[Butch Cassidy Slept Here]

What’s wrong, Jetliner? Was Silent Bob, or one of your other friends on here, sick? You promised never to post in this thread again!

Anyway…

…stranded on a plane for hours Isn't that Kate's whole thing?

It’s, also, obviously, been the “whole thing” of about 200,000 people since 2007. In a USA Today editorial, one finds the following quote:

Since January 2007, 200,000 domestic passengers have been stuck on 3,000 planes for three hours or more waiting to take off or taxi to a gate, according to Stoller's analysis of government data.

See…

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/...ac.html?csp=34

As you’ll also note, since 2007, statistics on passengers held hostage on a tarmac has been the “whole thing” of the US Dept. of Transportation! It’s these kind of figures, Jetliner, you and your fellow airline stooges, so desperately want to suppress.

…you told an experienced train engineer that he didn't know what he was talking about.

Train engineer? You don’t have any more proof that guy is a train engineer than you have proof about my bogus arrest issue. This “train engineer” is now, very conveniently, a fellow airline shill of your’s. Hey, I’m an experienced brain surgeon!

Like the police state/arrest thing. You keep bringing that up every chance you get, yet you NEVER have any facts to back it up. The numbers from San Francisco indicate that you are wrong.

Your figures, about San FranciscoAirport arrests, were taken from an airline shill like yourself!

Lastly, can you lay off of the train? If we were in Europe then the train would be a viable option. The fact of the matter is that for most people the train is not an option.

Amtrak is one of the few options abused airline customers, in the USA, have as far as “taking your business elsewhere.” The more that option can be exercised the closer one comes to a situation where the airlines will feel they must clean-up their act! So it’s no surprise, Jetliner, that you and your friends on here want to suppress anything favorable to Amtrak, or any form of surface transport for that matter. In theory, when the matter of busses and rental cars are added to Amtrak, there are few places, in the “lower 48,” that one can NOT reach.

The Air Transport Association, one of the airline masters of you and your friends on here, pays-off enough members of Congress to make sure Amtrak has basically nothing for an advertising budget. Then, when Amtrak CAN advertise the content is, obviously, heavily controlled. When was the last time anyone saw any anti-airline comment in an Amtrak ad?? If advertising wasn’t restricted (through Congressional pressure) Amtrak’s trains between the Northeast and Florida would be more crowded. It’s only an overnight trip. How many posts have been on this board about airline trips, between the Northeast and Florida, lasting 24+ hours?? I suppose, Jetliner, you and your so-called “train engineer” friend, will sit here and, with a straight face, tell us all trains are, every bit, as prone to bad weather as planes are!

To go from Tampa to Indianapolis take 2 1/2 days each way, and includes 2 bus rides as part of the trip.

Well, I don’t know where the buses comes from. Again, check the information your contact at the Air Transport Association, or your former employer, hands you! From Tampa to Indianapolis, there is a change of trains in Richmond. And, yes, that might be an overnight stay at the customer’s expense.

Anyway, Amtrak, obviously, does not go everywhere. However, contrary to the bogus claims of your “train engineer” friend, about the alleged extreme fragility of trains to bad weather: If, during the winter, I was taking a trip, to the Northeast, from my home near Cody, Wyoming (“COD”) I would rather brave the 12 to 13 hour drive to Denver; overnight in Denver, then catch the Amtrak, the next day, (change in Chicago) than chance getting stranded by snow at my connecting point—Denver International. How many times has the media shown pix of third world conditions at Denver, or Chicago—O’Hare, of people sleeping on the floor, then stranded at the airport for hours, if not days, after the bad weather subsides and the runways are clear?

Again, even if the train is standing still, and not moving, I can still lie in my bed. My toilet continues to work. I can even go to the observation, or “Café,” car and buy something from the snack bar. In good weather, the train crew may even let you go outside and stretch your legs if conditions permit. And, guess what, for the entire duration of this “tarmac delay” on the train am NOT threatened with arrest. OOPS! Yes, that’s right, according to you, and your friends, Jetliner, those things don’t happen. No one, on those American Air flights, stranded on the tarmac at AustinAirport, about two years ago, was EVER threatened with arrest—at least according to YOU!

Jetliner, (and probably his airline masters) on Amtrak sleeping accommodations:

And they only allow 2 people max. in a sleeper compartment.

I, personally, saw one of the following types of accommodations. A family, in the compartment next to mine, had one during a trip from Philadelphia to Spokane, Wash. Large families, traveling to, from, or through, Chicago can reserve a VIEWLINER BEDROOM SUITE. A similarly configured accommodation MAY be available to Florida from the Northeast.

According to Amtrak…

The Suite is designed for four passengers (but can accommodate six in a pinch).

For a description, and pix, see…

http://www.amtrak.com/servlet/Conten...53938&ssid=142

When this type of accommodation is not available, sleeping compartments, which abut or are directly across from each other, can usually be reserved.

Anyway…(since you are such a Lufthansa fan) – Tschüss

I forgot, with the exception of Southwest, the only kind of airline you and your friends know is something that loses into the millions of dollars quarter after quarter. None of those losses, of course, has the slightest thing to do with the fact that customers are treated like dirt! Oh, I forgot, Airtran posted a profit—whoopie! How many quarters has Airtran been profitable? If Southwest doesn’t drop its fantasies about acquiring Frontier they will be in the fiscal cellar too. Putting your planes, as a lot of US-based airlines have, in hock (“lease-back” agreements, etc.) is NOT the path to profitability!

What must, really, frost you and your friends is that an airline (Lufthansa) can be profitable AND still be subject to a significant amount of passenger rights legislation. I refer, of course, to the European Union (“EU”) passenger rights bill. Yet, the Air Transport Association (and probably you and your friends) is predicting the death of all US airlines if any form of passenger rights legislation gets enacted here. Something else you and your airline friends don’t want people to know is that the EU legislation covers Americans traveling on ANY scheduled aircraft operating between the USA and any EU member country. That includes US-based airlines. Yes, Jetliner, I know—OUCH!

For anyone who is confused, my problem, and focus, is with most US-based airlines—Southwest and Virgin America—being major exceptions; my negative post about Southwest’s ideas relating to Constitutional rights, and Virgin America’s morbid finances notwithstanding. Yes, there are other airlines in the world worse than a lot of the US-based airlines—but you have to go to parts of Africa to find them!

Jetliner, you’re posts are not doing so well. Be careful, your pension check (assuming you get one) might be short that extra bonus this month! Or, one or more of your friends on here might get passed-over for a promotion!

And, yes, Jetliner, to you and your fellow airline shills on here:

Tschüss und scher dich zum Teufel!