A Sign of the Apocalypse

[MLipton]

During my recent travels on Southwest, I had occasion to look at their in-flight magazine. In it was an article on Northern Thai food. One line includes the statement that wines like Grüner Veltliner go well with these dishes and there, in the accompanying photo is the unmistakable label of Emmerich Knoll! What next? Luneau-Papin at Wal-Mart?

Mark Lipton

 

[Michael Lewis]

Having recently had the experience myself, I think you could have ended this post immediately after "During my recent travels on Southwest" and the title would have been just as appropriate.

 

[MLipton]

originally posted by Michael Lewis:
Having recently had the experience myself, I think you could have ended this post immediately after "During my recent travels on Southwest" and the title would have been just as appropriate.

Bad treatment? Or just a clusterfuck of a flight?

Mark Lipton

 

[Michael Lewis]

originally posted by MLipton:

originally posted by Michael Lewis:
Having recently had the experience myself, I think you could have ended this post immediately after "During my recent travels on Southwest" and the title would have been just as appropriate.

Bad treatment? Or just a clusterfuck of a flight?

Mark Lipton

There are no assigned seats!

 

[maureen]

originally posted by Michael Lewis:

originally posted by MLipton:

originally posted by Michael Lewis:
Having recently had the experience myself, I think you could have ended this post immediately after "During my recent travels on Southwest" and the title would have been just as appropriate.

Bad treatment? Or just a clusterfuck of a flight?

Mark Lipton

There are no assigned seats!

I used to have this view but then i had to take it and learned if you pay $30 R t the system will automatically give you a boarding position that is fine for getting an aisle seat in front half of plane (or whatever your desired position). And spending that still makes the price competitive and bags checked free. I am sold.

 

[Steve Edmunds]

sign of the Apocalypse: Cubs in World Series!

 

[Sharon Bowman]

originally posted by maureen:

originally posted by Michael Lewis:

originally posted by MLipton:

originally posted by Michael Lewis:
Having recently had the experience myself, I think you could have ended this post immediately after "During my recent travels on Southwest" and the title would have been just as appropriate.

Bad treatment? Or just a clusterfuck of a flight?

Mark Lipton

There are no assigned seats!

I used to have this view but then i had to take it and learned if you pay $30 R t the system will automatically give you a boarding position that is fine for getting an aisle seat in front half of plane (or whatever your desired position). And spending that still makes the price competitive and bags checked free. I am sold.

Oy vey. I am all about Jet Blue. They have competitive pricing and really excellent customer service/comfort.

 

[Jay Miller]

originally posted by maureen:

originally posted by Michael Lewis:


There are no assigned seats!

I used to have this view but then i had to take it and learned if you pay $30 R t the system will automatically give you a boarding position that is fine for getting an aisle seat in front half of plane (or whatever your desired position). And spending that still makes the price competitive and bags checked free. I am sold.

Which is fine until everyone figures that out...

 

[Todd Abrams]

So many signs of the apocalypse these days. It makes sense that 2016 is turning out to be the year that clowns stopped being funny.

 

[MLipton]

originally posted by Sharon Bowman:

originally posted by maureen:

originally posted by Michael Lewis:

originally posted by MLipton:

originally posted by Michael Lewis:
Having recently had the experience myself, I think you could have ended this post immediately after "During my recent travels on Southwest" and the title would have been just as appropriate.

Bad treatment? Or just a clusterfuck of a flight?

Mark Lipton

There are no assigned seats!

I used to have this view but then i had to take it and learned if you pay $30 R t the system will automatically give you a boarding position that is fine for getting an aisle seat in front half of plane (or whatever your desired position). And spending that still makes the price competitive and bags checked free. I am sold.

Oy vey. I am all about Jet Blue. They have competitive pricing and really excellent customer service/comfort.

De gustibus. They also have one of the poorest on time records and very high fees. Like Maureen, I'll opt for the surcharge when I want preferred seating, but when I fly solo I don't usually give a rats ass. More important to me are direct flights from my non-hub airport to my frequent destinations, free baggage and no added fees (and the best on time statistics of the major carriers). I also find their frequent flier program to be quite useful.

I have my own quibbles with the no reserved seating model. It's horribly inefficient as employed now because it uses a bottom up rather than top down filling process. The visual analogy is trying to fill a bottle by holding it upside down and filling it with a hose from below. What Southwest needs to do is load people in from a door in the back and disembark from the front. That way gives you laminar flow with minimal turbulence, to employ the language of fluid dynamics.

Mark Lipton

 

[Sharon Bowman]

I am all about Jet Blue. They have competitive pricing and really excellent customer service/comfort.

originally posted by MLipton:
De gustibus. They also have one of the poorest on time records and very high fees.

Interesting. I've flown on Jet Blue several times from JFK to SFO and the flights were on time, the service was impeccable, and the cost was low.

 

[Carl Steefel]

I always end up in the back row of the airplane on Southwest. That, and Southwest does not fly to Europe (or for that matter, just about anywhere I want to go), so I opt for the airlines that fly someplace that I want to go.

 

[kirk wallace]

originally posted by Carl Steefel:
I I opt for the airlines that fly someplace that I want to go.

seems highly rational.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by MLipton:
I have my own quibbles with the no reserved seating model. It's horribly inefficient as employed now because it uses a bottom up rather than top down filling process. The visual analogy is trying to fill a bottle by holding it upside down and filling it with a hose from below. What Southwest needs to do is load people in from a door in the back and disembark from the front. That way gives you laminar flow with minimal turbulence, to employ the language of fluid dynamics.

Ooh, I love it when you talk dirty.

Strangely, filling a gas tank from the underside is exactly what they do on airplanes. It minimizes the amount of effort because you only have to raise a column of fluid the size of the hose instead of raising all the fluid above the tank.

 

[robert ames]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

originally posted by MLipton:
I have my own quibbles with the no reserved seating model. It's horribly inefficient as employed now because it uses a bottom up rather than top down filling process. The visual analogy is trying to fill a bottle by holding it upside down and filling it with a hose from below. What Southwest needs to do is load people in from a door in the back and disembark from the front. That way gives you laminar flow with minimal turbulence, to employ the language of fluid dynamics.

Ooh, I love it when you talk dirty.

Strangely, filling a gas tank from the underside is exactly what they do on airplanes. It minimizes the amount of effort because you only have to raise a column of fluid the size of the hose instead of raising all the fluid above the tank.

because of the siphon effect from a fully filled fuel hose, the amount of work needed to refuel the tank from a hose going into the tank from the top would be virtually the same.