Here’s are the staggering numbers from the story:
During the first 11 months of last year, 1.6 million passenger flights were at least 15 minutes late. The total delay time added up to 170 years -- up steadily from 98 years lost on 1 million flights during all of 2003. The average delay of a late flight has grown from 49 to 56 minutes during that period, the data show.
Air travelers arriving and departing from Washington’s three major airports suffered 4,897 days of late flights. About 1,077 of those days were spent sitting on the tarmac, waiting for flights to take off. The average late flight landing at the region’s three airports arrived at least 51 minutes behind schedule, the data showed.
It makes you wonder at what point will people finally get fed up with the bad service and demand some changes. Of course any changes will take some involvement by the government and that seems very unlikely in the near future. The upshot being is the delays will continue.
1 comment:
As a recent victim of the US airlines' decent into awfulness, I often think the same thing--why do people put up with bad service? When I was stuck in a TWO HOUR queue at O'Hare, due to United delaying a flight that would have made me miss my connecting flight, I wanted to stand up like Sally Field with a big "Union!" sign, but the sheeple in the line would've just stared blankly.
I think Americans need to pick one airline and completely boycott it. Top business executives won't respond unless their fat paychecks are threatened, and shareholders won't demand change unless their dividends are threatened. Since Bush would rather die than lift a finger on behalf of consumers, that leaves it up to ordinary people to take action, not take the airlines' shit.
But getting the sheeple herded will be impossible, so it'll take a Democrat in the White House to change things. Hm, how are the trains going these days?
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