Airlines, New Paint, Belts On, Online Check-in, Restaurant Prices
Monday, 6 May 2013New Paint?
Just flown to New York with American Airlines, who are currently making a song and dance about new aircraft, new style – all the advantages of going bankrupt. They do have a new colour scheme, since Day 1 American Airlines aircraft have not been painted – just the stripe down the side and so on. The rest is bare metal. But that isn’t going to work when they start flying 787s, which will be carbon fibre, not shiny aluminium (or aluminum in American). Our 777-300 was painted, not bare metal.
Keep your belt on?
Twice during the flight we hit some turbulence and the ‘buckle up’ announcement was made. But it didn’t go off after 10 minutes, when we cleared the turbulence. The first time the ‘belts on’ light stayed on for something like two hours! Is this a ‘keep the passengers locked in place’ move?
And online check in
Airlines like Ryanair – where you really have to book in online – would collapse if they had American Airlines’ website. Never have I wasted so much airline time as I did trying to persuade their website to print two boarding passes. Over and over and over again I typed in phone numbers, hotel addresses, passport numbers, expiry dates. Over and over and over again that damned American Airlines website wiped them out and demanded I type them in again. Or said ‘correct errors’ when there were no errors to correct, I know how to spell my name. And then, just before we left for the airport, it suddenly decided to behave itself, accepted everything I typed in and spat out the passes.
And then we eat out
OK, I’ve only had one meal out since we arrived in New York. But I’m coming to the conclusion that London restaurants are cheap! Especially compared to Australia where, driven up by the super-strong Australian dollar, the prices are ridiculous. A price comparison after our New York visit.
