"I still,..., can't understand why you're still flying XXX"

[mirrodie]

Kc2aqg made the following comment and the following was a tangent off that conversation...

"I still, for the life of me, can't understand why you're still flying AA though :lol: "

Let's talk about that for a moment. I fly AA because they given me 30 years of consistent service. Further, their alliance and miles program has allowed me some great opportunities.

But lets face it. In this day and age, flying ANY domestic US carrier is a joke. We all have our favorites. NWA, WN, B6, Midwest. Flying is now just a commodity and the loyalty is gone. The service is gone as well.

So my question: But is anyone seriously THAT jaded to believe that one domestic service is leaps and bounds better than the rest? I don't buy it. In all seriousness, I havea bucnh of miles with AA and they've been great, so why switch. But I don't think they are superior to B6 or WN. 10-15% better? maybe, but no landslide.

Thoughts? This is not a bash fest but I'm curious to see who really feels one airline is heaps better than the rest.

[nwafan20]

Well, from my experience, NW is better than most, but it isn't like it is absolutely better than the rest by what you say "leaps and bounds." I agree with what you said, domestic flying in the US has become a joke.

That said, I have had great services on NW, FL, NK, and many others, and I am sure WN will be added to the list in 3 days. What makes me like NW the best? A few reasons, the most consistent "best service" from my experiences, and their position in DTW (I.e. building an awesome terminal and such). I do not agree with all of NW's management decisions, but I stand behind the airline as a whole. As some of you may have guessed, I am not one who flies one airline only (mainly because I don't fly that often to rack up enough miles....) So I get the opportunity to try some different airlines (mainly what is cheapest :D).

So, to cut out the babbling, no, I do not feel one airline is heaps better than the other.

But I guess you have to understand human nature, we are made to pick favorites, I don't know many (although there are a few) who will say that they don't have a favorite airline or two.

I also think most would agree that bad experiences can happen on any airline, no airline is perfect... That is why I hate the people who fly an airline only once and say "I will never fly them again!" Who knows, maybe the crew had a bad day!

[RDU-JFK]

I don't have a loyalty towards one particular airline. I used to try to fly airlines that I would never have the chance to try, but that went away so I book now based on schedules. This year, though I'm being loyal to DL because I'm almost at Silver Medallion status with them so I'll choose them to hopefully get there. I used to be loyal to US Airways but their customer service turned me off completely.

For me, it's still mostly about who is cheapest.

[kc2aqg]

I'll chime in on this one...

I'll agree with you Mario that no US carrier's service is leaps and bounds above another. In my opinion, it used to be that B6 had one of the friendliest demeanor's in the sky in their first few years. Now I'd say most of the major's have caught up to that (most).

The reason I harp on AA is while you've had 30 years of consistent service, I've had 10 years of consistently bad service. I've endured 3 almost crew strikes and one actual strike that cancelled a trip. I've encountered numerous rude flight attendants who's only objective is to get you to sit down and shut up, ground staff at the check-in counters, baggage service, and gate that are content to act with incompetence are completely unwilling to go out of their way to help (I asked for an AA phone number for a baggage service office and the agent wouldn't give me the time of day), and then when you have a problem with a reservation or a bag and need to speak to someone on the phone, you get the rudest people that wastes even more time and accomplishes nothing. The only employees I can say I have never had a problem with have been the pilots, who generally are very friendly.

In short, I'm not the only one with horror stories from AA if you read some of the trip reports on a.net and elsewhere. I'm just sick of having mediocre experiences with AA during the best of times, and nightmare experiences during the worst of times. I started building elite status with AA in January, and by March I gave up. I've never seen such a poorly run operation that spans multiple cities and across the workforce, and I don't think such a company deserves my client's dollars as well as my own when I go on vacation. Say what you want about DL, but I've now flown 25K miles with them this year and even when we encounter irregular ops and cancelled flights, they've made it relatively easy to recover and I haven't had a problem with a single DL employee the way I have at AA.

Sorry for the long post, and understand that I wasn't attacking you Mario, simply poking the topic in jest.

[mirrodie]

Trust me I know you are not attaking me, now was I offended in any way :) I just really wanted a sense of whether or not anyone truly in their hearts feels one US airline is tops above the rest.

Who knows, i time, I might take my miles and jump ship in the future. At this point, the number one rason I use AA is the miles and my pretty liberal ease of using those miles. As that decreases, who knows, I might jump ship but I think alliances are the tell all.

Also, just to further my point, I can take AA to Vancouver with a stop over on AA, but you bet your ass that instead, I'll be using OW carrier Cathay instead ;)

[kc2aqg]

As a business traveller, I haven't really been able to determine which alliance might be better than the other between Star, OneWorld, and Skyteam. They all bring different things to the table in terms of destinations and carriers. I like Skyteam as they offer a bunch of different options to Europe and DL is almost everywhere domestically and now expanding their presence into the Carribean. For me, a connection in ATL is not really an inconvenience. I'll agree with you Mario in that AA so far has made it pretty easy to use your miles for award flights, and their "pointsaver" type tickets are far more available than on DL.

In the same regard, I might take my miles on DL and jump ship if they go by the wayside in time. But over the last year or two, I've seen major improvements from them and they are still coming, so I'll be sticking with them for a while. It's kind of unfortunate that I'm choosing a carrier to fly with based on who provides me the least inconvenience instead of who provides the best service. Boy how the times have changed...

[NcSchu]

I fly Continental because I've always enjoyed the service. I think a lot of people simply have different expectations and different ways of judging how good a flight is. CO offers tons of flights from EWR, which is the obvious reason I like them, but also has extremely competitive prices on those routes. I'm flying to San Francisco next week and CO beat the pants off of every airline going from EWR/JFK to SFO/OAK. Their domestic coach product isn't the ritz, but it's good enough that a tall person like me can feel comfortable. The staff I've encountered have always been nice and helpful as well.

[MarkLawrence]

Personally, I'm in agreement with Nick on COA - I really like their domestic service and have also had great service on their international service to LGW. Unfortunately, when travelling to SA, I get a choice of SAA or Delta and seeing as I have a lot of miles on Delta and there are a lot of miles to earn on PBI-JNB and return, that was the one to go with.

[kc2aqg]

Mark, how did you like DL's international service to JNB? I was impressed with DL's service from JFK-CDG a few months ago and may opt to try it again in September.

[MarkLawrence]

We only go next Feb Andy - I'm looking forward to comapring it to CO - and - I'm hoping that DL might get a couple of 777-200LR's before then - make it a non-stop 15hr flight instead of a one stop 18hr flight!! :lol: :lol:

[kc2aqg]

Agreed, a nonstop on a 777 would be much nicer than the 1-stop 763. The DL 777 interiors are incredible in my opinion, and their new AVOD system is top notch, even in coach (rode one down to ATL a few months ago). I've never taken CO international, and I am also considering taking them from EWR to CDG in September as well, just for the experience.

[MarkLawrence]

I did EWR to LGW and back - I was extremely happy with CO - the food was even good!!! :lol:

[JetBlueAirwaysFan]

DL is not the best airline. Compare it to AirTran, Delta just lacks qualities that AirTran has.

[T-Bird76]

Mark, Nick hasn't flown COA in god knows how long... When I compare the legacy carriers I don't look at them as individual airlines but rather I look at their alliance. Generally now when I talk to another biz traveller about being on the road I refer to my perferred airlines like "I fly Star and One World carriers" rather then I fly AA or US. AA is certainly not the best but their not the worst either, I'd take AA over the carriers of Skyteam any day, again though that's my opinion.