The Titanic Awards

The only solution for us is to cease doing business with greedy companies that show such open and obvious contempt for their customers.

Well you get what you pay for – literally! Problem is this appaling model is starting to find its way into long haul. As someone living in a country where it takes 3.5 hours to get to your nearest neighbour, I fail to appreciate the appalling precedent. Gvie me a real airline – I’ll pay that bit more and perhaps that’s why our Air New Zealand won ATW’s Airline of the year award.

I like these models….stop freeloaders from messing up the system. They wouldn’t implement these policies if people weren’t such retards.

Wade, you have a point, but I feel some of the airlines are going too far, at least potentially.

In line with your comment, two years ago I was checking in at the counter. The man in front of me had on a mountaineers backpack with a hip pack attached at the bottom and a second one tied to the top. The clerk tried to make him check it — even if he took the hip packs off, the backpack itself was far too large to fit into the overhead. Further, he was clearly struggling with the weight (wonder if he had collected rocks or something), despite being a large, young, muscular young man.

Much to my and other passengers’ astonishment, the clerk gave in to his insistence it was “carry-on luggage.”

We were a few minutes late because he flat did NOT want to accept that his backpack would-not-fit-in-the-overhead-or-under-the-seat-in-front-of-his. Dickhead.

I’m sure that’s the kind of passenger you have in mind, and I agree wholeheartedly.

However, on another flight, there was a young woman with a little girl, presumably her daughter. The little girl had a *small* balloon on a stick maybe a foot long. The cabin crew told the lady she would have to CHECK the balloon as it was “too big” to store, which was a crock; the balloon was MAYBE 4-5 inches in diameter. The lady protested, partly on the basis she had checked the maximum allowed luggage. The crew member blithely told her, “Well, I’m sorry, then you’ll have to check it AND pay excess baggage.” (On that airline, $25.00.)

That did have a happy ending. A man seated across the aisle stood up, and smiling, asked the little girl — she was maybe 5 or 6 — if he could buy her balloon for $10.00. Her eyes got big as saucers, and she said “Sure!” Then he sat down, balloon in hand, leaving the hostess at a bit of a loss. She snapped at him the same applied to him. He smiled at her, pulled out his I.D., and said “I’m a pilot with this airline. There is no such rule, and you’re going on report.” He stood up and said, “In fact, I know the cockpit crew on this flight; I’ll have a word with them now.” He did, they came, and the little girl got her balloon back AND the man let her keep the money — and the hostess got a log-growl butt-chewing in front of the passengers.

Her “rule” was stoo-pid to the nth. Would you pay $45.00 to carry on a child’s balloon? I bet Spirit would try to charge it! EVEN if that were your ONLY “carry-on luggage.”

Forgot to add I’ve never had occasion to fly Ryan or Spirit — and I won’t avail myself of their services as long as these stand, especially the euro to pee.