17 ms·

Travelling in the US or with US airlines is not looking very good right now. Not just the United incident(s) but also TSA, Trump travel restrictions, flights co

Travelling in the US or with US airlines is not looking very good right now. Not just the United incident(s) but also TSA, Trump travel restrictions, flights constantly overbooked, massively late etc. I wonder if it will start impacting traveller and tourism numbers at some point. I think anyone who doesn't really need to be in the US and/or is planning travelling with kids is likely to have some second thoughts at this point. Recently Canada's girl guides cancelled all trips to the US: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/14/canadian-girl-guides-cancel-trips-us-fears-trump-travel-restrictions/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/14/canadian-girl-gui.... I wonder if this is a first step of a large trend yet to develop.

shimon_e 9y ago
This is actually a really good thing if numbers are greatly hit. It'll hopefully lead to the entire US travel industry to focus on becoming the most travel friendly place it can be. But the hit needs to be big enough for shareholders to care.
- bigtimeidiot 9y ago
  >But the hit needs to be big enough for shareholders to care. Also time. Something like a fundamental travel industry shakeup could take decades. Here's hoping. As a Canadian, crossing that border is getting less and less appealing.
Klathmon 9y ago
Anecdotally I've noticed that for like 5 years now my friends and family have a pretty severe aversion to flying anywhere for anything. From needing to show up hours before the flight, to the invasive screenings, the insane restrictions on what you can and cannot bring, the sentiment that if you check any baggage it's basically as good as gone, the ever increasing cost, the delays, and even things like the worry about if your ticket will actually get you on the damn plane! If I have to choose between a 3 hour flight, and a 12 hour drive, the 12 hour drive is what I pick almost every time now. Ignoring "disasters" (massive accident, theft, etc...) I'm going to have all my stuff, I know i'm not going to waste hundreds of dollars on a ticket that will get "rejected" at the last second, i'll have a car when I get to my destination, i can bring whatever the fuck I want, and it's a fraction of the cost.
- jghn 9y ago
  This was me for a long time, but then I got precheck. It is such a night and day difference that I'm back to flying
  - coldpie 9y ago
    Woo, $100 extortion fees, all right.
  - Klathmon 9y ago
    Even with precheck (which i got as well), it didn't really change anything. I still need to show up just as early (as my local airport often has a longer line for precheck!), i still can't pack more than some stupid amount of liquid, or have my shit thrown out because I used a X-oz plastic bag which is too big!!! I still can't check bags as they just won't ever show up, or will show up damaged, have items stolen, or completely trashed from being searched. It only makes the cost more expensive, and it doesn't really help with the "invasive screening" (oh, i don't need to take my shoes off any more... i'm still getting scanned or felt up) Plus I had to take a day off of work to go answer a bunch of stupid questions, pay them $80-ish per person, and give my fingerprints.
    - randallsquared 9y ago
      I must fly into and out of only the best airports. I've only ever had one thing thrown out; I've never had anything in my checked baggage damaged (and if I'm going for more than overnight, I always check my bag, even though I could carry it on, to avoid fighting for space with other passengers' carryons); the scanning doesn't perceptibly affect me; and I regularly show up at the airport less than an hour before boarding. I live 45 minutes from CLT, with an office 45 minutes by taxi[0]from JFK, and when I fly into JFK, I can leave the house at 5am and be at the office by 10am. [0] account_banned on Uber the first time I ever tried to use it, so, taxi it is.
      - meddlepal 9y ago
        I've never had an issue at Logan (Boston), SFO, Seattle or Austin. Usually past security in 20 min and I do not use precheck.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
hackermailman 9y ago
It's never been easy to get into the US though, long before Trump they've been handing out arbitrary bans or doing nonsense like extraordinary rendition to 3rd world countries not respecting dual citizenship with Canada/Europe. I suspect nothing will happen because I can't remember a time where I didn't dread crossing the border all the way back to the Bush 1.0 presidency. There's a NAFTA tribunal held once a week at major border crossings with Can/US not many people know about that can overturn the overzealous authority of border guards if anybody receives an arbitrary ban from entry I've had to use it a few times. As for United Airlines monopolies allow this behavior to happen because where else are you going to go. United holds 73% of slots at Newark for example
janesvilleseo 9y ago
My wife and I just got back from a trip to Italy. The flight was full on the way there. We went from Chicago to Rome. However on the way back we flew from Venice with a stop over in Madrid back to Chicago. The plane was only 1/3 full at most. I remember commenting to my wife how empty it was.
- chimeracoder 9y ago
  > My wife and I just got back from a trip to Italy. The flight was full on the way there. We went from Chicago to Rome. However on the way back we flew from Venice with a stop over in Madrid back to Chicago. The plane was only 1/3 full at most. I remember commenting to my wife how empty it was. That's most likely just the normal variation in the flight schedules - they can vary dramatically not just by time of year, but also time of day. For example, I just took a flight from Dubai to NYC (and this was after Trump's Muslim ban came into effect). The flight was packed, with nearly every seat full. Last year, I took the same flight but a few hours later, and it was nearly empty - almost every person in coach had the entire row to themselves (which, for a 15-hour flight, was great!). Or put another way, if the flight on the way from Chicago to Rome was full and the flight from Madrid to Chicago was not, that doesn't really tell you much about aggregate tourism from other countries to the US, unless you're also making the assumption that there are literally planes full of people emigrating from the US every day.
  - janesvilleseo 9y ago
    True. I don't do enough international travel to indicate it one way or another. Just thought it was strange. This is only 1 small data point where many are needed in order to see any trending.
    - phil21 9y ago
      Load factors (both directions) are about as high as they ever have been. In general terms, you can't really have a direction imbalance - especially due to the reasons you are positing. The vast majority of people flying (either direction) is on a tourist visa. Those people have to return as well as get there, so if a flight is full headed to Europe pretty much the same number of people must return. And vice versa. Immigration/long-term business stays/etc. are a tiny fraction of the folks on the airplane. I suppose there could be an epidemic of US tourists overstaying their EU visas but I kind of doubt it :) You'd see a reduction in load factor in both directions if there is a dropoff of EU tourism.
nxtrafalgar 9y ago
I am constantly surprised when reading about the US. You would think that there would be more similarities with New Zealand, my home country. Anecdotally; I flew to Australia a few months ago on an economy-class ticket purchased at very short notice. My trip through both Auckland and Melbourne airports was very pleasant, and I had no need to even interact with any of the personnel the whole way through. The flight was full but not overbooked and we arrived early. Reading the stories about travel to the US is very discouraging and erases any desire I had to visit. I suppose there isn't much of an incentive to improve anything in the US, because the economy doesn't rely on tourism to the same extent we do here.
- pcmonk 9y ago
  If it helps, I've flown many dozens of times in past few years, mostly in the US, but also on at least a couple of dozen international flights across four continents. I've never lost my checked baggage (I often check one or two bags), and I've never missed a flight, or even gotten particularly close to it (I do show up 2 hours early to avoid that), and I've never been bumped off a flight for any reason. In the USA, you do have to accept that they're a lot more picky about liquids, and they do make you take off your shoes, but seriously, just read the signs and you won't be surprised.
- hackermailman 9y ago
  NZ and Australia have open skies agreements though, the airlines actually have to compete with each other instead of being granted monopolies.
  - mkl 9y ago
    Technically, yes, but there's very little actual competition on many routes. Domestically in NZ between the main centres there's Air New Zealand and Jetstar. I doubt I'll ever fly Jetstar as I know too many people who've had Jetstar flights cancelled on them at the last minute. Ten years or so ago it was a different story, with more airlines competing.
    - 9y ago
gm-conspiracy 9y ago
It's only been ~15 years.
tyfon 9y ago
The company I work at (in Norway) had planed to take all 70 employees to NYC this summer to celebrate a milestone reached. We just moved the whole thing to Paris instead as we had issues with all of the above, including employees that have visited "dangerous" countries. The thing that pushed everyone over was when our former prime minster was harassed[1] at the border for having been to a meeting in Iran. It says in his passport that he was a former prime minster, but apparently none is safe from the US border guards. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/03/former-norway-pm-bondevik-held-washington-dulles-airport-2014-visit-iran https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/03/former-norwa...
- Freak_NL 9y ago
  It seems that the rules have become a lot stricter recently, and it looks like American citizens might end up feeling the consequences as well. This week a Dutch journalist wrote about being rejected by the ESTA visa waiver application because of a previous visit to Iraq as a journalist. So to travel to the US he gets to pay almost $200 and formally apply for a visa — for accredited journalists this is unheard of. Similarly Dutch with roots in Iraq or Iran are completely banned from the US simply for being born in the 'wrong' place. This is all within the rights of America as a sovereign state of course, but it does mean that the call to cancel or limit the visa-free travel agreement that currently allows US citizens to visit the EU without a visa is gaining momentum (tit-for-tat politics).
  - posguy 9y ago
    Hey now, inferring that some journalists deserve protection because they may have credentials with a company or govt is both silly, and very dangerous. It creates a situation where you literally strip protection away from most journalists and put them in harms way. Jake Appelbaum had a sendoff speech where he covered how his fellow journalists were putting him in grave danger when calling him an "Internet Activist" meanwhile he was publishing in the same paper as they were. He also covered how The Guardian left Julian Assange out to hang, allowed known compromised systems to remain in day to day use, and banned fellow journalists at other news orgs from writing about quite a few papers/topics from the Snowden archives.
welly 9y ago
> Travelling in the US or with US airlines is not looking very good right now. As someone not living in the US, travelling to the US is not looking good either. I know of many, many people who have written off visiting the USA for the foreseeable future. I'm one of those and I've spent many years in the US in the past (lived in NE and VA for 5 years in total and visited over 30 states). Sadly, as much as I enjoy visiting the States, it simply feels like too much of a liability to visit at the moment. I'll reconsider in 4 years if it hasn't got any worse.
- Blahah 9y ago
  I travel a lot internationally but won't visit the USA - I have no interest in putting myself through that. By contrast, I've travelled to a lot of countries that the USA considers dangerous or extreme (e.g. Sudan), and have had nothing but pleasant and easy experiences.
draugadrotten 9y ago
> I wonder if it will start impacting traveller and tourism numbers at some point. According to some, it already has: "All this has resulted in an estimated loss of $185 million in business travel bookings from January 28 to February 4, as calculated by the Global Business Travel Association. The drop-off in tourism is predicted to result in 4.3 million fewer visitors this year, which adds up to a staggering loss of $7.4 billion in revenue for the US." http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/trump-slump-travel-ban-muslims-us-tourism-holidays-foreign-visitors-a7666461.html http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/trump-sl...
unixhero 9y ago
I never transit through the States any more. I prefer Canada or Mexico City.
Johnnybe 9y ago
I really hope so. We need less tourists here!
exabrial 9y ago
No, it's just been slow news for a few weeks. United will be relieved once the media turns their magnifying-glass to burn other ants
njharman 9y ago
I really hope so. Cause in my country nothing improves unless doing so makes / saves money.
inopinatus 9y ago
United have always stunk. I'm thinking back about two decades on what was practically my first long-haul international trip. The return leg BOS-AMS on UAL was delayed due to equipment, then cancelled, then the replacement also delayed & cancelled, and so on, always with limited information and brusque, disinterested customer service. No apology, no compensation, and rerouting requests consistently denied. This continued for three days, and after three days of wandering the dreary halls of Boston Logan Airport my fellow detainees were on first-name terms. Being a wet-behind-the-ears youth I had little idea of how abnormal this was, or how to properly and successfully complain to a gigantic company, and was also secretly enjoying my extra time in the US exploring the hidden places in and around an airport. But some of the other passengers were frantic. Three days stuck at '90s-era Logan, because United couldn't get their act together and compounded their engineering & operational failures with dismally bad customer service. Some of them were missing major life events as a result. Twentyish years on I have Legendary frequent flyer status, and exactly no dollars whatsoever were spent towards it with United. I choose to spend extra on friends and family routing with other airlines simply that they may avoid UAL. "Never again". Vote with your wallet.
teekert 9y ago
Imagine when they start asking for your passwords. Many of my colleagues said they really won't go anymore if that happens. It won't be long before conferences in the US will see diminished attendance from other parts of the world. In my field (biophysics) I'm pretty sure more local conferences are going to much more preferred in the future. At Boston Logan airport me and some colleagues (+ the rest of the people on the plane waiting at customs) were once barked at: "The next person who forgot to fill out the back of his green form will be sent back to his home country!" No smiles, just a death stare while you put in your finger prints... It's a shame, it's such a beautiful country but I could do without.
- Markoff 9y ago
  Aren't they doing it already? I was under impression from news you must already provide them at border with password or unlock your device for inspection when asked.
scriptkiddy 9y ago
> I wonder if this is a first step of a large trend yet to develop. I sure hope not. Isolation only fuels nationalism. Nationalism fuels irrational decisions. Irrational decisions lead to fascism. If you want your people to dehumanize a culture, the first step is to isolate your people from that culture. Don't allow your people any opportunity to empathize with that culture. If you continue to isolate your people, you can breed an "us vs them" sentiment. This is perfect if you want to start a war with popular support.
lsllc 9y ago
"massively late" This is a direct consequence of charging for checked bags. Now every flight takes twice as long to board and disembark because everyone is carrying as much carry on as they can and trying to stuff them into the overhead bins. Annoyingly, they usually start making announcements about gate-checking bags for free so they are not really reducing the costs and they're encouraging passengers to drag their bags through security (slowing down that line) in the hope they can gate check the bag for free (or not at all) in order to save $100/bag. The airlines should offer free bag check and charge $100/bag per carry-on in the overhead bins (under the seat is free still).
- nojvek 9y ago
  I would happily go for check bag in for free, but sometimes Airlines take forever to get the bag on to the carousel. Its much faster to get in and out with your bag as a carry-on. I agree, One free bag check should be compulsory. They should also ensure that your bags arrive faster than you at the baggage carousel. May be one day with the advent of robots.
  - dkersten 9y ago
    Its much faster to get in and out with your bag as a carry-on. This is the reason I do carry-on only if I can get away with it. I want to keep my airport-time as low as reasonably possible. I also try to optimise my seating for this purpose rhen its something I can do (without paying for priority stuff). For example, on a recent flight, I was the 3rd person through the passport checks and the first person (as far as I could tell) leaving the secure area.
pkrawczykowski 9y ago
We just hired an Indian national at the startup I work for. He's on an h1b visa after finishing his masters in CS. Everyone at the company has to be registered with Homeland security. I'm so pissed. I think maybe we've convinced the CEO to just not and see what happens.

shimon_e 9y ago

This is actually a really good thing if numbers are greatly hit. It'll hopefully lead to the entire US travel industry to focus on becoming the most travel friendly place it can be. But the hit needs to be big enough for shareholders to care.

bigtimeidiot 9y ago
>But the hit needs to be big enough for shareholders to care. Also time. Something like a fundamental travel industry shakeup could take decades. Here's hoping. As a Canadian, crossing that border is getting less and less appealing.

Klathmon 9y ago

Anecdotally I've noticed that for like 5 years now my friends and family have a pretty severe aversion to flying anywhere for anything. From needing to show up hours before the flight, to the invasive screenings, the insane restrictions on what you can and cannot bring, the sentiment that if you check any baggage it's basically as good as gone, the ever increasing cost, the delays, and even things like the worry about if your ticket will actually get you on the damn plane! If I have to choose between a 3 hour flight, and a 12 hour drive, the 12 hour drive is what I pick almost every time now. Ignoring "disasters" (massive accident, theft, etc...) I'm going to have all my stuff, I know i'm not going to waste hundreds of dollars on a ticket that will get "rejected" at the last second, i'll have a car when I get to my destination, i can bring whatever the fuck I want, and it's a fraction of the cost.

jghn 9y ago
This was me for a long time, but then I got precheck. It is such a night and day difference that I'm back to flying
- coldpie 9y ago
  Woo, $100 extortion fees, all right.
- Klathmon 9y ago
  Even with precheck (which i got as well), it didn't really change anything. I still need to show up just as early (as my local airport often has a longer line for precheck!), i still can't pack more than some stupid amount of liquid, or have my shit thrown out because I used a X-oz plastic bag which is too big!!! I still can't check bags as they just won't ever show up, or will show up damaged, have items stolen, or completely trashed from being searched. It only makes the cost more expensive, and it doesn't really help with the "invasive screening" (oh, i don't need to take my shoes off any more... i'm still getting scanned or felt up) Plus I had to take a day off of work to go answer a bunch of stupid questions, pay them $80-ish per person, and give my fingerprints.
  - randallsquared 9y ago
    I must fly into and out of only the best airports. I've only ever had one thing thrown out; I've never had anything in my checked baggage damaged (and if I'm going for more than overnight, I always check my bag, even though I could carry it on, to avoid fighting for space with other passengers' carryons); the scanning doesn't perceptibly affect me; and I regularly show up at the airport less than an hour before boarding. I live 45 minutes from CLT, with an office 45 minutes by taxi[0]from JFK, and when I fly into JFK, I can leave the house at 5am and be at the office by 10am. [0] account_banned on Uber the first time I ever tried to use it, so, taxi it is.
    - meddlepal 9y ago
      I've never had an issue at Logan (Boston), SFO, Seattle or Austin. Usually past security in 20 min and I do not use precheck.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

hackermailman 9y ago

It's never been easy to get into the US though, long before Trump they've been handing out arbitrary bans or doing nonsense like extraordinary rendition to 3rd world countries not respecting dual citizenship with Canada/Europe. I suspect nothing will happen because I can't remember a time where I didn't dread crossing the border all the way back to the Bush 1.0 presidency. There's a NAFTA tribunal held once a week at major border crossings with Can/US not many people know about that can overturn the overzealous authority of border guards if anybody receives an arbitrary ban from entry I've had to use it a few times. As for United Airlines monopolies allow this behavior to happen because where else are you going to go. United holds 73% of slots at Newark for example

janesvilleseo 9y ago

My wife and I just got back from a trip to Italy. The flight was full on the way there. We went from Chicago to Rome. However on the way back we flew from Venice with a stop over in Madrid back to Chicago. The plane was only 1/3 full at most. I remember commenting to my wife how empty it was.

chimeracoder 9y ago
> My wife and I just got back from a trip to Italy. The flight was full on the way there. We went from Chicago to Rome. However on the way back we flew from Venice with a stop over in Madrid back to Chicago. The plane was only 1/3 full at most. I remember commenting to my wife how empty it was. That's most likely just the normal variation in the flight schedules - they can vary dramatically not just by time of year, but also time of day. For example, I just took a flight from Dubai to NYC (and this was after Trump's Muslim ban came into effect). The flight was packed, with nearly every seat full. Last year, I took the same flight but a few hours later, and it was nearly empty - almost every person in coach had the entire row to themselves (which, for a 15-hour flight, was great!). Or put another way, if the flight on the way from Chicago to Rome was full and the flight from Madrid to Chicago was not, that doesn't really tell you much about aggregate tourism from other countries to the US, unless you're also making the assumption that there are literally planes full of people emigrating from the US every day.
- janesvilleseo 9y ago
  True. I don't do enough international travel to indicate it one way or another. Just thought it was strange. This is only 1 small data point where many are needed in order to see any trending.
  - phil21 9y ago
    Load factors (both directions) are about as high as they ever have been. In general terms, you can't really have a direction imbalance - especially due to the reasons you are positing. The vast majority of people flying (either direction) is on a tourist visa. Those people have to return as well as get there, so if a flight is full headed to Europe pretty much the same number of people must return. And vice versa. Immigration/long-term business stays/etc. are a tiny fraction of the folks on the airplane. I suppose there could be an epidemic of US tourists overstaying their EU visas but I kind of doubt it :) You'd see a reduction in load factor in both directions if there is a dropoff of EU tourism.

nxtrafalgar 9y ago

I am constantly surprised when reading about the US. You would think that there would be more similarities with New Zealand, my home country. Anecdotally; I flew to Australia a few months ago on an economy-class ticket purchased at very short notice. My trip through both Auckland and Melbourne airports was very pleasant, and I had no need to even interact with any of the personnel the whole way through. The flight was full but not overbooked and we arrived early. Reading the stories about travel to the US is very discouraging and erases any desire I had to visit. I suppose there isn't much of an incentive to improve anything in the US, because the economy doesn't rely on tourism to the same extent we do here.

pcmonk 9y ago
If it helps, I've flown many dozens of times in past few years, mostly in the US, but also on at least a couple of dozen international flights across four continents. I've never lost my checked baggage (I often check one or two bags), and I've never missed a flight, or even gotten particularly close to it (I do show up 2 hours early to avoid that), and I've never been bumped off a flight for any reason. In the USA, you do have to accept that they're a lot more picky about liquids, and they do make you take off your shoes, but seriously, just read the signs and you won't be surprised.
hackermailman 9y ago
NZ and Australia have open skies agreements though, the airlines actually have to compete with each other instead of being granted monopolies.
- mkl 9y ago
  Technically, yes, but there's very little actual competition on many routes. Domestically in NZ between the main centres there's Air New Zealand and Jetstar. I doubt I'll ever fly Jetstar as I know too many people who've had Jetstar flights cancelled on them at the last minute. Ten years or so ago it was a different story, with more airlines competing.
  - 9y ago

gm-conspiracy 9y ago

It's only been ~15 years.

tyfon 9y ago

The company I work at (in Norway) had planed to take all 70 employees to NYC this summer to celebrate a milestone reached. We just moved the whole thing to Paris instead as we had issues with all of the above, including employees that have visited "dangerous" countries. The thing that pushed everyone over was when our former prime minster was harassed[1] at the border for having been to a meeting in Iran. It says in his passport that he was a former prime minster, but apparently none is safe from the US border guards. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/03/former-norway-pm-bondevik-held-washington-dulles-airport-2014-visit-iran https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/03/former-norwa...

Freak_NL 9y ago
It seems that the rules have become a lot stricter recently, and it looks like American citizens might end up feeling the consequences as well. This week a Dutch journalist wrote about being rejected by the ESTA visa waiver application because of a previous visit to Iraq as a journalist. So to travel to the US he gets to pay almost $200 and formally apply for a visa — for accredited journalists this is unheard of. Similarly Dutch with roots in Iraq or Iran are completely banned from the US simply for being born in the 'wrong' place. This is all within the rights of America as a sovereign state of course, but it does mean that the call to cancel or limit the visa-free travel agreement that currently allows US citizens to visit the EU without a visa is gaining momentum (tit-for-tat politics).
- posguy 9y ago
  Hey now, inferring that some journalists deserve protection because they may have credentials with a company or govt is both silly, and very dangerous. It creates a situation where you literally strip protection away from most journalists and put them in harms way. Jake Appelbaum had a sendoff speech where he covered how his fellow journalists were putting him in grave danger when calling him an "Internet Activist" meanwhile he was publishing in the same paper as they were. He also covered how The Guardian left Julian Assange out to hang, allowed known compromised systems to remain in day to day use, and banned fellow journalists at other news orgs from writing about quite a few papers/topics from the Snowden archives.

welly 9y ago

> Travelling in the US or with US airlines is not looking very good right now. As someone not living in the US, travelling to the US is not looking good either. I know of many, many people who have written off visiting the USA for the foreseeable future. I'm one of those and I've spent many years in the US in the past (lived in NE and VA for 5 years in total and visited over 30 states). Sadly, as much as I enjoy visiting the States, it simply feels like too much of a liability to visit at the moment. I'll reconsider in 4 years if it hasn't got any worse.

Blahah 9y ago
I travel a lot internationally but won't visit the USA - I have no interest in putting myself through that. By contrast, I've travelled to a lot of countries that the USA considers dangerous or extreme (e.g. Sudan), and have had nothing but pleasant and easy experiences.

draugadrotten 9y ago

> I wonder if it will start impacting traveller and tourism numbers at some point. According to some, it already has: "All this has resulted in an estimated loss of $185 million in business travel bookings from January 28 to February 4, as calculated by the Global Business Travel Association. The drop-off in tourism is predicted to result in 4.3 million fewer visitors this year, which adds up to a staggering loss of $7.4 billion in revenue for the US." http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/trump-slump-travel-ban-muslims-us-tourism-holidays-foreign-visitors-a7666461.html http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/trump-sl...

unixhero 9y ago

I never transit through the States any more. I prefer Canada or Mexico City.

Johnnybe 9y ago

I really hope so. We need less tourists here!

exabrial 9y ago

No, it's just been slow news for a few weeks. United will be relieved once the media turns their magnifying-glass to burn other ants

njharman 9y ago

I really hope so. Cause in my country nothing improves unless doing so makes / saves money.

inopinatus 9y ago

United have always stunk. I'm thinking back about two decades on what was practically my first long-haul international trip. The return leg BOS-AMS on UAL was delayed due to equipment, then cancelled, then the replacement also delayed & cancelled, and so on, always with limited information and brusque, disinterested customer service. No apology, no compensation, and rerouting requests consistently denied. This continued for three days, and after three days of wandering the dreary halls of Boston Logan Airport my fellow detainees were on first-name terms. Being a wet-behind-the-ears youth I had little idea of how abnormal this was, or how to properly and successfully complain to a gigantic company, and was also secretly enjoying my extra time in the US exploring the hidden places in and around an airport. But some of the other passengers were frantic. Three days stuck at '90s-era Logan, because United couldn't get their act together and compounded their engineering & operational failures with dismally bad customer service. Some of them were missing major life events as a result. Twentyish years on I have Legendary frequent flyer status, and exactly no dollars whatsoever were spent towards it with United. I choose to spend extra on friends and family routing with other airlines simply that they may avoid UAL. "Never again". Vote with your wallet.

teekert 9y ago

Imagine when they start asking for your passwords. Many of my colleagues said they really won't go anymore if that happens. It won't be long before conferences in the US will see diminished attendance from other parts of the world. In my field (biophysics) I'm pretty sure more local conferences are going to much more preferred in the future. At Boston Logan airport me and some colleagues (+ the rest of the people on the plane waiting at customs) were once barked at: "The next person who forgot to fill out the back of his green form will be sent back to his home country!" No smiles, just a death stare while you put in your finger prints... It's a shame, it's such a beautiful country but I could do without.

Markoff 9y ago
Aren't they doing it already? I was under impression from news you must already provide them at border with password or unlock your device for inspection when asked.

scriptkiddy 9y ago

> I wonder if this is a first step of a large trend yet to develop. I sure hope not. Isolation only fuels nationalism. Nationalism fuels irrational decisions. Irrational decisions lead to fascism. If you want your people to dehumanize a culture, the first step is to isolate your people from that culture. Don't allow your people any opportunity to empathize with that culture. If you continue to isolate your people, you can breed an "us vs them" sentiment. This is perfect if you want to start a war with popular support.

lsllc 9y ago

"massively late" This is a direct consequence of charging for checked bags. Now every flight takes twice as long to board and disembark because everyone is carrying as much carry on as they can and trying to stuff them into the overhead bins. Annoyingly, they usually start making announcements about gate-checking bags for free so they are not really reducing the costs and they're encouraging passengers to drag their bags through security (slowing down that line) in the hope they can gate check the bag for free (or not at all) in order to save $100/bag. The airlines should offer free bag check and charge $100/bag per carry-on in the overhead bins (under the seat is free still).

nojvek 9y ago
I would happily go for check bag in for free, but sometimes Airlines take forever to get the bag on to the carousel. Its much faster to get in and out with your bag as a carry-on. I agree, One free bag check should be compulsory. They should also ensure that your bags arrive faster than you at the baggage carousel. May be one day with the advent of robots.
- dkersten 9y ago
  Its much faster to get in and out with your bag as a carry-on. This is the reason I do carry-on only if I can get away with it. I want to keep my airport-time as low as reasonably possible. I also try to optimise my seating for this purpose rhen its something I can do (without paying for priority stuff). For example, on a recent flight, I was the 3rd person through the passport checks and the first person (as far as I could tell) leaving the secure area.

pkrawczykowski 9y ago

We just hired an Indian national at the startup I work for. He's on an h1b visa after finishing his masters in CS. Everyone at the company has to be registered with Homeland security. I'm so pissed. I think maybe we've convinced the CEO to just not and see what happens.