You gotta be kidding me. I could bore you to tears with the number of times I flew and HAD to be somewhere and the airlines did not get me there. Here are a few highlights.
#1 Flying Indy to TUC thru Denver (old airport). Call the day before because there is snow everywhere. "Your flight is still good to go". Call in the morning before I leave for the airport and they say "on-time departure is anticipated". Leave on time. Get into Denver and the place is bedlam. They have one runway operating. There are aircraft at every gate and the concourses are full of people. Problem is, crews can't get to the airport. Spend the next 20 hours in the airport with no food or TP. The place had broken down. So Indy crams their flights out and dumps them into chaos? Nice.
Needless to say, I did not get to meetings I HAD to get to the next day. I damn near could have driven to TUC in the time Continental had me in their grip. I have made the trip driving to TUC a half a dozen times (relocating household/starting jobs) and always arrived exactly when I planned. If there was weather in No. NM or AZ I just went South to thru Las Cruces.
I did learn a valuable lesson. NEVER fly Denver in the winter. NEVER. I started flying American thru Dallas.
#2 I was working a big project in the UK. Needed to attend a conference to give a status in Indy before returning to my office in HI. I set up my flight to get into Indy a day ahead of the conference. AM flight was cancelled due mechanical. Later flight is delayed 2 hrs. for who knows what. Miss my new connection at JFK due to the delay. Spend overnight in NY. Did the conference I HAD to attend via phone from the concourse. Couldn't drive from London, but damn sure was done with United.
#3 I was returning to TUC via PHX from SD. Mechanical delay in PHX. Rented a car and beat the airplane. Stopped flying out of TUC and started driving the 2 hrs to Sky Harbor. It got to be such a hassle and introduced more moving parts which could/would break that it was easier to drive to a direct flight in PHX.
I could go on and on about O'Hare, Atlanta, etc. etc., but would it really matter?
I said what I said. You guys are undependable and unpleasant. Your service levels sux. If airlines ran nuclear powerplants, this entire planet would be glowing and uninhabitable.
Repeating just to prove that your believe system has some holes...
My boss has stopped trying to run his region by plane. If you try to get into smaller markets in this country you are rolling the dice. If you can do Columbus in 3 hrs why would you fly? Chicago 4 hrs? Faster to drive. Milwaukee 5.5? Still makes more sense with the amount of time required to clear security, layovers, luggage.
There is no train system in this country. Trillions of government dollars have gone into building roads and airports. Indy just finished building a $Billion$ dollar white elephant airport. I just wish sometime over the past 50 years a little of that money would have gone into a high speed rail to Chicago.
It would have been worth every penny just to avoid O'Hare.
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