Can you imagine Amtrak stooping to this? Posted by George Harris (Member # 2077) on :
You have got to be kidding.
Posted by sbalax (Member # 2801) on :
I think it's called "The Pizza" concept of pricing. Let people pick what "toppings" they want, but charge them extra for each one.
It sounds like a smart marketing move to me as long as they do keep some control on the number of people who are offered lounge access, etc.
A number of years ago we bought "Lifetime" memberships in Continental's Presidents Club. It's been a pretty good investment over the years but I've felt lately that the value has been somewhat diluted by increasingly large numbers of what the agents call "Day Trippers". These are the people who have bought one day passes (usually $50.00 pp/pd) or have scored passes on E-Bay for less. You can usually tell who these people are because they seem uncomfortable at first and then launch into a series of cell phone calls of the "Guess where I am?" sort.
Rant over. BTW, the Presidents Clubs and the Red Carpet Clubs will soon be rebranded as The United Club. I hope they didn't pay a consultant too much for that brilliant choice.
Frank in sunny and warm SBA
Posted by palmland (Member # 4344) on :
Back in my business travel days, at one point I had a membership in the US Air club. It was always with a great sigh of relief that I went into that sanctuary. Never saw too many travelers and well worth it.
But, just think, we get that for free now with a first class ticket on Amtrak if you're at one of their lounge locations. But would you pay extra for a first class only lounge car, especially on eastern trains? Might be one way Amtrak could justify them. Certainly it would have to be a cut above regular lounge cars (other than PPC). Where would the equipment come from? Perhaps set aside a small section of a few of those new Viewliner sleepers (not exactly a new idea).
Posted by smitty195 (Member # 5102) on :
From the article:
"Although we did, of course, have to take off our shoes and walk through the metal detector at security, we were not subjected to any of the usual rigamarole of pulling out our toiletries to verify that they complied with the three-ounce rule, or having our carry-on bags rifled through."
So wait a minute......a REAL terrorist who wants to put liquid explosives into their carry-on can pay a one-time fee and breeze through security? What a crock of you-know-what.
Posted by sbalax (Member # 2801) on :
I haven't had to take my plastic bag of 3oz. or under toiletries out of my carry on in at least three years. And the last time my carry on bags were "rifled through" was in Frankfurt a year a go April when every item was carefully removed and then carefully repacked where it had been. It kind of makes you wonder how often the person who wrote the article really flies.
Frank in cool and dark SBA
Posted by ehbowen (Member # 4317) on :
quote:Originally posted by smitty195: From the article: So wait a minute......a REAL terrorist who wants to put liquid explosives into their carry-on can pay a one-time fee and breeze through security? What a crock of you-know-what.
I strongly suspect that if the X-ray screen had shown the presence of any large liquid containers in the carry-on, it would have been subjected to a much more thorough examination.
Posted by Henry Kisor (Member # 4776) on :
By the way, I put my son and his family on a Frontier regional jetliner at Ironwood (Mich.) airport earlier this week. The three TSA agents on duty went through ALL the luggage by hand, both checked and carry-on. They were extremely thorough, especially with the ammo-pouch baggies.
I understand the thinking is that bad guys will try to sneak into the system at jerkwater airports, thinking the yokels will be easy to hoodwink.
Posted by smitty195 (Member # 5102) on :
On Monday I flew out of Terminal 2 at SFO for my flight to Vegas. I left the plastic zip-lock baggie in my bag by mistake (which contained 2 mini-tubes of toothpaste, 1 tube of sunblock, and 1 small canister of saline solution). My bag got flagged for a hand-search in the x-ray machine because I forgot to take them out separately. So they still check these things, although like many things TSA, it depends on their mood-o-meter, the position of the sun, the temperature, and other "classified" information (said in jest, of course!).
Returning from Las Vegas, something happened that I have never seen before. It still makes no sense to me at all. My traveling partner walked through the metal detector and it beeped. It did not beep because of metal, it beeped because she had been singled out for a hand search. What??? TSA told her, "You have been randomly selected by the computer for a manual pat-down search and search of your carry-on items". I said, "Why??". The TSA officer said that it varies depending on who you are, what your itinerary is, and how often you travel. I call BS on that. How does a metal detector know your travel patterns?? It's not like you take your boarding pass and put it into a machine---the metal detector has NO CLUE who is walking through there. Now if it is just plain old random and nothing more than that, I can accept that explanation. But it flags you because of your travel habits??? No way---I believe that to be a flat-out lie since there is no connection between the machine and the individual. So anyway, she had to go through the stupid pat-down search and they wiped a rag or something onto her cell phone to see if it was a bomb (it wasn't) and they tested her carry-on to see if it was a bomb (it wasn't). I still don't understand what happened.
But anyway, yes, they still check for liquids in your bag, although it sounds like it's spotty and they do it "whenever", just like many things TSA.
Posted by smitty195 (Member # 5102) on :
quote:I strongly suspect that if the X-ray screen had shown the presence of any large liquid containers in the carry-on, it would have been subjected to a much more thorough examination. [/QB]
I wish I could share your position on the TSA catching such a thing, but I can't. The dopes working the checkpoints are mostly knuckleheads who can only perform the task of "go to the freezer, get the box". Anything beyond that would be a stretch. There is a website that I don't have at the tip of my fingers right now, but it reports on the tests that airports go through where federal agents purposely put through weapons and other prohibited items, and the majority of them are routinely missed.
Posted by Henry Kisor (Member # 4776) on :
“I served a tour in Afghanistan followed by a tour in Iraq. I have been hardened by war and in the past week I am slowly being broken by the constant diatribe of hateful comments being lobbed at me. While many just see a uniform with gloves feeling them for concealed items I am a person, I am a person who has feelings. I am a person who has served this country. I am a person who wants to continue serving his country. The constant run of hateful comments while I perform my job will break me down faster and harder than anything I encountered while in combat in the Army.”
Posted by smitty195 (Member # 5102) on :
You hit on something very interesting here, Henry. This is way off-topic, so I'll keep it brief.
While I certainly understand his comments, my trained opinion to this is that he might need to find another line of work. Of course I respect his military service--that goes without question. But one of the things that comes with wearing a badge is public hatred. I worked as a firefighter/EMT for 6 years, followed by 8 years of being a 911 dispatcher and supervisor before I became a police officer. I thought I had seen it all and experienced it all. I was wrong. As a firefighter, everybody loved us--we got waved to all the time. As a 911 dispatcher, people thanked me for helping them. But as a police officer, people flipped me off as I was driving around, called me names, called my mother names, insulted my family, and pretty much everything else you could possibly think of. It just comes with the territory, and if you are thin-skinned, then you should probably seek another career.
The washout rate for officer trainees who attend the academy and then go through street patrol training is a little over 50% in most departments around here. If they have a military background, the washout rate is about 75%. Isn't that an interesting number? It took me a while to piece it together, but I finally figured out why. In the military, you are told what to do and you almost always act in groups. For the most part, you don't do ANYTHING until you receive orders to do so. As a police officer, the chain of command is still there, however, you have to make up your own mind on what to do about 50 times a day. You can't turn to your sergeant or lieutenant and play twenty questions every day. That is why so many candidates from the military don't make it--they can't make a decision to literally save their life. Back when President Reagan fired the air traffic controllers, there was suddenly a HUGE number of ex-controllers applying for police/fire/ambulance dispatching jobs. The washout rate for them was close to ONE HUNDRED percent! Why? Well, most people think that being an air traffic controller is "stressful". I suppose it can be at times, but honestly, I think it's one of the easiest jobs in the world. I have my pilot's license, and many years ago I studied and tested for the ATC exam. I also did two "sit alongs" at ATC facilities: 1) SFO Tower, and 2) Oakland Center (it is an air route traffic control center, or ARTCC). I couldn't believe how easy the job was compared to 911 dispatching. As a controller, almost everything you say over the radio is from a book of phraseology. Everything is "standardized" so that no matter where you go in the country, the phrases are the same. "United 36 heavy San Francisco Tower, Runway 28 right, cleared for takeoff". Just insert any airport name in place of "San Francisco" and it will work anywhere. Most of the phraseology is like this, and of course there are published approach plates (charts) for most airports---so everything is standardized, and as a controller, you are only talking to other professionals or people who have gone through the training. As a 911 dispatcher, it's the exact opposite of this. You have no control whatsoever as to who will be on the other end of the phone when it rings, and you have no idea what they will be reporting. Is it a barking dog, or is it a mother who just woke up and found her baby blue and cold in his crib? You never know. As a 911 dispatcher, you also have no control as to the number of calls that come in at any given time. With ATC, airplanes can be told to sit at the gate and not push back and get ready for takeoff because the skies are full and there isn't a "slot" for that airplane yet (due to weather or whatever). In ATC, you have total and complete control over what happens and how busy you are. In 911 dispatching, this is not the case at all. So for these reasons, this is why most air traffic controllers could not pass the training. The number one reason was "stress". There was a great study done on this very topic, and I have it down in a box in my garage; and I used to talk about this with my trainees to try to introduce them to the world of dispatching.
So in a nutshell, of course I see what the TSA guy is saying about how he is treated, however, as the saying goes, "If you can't take the heat.......".
Posted by MightyAlweg (Member # 5407) on :
I'm not sure what the fuss is about. It sounds like the big airlines have found a way to offer a legit service to people willing to pay for it.
I must say, it's something that would be of use to me on occasion. I don't need to use that sort of service all the time, but when I'm flying out of LAX to an overseas location on American (my overseas airline of choice) it would seem to be $125 well spent. I could care less about people thinking I'm some D List Celebrity no one recognizes, and honestly I imagine most people wouldn't even notice. But to speed me through the miserable LAX terminal experience and let me wait in the Admirals Club prior to boarding? Yeah, I'd pay for that.
Plus, you have to figure that airfares today are a small fraction of what they were (adjusted for inflation) in the 1960's; a time when people imagine everyone holding a coach ticket was treated royally by smiling stewardesses, gushing gate agents, and snappy skycaps. The 1960's experience was very expensive, and only more manageable because of the smaller numbers of people flying. Well, the stewardesses were better looking and generally sweeter back then, but I digress.
125 bucks to get first class terminal treatment before an important flight or big vacation? Not a bad idea! I'm surprised it took them this long to figure out how to market it to the general public.
Posted by Gilbert B Norman (Member # 1541) on :