The more I re-read this story, the more I feel like Kelly Stafford probably had some existing beef or receipt to give poor Matthew, and found this flight as an excellent opportunity to exorcise it.  And the most diabolical part about it was the fact that she didn’t tell him about it at all, until it was boarding time.

Poor Matthew even knew what was going to happen when once the jig was up and he learned that he’d be separated from his family in first class versus everyone else:

He was like, ‘I’m gonna look like the biggest a**hole,’”

Of course, the wife had to have known this as well, but at this point they were already past no-return, and she instead tried to play it off like it would be the fault of those who would choose, and undoubtedly would choose, to judge:

Listen, if people have time to consider you to be an a**hole because your 6’3” self is not gonna sit in the back with everyone in your family who is 5’3” and under, then they’ve got bigger issues.”

In the end, predictably, regardless of the facts and context behind the whole thing, Matthew Stafford looks like an asshole for sitting in first class, and Kelly Stafford and their four Stepford Children of the Corn daughters all look like martyrs, farming up pity and sympathy, sitting in pleeb class.  Probably not saying much to defend her husband to those throwing shade in person, as much as she’s getting to be quoted for a written piece.

Whew, piece of work that Kelly Stafford is.  Ain’t nobody going to convince me that this wasn’t wholly orchestrated as a result of some marital beef or microaggression that she felt that required retribution in a manner that was a no-win for Matthew, and a complete win for her.

No wonder Matthew Stafford was able to keep such a cool head for all those years he played for the Lions, because going home some days was probably way worse than playing in Detroit.

I wish airport theory were around 10-15 years ago

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

NYP: dumbasses of today theorize the redundancy of airport policies, makes “challenge” of trying to traverse an airport prior to a flight in as short as time as possible

Honestly, I’ve long since thrown in the towel at trying to rationalize the dumb shit that the people of today do.  Go ahead and call it me getting old, but I’m seldom ever surprised at the things that become trends, so much as I’m always just like “ehh, that’s a thing now?  Fucking ok”

So not only am I not surprised that the trend labeled airport theory is a thing now, I’m more surprised that it’s taken this long for it to have been given a name, because people have been testing airport theory for as long as I’ve been flying, especially in the post-9/11 days where the TSA came to existence and the obnoxious policies that are mostly in place today came to fruition.

People have been testing the boundaries and limits of what they can get away with, with airport policies since 2001, but the only difference really is the existence of TikTok, and the gradually sheep-herder mentalities of the people today who see something and immediately want to mimic it en masse to where it rapidly picks up steam and becomes yet another dumbass trend that’s quick to be labeled a Gen-Z thing, which I don’t always agree with, because I’ve seen people of all ages testing airport theory over the last two decades-plus.

My only real thought is that I really wish airport theory were a thing back 10-15 years ago, when I had a Delta flight pass and could basically hop on any flight to anywhere in the continental United States, as a standby, which I obviously utilized to tremendous effect, contributing towards me crushing a large portion of my 30 MLB baseball park journey.

I always played it smart, monitored conditions and kept abreast of as many variables as I could to optimize my chances at getting on all the flights I wanted to, but I wasn’t without my share of failures too.  I’ve been stuck in places like Seattle, Minneapolis, Portland and failed to get out of Reagan-National countless times, and more times than I can count, I was unable to get out of Atlanta for the start of a trip, regardless of how much things seemed possible beforehand.

If travel theory were a thing 10-15 years ago, my success rate at getting on planes would have likely skyrocketed, because when airlines actually adhere to policy, the dumbasses who are testing airport theory and trying to get from airport entrance to the jetbridge giving themselves 15 minutes would have forfeited their seats eons ago in comparison, and for every idiot that insisted on testing airport theory there were, would be one more standby passenger cleared to board the aircraft.

In fact, some of my worst stories involving standby travel probably involve dorks who were testing airport theory, inadvertently, before it was even coined as being airport theory.  Like me getting cleared to board an aircraft but then being bumped at the eleventh hour and 59th minute because some fuckwit managed to bitch and complain and eke their way to the gate, and reclaim their forfeited seat because the squeaky wheel always gets the grease.

But yeah, if airport theory were a thing 10-15 years ago when I was jetsetting and traveling nearly twice a month, I would’ve not only had a way easier time in traveling, I probably would have traveled more and explored the country if I knew it would be so easy to travel.

The funny thing is, and I don’t care enough about it to look it up, but I’m really curious to see how much of all these airport theory videos are occurring in Atlanta.  If there’s not a lot of evidence of airport theory being tested at ATL, then I can comfortably say that if there was, the trend would undoubtedly come to a screeching halt.  Fewer airports are staffed with as many people who relish and take sadistic, arrogant satisfaction at ruining the days of travelers than Atlanta Hartsfield Latoya Jackson Intergalactic Spaceport and Nail Emporium. 

The irony is that they don’t do it by being incompetent, they do so by being as procedurally bullet proof as possible, adhering to every single bulleted rule there could be in airport, airline, TSA policy, with the express purpose of fucking every single person who tries to skirt protocol, test airport theory and try and get one up on system.

I’d love to see one of these TikTok dorks make a video where they’re like “uhh hey what’s up guys, I’m at ATL, I’ve got 15 minutes to board my Delta flight at T7, and I just got to security” and then it cuts to them having moved up maybe 7-8 people and then they’re like “welp, looks like I missed my flight” or they get to their gate, the doors are closed, and the gate agent is smugly finishing their outbound report, as they calmly tell the camera “sir/ma’am, procedure dictates that you be present at the gate at X time OR we will forfeit your seat” and then airport theory is basically defeated.

Either way, I wish this shit existed 10-15 years ago.  I would’ve thrived as a traveler, getting on more flights at a way higher clip, and seen more of the country before it completely went to shit.

Welp, absolutely no more reason to favor Southwest over anyone else

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

AP: Southwest Airlines ditching bags fly free, eliminating their last real differentiator to competitors

And with the elimination of open seating as of the start of the 2025 season, Southwest Airlines has fully committed to blending into the landscape entirely, leaving them with no more real differentiators from their competition.  Honestly, bags fly free, as small as it seemed in comparison to what they once were as one of the true alternatives in the airline playing field, was still something to consider for airline passengers planning a trip.

Sure, they kind of baked it into their general fares once you did some price shopping against other airlines plus bag fees, but if you played your cards right, Southwest was still a place where you could snag a bargain, if you had the flexibility or willingness to nudge your schedule around.

But with the elimination of bags fly free, it’s apparent that Southwest no longer gives any shits about industry disruption and shaping their brand around being a friendlier alternative to the Deltas, Uniteds and Americans out there that are otherwise crowding the playing field, and prefers to be among the big dogs, raking in profits through a smorgasbord of industry collusion, fare hikes, fees, and general practice of cornering and exasperating consumers into feeling like they have no choice but to shell out in order to accomplish their travel objectives.

It’s funny, because regulation ended in the late 70s, partially so that airline companies could exercise some freedom to be creative, shake up the industry and ultimately strive towards some innovation and likely profit.  But it was done because regulation was choking the industry out with standardized practices, policies, fares and routes, and everyone was basically the same despite operating under different banners.

In the grand spectrum of the airline industry today, regulation might have officially been deregulated in 1978 but make no mistake, regulation really isn’t gone as far as practice goes.  Between all the big dog airlines out there that have a stranglehold on most of the premier routes throughout the country and internationally, they’re all basically the same despite having different names.

They’re all ass-expensive nowadays, have as many taxes and fees as a Ticketmaster transaction, bags don’t fly free and cost an arm, changes at their behest fuck your schedule up, and changes at your behest costs a leg.  They all have shitty customer service, and when the day is over, coordinating airline travel isn’t really that different than coordinating a trip to the movies.  Sometimes we’ll pay the extra and settle on having to deal with a shitty 3-D version of the film solely because the schedule is optimal, and it’s not that different with flying the skies, we’ll go with the airline that fucks us the least and isn’t that terrible for our desired schedules.

In the end, the airline industry really has turned into absolutely nothing more than a game of hubs.  Where smaller airlines squabble and compete over every single customer, the bigger dogs are all trying to gain footholds in regions, because the more regions they can hold higher market share in, the more they’re simply going to win the wars of attrition solely based on routes.

Everyone knows that Atlanta is Delta country, Chicago is where United and American have giant presences, and all of them have smaller hubs across the country.  Southwest seems content to keep their footings in places like Dallas, Baltimore and Phoenix, and instead of trying to keep customers happy or working to be the refreshing alternative to the rest of the market, they’ll probably focus on gaining footing in other markets instead.

Either way, at this point, one change Southwest really should consider is allowing their flights to be searchable on aggregate comparison sites and scrapers like Kayak, Expedia and Travelocity.  I have to imagine it was probably fucking them in the past, voluntarily not being searchable on third-party sites, trying to really push consumers to search directly and save some money, but since they’re no longer trying to compete anymore, they may as well try to bail on this methodology and allow themselves to be searchable on aggregate sites; just like all their competitors do.

The bottom line is that I don’t travel as much as I once did, but I always did like Southwest in that they flew directly from Atlanta to two places I like to be able to get to.  I’m not going to outright blacklist them because that would only hurt myself, but I don’t really have any reason to give them any preferable consideration over any competitors.

And as I’ve said hundreds of times in my life, I miss AirTran, and I still hold a little salt at Southwest for Borg’ing them just to get access to their routes, but then jacking up the fares on said routes to where it’s difficult to consider them more often.

I hope Southwest is ready to be mediocre

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

WaPo: Southwest Airlines eliminating open seating starting in 2025

In the grand spectrum of things, Southwest Airlines getting rid of open seating doesn’t really impact my life that much.  I don’t fly enough anymore to really be affected by this, because my life is too hectic at this juncture in my life and when it’s time for a family trip, driving is more economical and logical albeit more time consuming, but it’s better than dropping $2,100 on a trip to like Orlando.

But Southwest was always a company that I had some admiration for, because their general people-first modus operandi was always refreshing in the vast ocean of big businesses that existed solely to part dollars from the hands of the people and put them into the pockets of soulless shitheads known as investors and other finance-ey words used to describe old white people. 

And it’s not like they were starving by any stretch of the imagination, even during some of the most brutal recessions and stretches of financial wastelands, SWA was one of the few airlines that continually turned profits, mostly on account of their generally friendly business practices.

Reasonable fares, convenient routes, free checked bags, and free change policies; there was a lot to like about SWA, but if there was ever one thing that conversely blew the minds off of the dull-watted, and to some probably perceived as a deterrent and turn-off, was the open-seating policy that probably defeated more people than the internet itself.

Personally, it was, and has never been an issue for me, because I have a brain.  It’s not that hard to queue up in lines in little chunks of five behind clearly marked totems, and it takes either a little bit of upfront discipline or the willingness to pay a little extra to get Group A boarding, and seeing as how the vast majority of my travels on SWA have usually been by myself, I’ve almost always been able to grab an errant single aisle or window seat closer to the front of the aircraft, meaning I can get the fuck off sooner rather than later being wedged into the back of the aircraft and needing an extra 20 minutes just to deplane.

But if I had to guess, in spite of being their policy for over the last 50 years, SWA has simply had enough of the bullshit of dealing with passengers who just haven’t gotten it after a half century, passengers who conduct themselves like entitled spoiled assholes on the aircraft, and having to deal with passengers who they have to reimburse or give free second seats to because they’re the sizes of Pontiac Azteks.

Like the vast majority of things in the world that end up being declared ruined, there’s nobody really to blame, except people.

Sure, at the root of it, I want to accuse some managerial change at the higher rungs of the ladders at SWA, where some bean counters have identified a vast field of earning opportunities to be had by ditching open seating, and that’s probably not inaccurate, but the company had resisted many opportunities to switch in previous decades, but in this day and age, the bullshit of passengers has probably grown too much, their workforce has grown flakier and full of impatient younger heads, and enough is enough and this is where we’re headed.

The reality is that SWA has probably lost out on millions over the last few decades, by trying to be The People’s™ airline, with their friendly policies and acceptance and inclusion, and thanks to mounting passenger bullshit, they’ve probably just hit a philosophical wall of why they should be handicapping their earning capabilities being nice to a ton of assholes, when absolutely nobody else is doing it?

When the day is over, as I said, it doesn’t impact me a whole hell of a lot, but I would be curious to see what lies in the future for Southwest.  I don’t imagine the loss of open-seating is really going to impact the airline as much as many outlets on the internet make it sound like it’s going to, but for those people who were married to the concept, and are going to revolt, or at least no longer prioritize them because they’re basically transforming into an “ordinary” airline on the level of United or American or JetBlue, SWA is just going to likely blend into the pack, except, barring a change, more handicapped by virtue of not partnering up with travel aggregators like Google, Kayak, Travelocity and Expedia.

Their free baggage and lack of change fees might be enough to retain some customers, and I’m really curious to know what’s going to become of the large passenger policy once seats become assigned, and big people won’t be able to just lumber to the gate and assume an empty seat will be available next to theirs, but in the game of airline thrones, the most important thing is solely going to hinge on if as long as SWA can remain competitive with fares.

Regardless, I still lament over the days before SWA engulfed AirTran.  Not a travel day goes by where I don’t miss AirTran and the time where I could get sub-$200 RT fares to visit my family and eastern-based friends, and then cash in my credits to trips to Las Vegas or Seattle.  After the merger, all those routes have nearly doubled in cost, and despite my general positive opinion of their brand, I was not happy about it.

Things change, this is where we’re headed, and I hope SWA is ready to slide into the middle of the pack.  But as long as they don’t have to see any further videos and articles about their passengers being douchebag pricks on the internet, they probably are happy to take that deal in the long game.

No way this doesn’t backfire on Southwest

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Good intentions, unwinnable situation: Southwest Airlines becomes only airline to accommodate larger passengers with complimentary adjacent seats

How it works: plus-size travelers either purchase two fares on Southwest in advance, or purchase one fare; either way, at the airport, they have to speak speak to a representative to discuss accommodation, be allowed to occupy two seats.  If they purchased two in advance, they can be retroactively be refunded one fare, or if they purchase one fare, speak to someone at the airport and get a second one for free; airline reserves the right to exorcise the benefit or shift other passengers based on availability.

First of all, I do think it’s cool that Southwest Airlines for making this choice to be accommodating to larger passengers.  It is a decision made on empathy, positivity and inclusion, and in the calculation of the business world, it’s a choice that will all but ensure that larger travelers will be looking at Southwest first, with them likely to make some bank on the fact that they’ll probably buy two Southwest fares knowing they can be refunded for one of them based on their girth, as opposed to buying two fares on any other airline and not getting any recompense.

But I also just think that Southwest is opening a can of worms, and has created something that will inevitably be abused and met with a lot of opposition, hostility and negativity by all other travelers who don’t fall into the same large category of those that this is intended to accommodate, almost like an ironic reverse form of discrimination.

I’m not the buffest, most swole guy on the planet, not by a long shot, but when I sit back and am in a relaxed sitting position, my shoulders often times creep over the plane of space that is the armrest.  When traveling with mythical wife, this is mitigated because she is petite and I can just raise the armrest and we can lean on each other, or share our adjacent space, but the fact of the matter is that regular old me, could constitute a person who “encroach past the armrest” which is the language that Southwest’s policy declares as being criteria to receive the large person BOGO, as I’d like to call it as politically correct as I care to speak it.

This policy just seems like it’s begging to be abused by all sorts of people, mostly active, muscular, tall and other physically large people whom might not necessarily be overweight, but still with bodies capable of taking up a lot of space.  And considering the fact that airline seats are tuna can sized to begin with, I don’t think it would take a tremendous amount of arguing for people to think they can lay claim to the large person BOGO as much as a person who tried out for My 600 Lb. Life.

Already, there are instances of the backlash of giving larger folks free bonus seats, as cited by the example of a woman and her kids who were bumped off an oversold flight because one or more larger passengers were getting free extra seats.  And this is where it’s really a nobody wins situation, because I understand that large passengers go through a lot of shit already, flying in an airplane doesn’t make it any easier, but at the same time, as a person with a lot of miles flown in my life, I know the general frustration of the traveling process to begin with, and can understand the frustration that must bubble up when you have to sit next to a large person who encroaches on your space or denies you the ability to board outright.

Furthermore, as altruistic of a policy this is meant to be, it’s still going to be subject to the opinions of live human beings that oversized travelers will have to subject themselves to when they are at the airport and wish to plead their cases.  Imagine the general sense of spectacle and embarrassment many already go through having to go to the counter to discuss the large person BOGO, but imagine how much worse it would be if the person at the gate is having a bad day or is someone who’s in no mood to be empathetic of a large person’s size, and then they deny the second seat, or they prioritize parties over a large person. 

Nobody wins in these cases either, and it’s only a matter of time before Southwest gets sick and tired of dealing with all the headaches, complaints, accusations of abusing rules, and other negative connotation before they decide to punt on the program outright, and large passengers are back to either purchasing two seats and taking a financial hit, or risking denigration and humiliation when they get seated next to a Karen who live-tweets their misery at being sat next to a large person on an entire flight.

Again, it’s cool that Southwest is trying to be more inclusive than all the other airlines, but the airline industry is already one of the most miserable and volatile experiences for people in the first place, trying to rock the boat to this magnitude just seems like an idea that’s just begging to backfire with catastrophic results.