News and notes from around the interweb:
- Former EL AL executive sentenced to 12 years for smuggling cocaine (HT: crucker)
- It’s not just airlines Amtrak delays hit NE in early July
- Woman wins $1,200 payout from Air Canada after baggage was delayed 2 days (HT: Donald W)
- Sad. You’re leaving paradise. Or maybe you’ll miss your flight and have to stay?
@AirlineFlyer @jonostrower @hharteveldt @crankyflier @garyleff @LiveandLetsFly Meltdowns all over the world. Meanwhile over at OGG today… pic.twitter.com/cYuNOlVJB2
— InsideCableNews (@InsideCableNews) July 21, 2022
- It’s not only European baggage claim that’s a mess.
My own personal perspective on @delta baggage claim around 5 pm @JFKAirports – Note the "Rush" label and
"Welcome to New York City" pic.twitter.com/Ewg2E2OH1Z— Daniel P Wiener (@DPWienerAdviser) July 20, 2022
Not an airline’s fault that TSA cannot properly staff security lines. General TSA line at my wee airport- VPS- has been a nightmare ever since Allegiant and its hordes of leisure flyers came to town. Fortunately Pre-check is never more than five minutes there even when general line can be 2+ hours.
If the woman can do the luggage payout thing once a month and use the cash to pay for airfare, she could likely achieve upper tier status on most airlines. Hmmm.
Which airport in boyzmom’s photo?
Last December, on arriving at CDG, only one of our two bags arrived. Somehow, one didn’t get loaded in Miami. And we weren’t staying in Paris, we were headed to Strasbourg. And it was Thursday, so getting the lost bag before Monday or Tuesday was unlikely. What was nice was that just as I was pulling up my app to see where the bag was, I got paged by AA. They were already on it, had the forms necessary, and the luggage rep was offering me a budget for new clothes. 400 euros? 500 euros? Which I though was pretty generous, but SO knew this would take awhile, and they would need to track us down at our second stop in Alsace. Luggage lady said just get receipts and submit when we got back.
So off we went, with forms in hand, found a cool outlet mall on the French-German border where I could buy a whole new wardrobe and I could make a bad joke. (Baden-Baden, a place so baden they had to name it twice.) Got to see all the kids lined up to see Père Noël, hit up the Ravensburger outlet for Xmas gifts (5000 piece puzzles for 40 euros!), and got a tip on a local Xmas market that was that weekend only – the very cool Bouxwiller where they make the best chocolate hazelnut “charcoal” you’ve ever had. It did take until Tuesday for the bag to find us, so had to buy even more things on Monday. But AA paid all the 650 euros I submitted and we got to see things we never would have. Yet another case of adversity presenting opportunity – you just need to roll with it and sometimes good things happen because of the bad.
Today I am leaving OGG (Maui). The pic is accurate. A mom and daughter I was in line with arrived 3 hours early. TSA took 2 hours 50 minutes…they missed their flight yesterday and slept on stone benches near baggage claim until TSA opened at 5 am.
There were already over 30 people in the Precheck line when it opened.