Originally published at: Delta dumps countless suitcases for passengers to sift through | Boing Boing
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This is why I have a light Barbie-pink colored luggage. Sticks out like a sore thumb and no one would steal it, since it looks like it’s full of cruddy clothes for a 14 year old.
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Flying has turned into “survival of the fittest” adventure, I’m just surprised the Airlines haven’t monetized it yet.
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Just be glad they hadn’t already sent your bags to Dubuque on another flight.
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This is a good representation of how easily ordinary process can be disrupted. Cancel a large number of flights, you are going to have a large number of bags. Just about every industry is seeing an incredible number of stress tests unfolding.
Do attendants assist you with your bags normally? No, unless there is an exception situation, and someone is available. The workers who had to unload 10xs the number of bags at once were probably so exhausted they collapsed to the floor in their staff room. Well, maybe slightly over-dramatic, I have no idea, I wasn’t there.
But it’s not really fair to callout one airline when literally every airline is facing similar, exceptional strains. It’s going to take a long time before those old corporate slogans start to ring true again.
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If they are canceling flights due to a shortage of staff, I’m not sure what kind of help they expect. There are no extra staff to help.
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I’m constantly amazed at people who take air travel as a controllable system. If everything goes just right, then we can manage things like keeping to a schedule. One tiny thing goes wrong and the cascade of failures begins. People yell about bad weather, staff issues, traffic problems and so on as if they happened just to distress them. We managed to make getting to distant places in a short time possible by figuring out physics and engineering and infrastructure and social dynamics and it’s bloody impressive, but it sure isn’t guaranteed to work every time.
Trying to imagine the the level of trouble that led to this pile of luggage and the stress this caused everyone, staff and passenger alike, is daunting.
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So, like 1 larger flight? (Google tells me the passenger capacity of a 747-8 is 467 passengers.)
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I have a hard time understanding the Delta hate in general. All of the majors suck in their own way, but my experiences on American (the Walmart of the skies) and United (the Dollar General) have consistently been far, far worse.
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Yup, my in-laws on the Dear Wife’s side all work for American (the Walmart of the skies), they call it that too. I’ll keep the gory stories, but the one thing they consistently say regarding flying is that on any major holidays, stay the f’ home, it just ain’t worth the brain damage you receive as a value added service.
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At no extra cost for the passenger? Amateurs.
– Michael O’Leary, probably
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All of the US major airlines are hated, but I don’t think that the hate for Delta is as strong as the hate for American, and the hate for American is not nearly as strong as the hate for United. (I personally would rather get into a zeppelin full of hydrogen than a plane operated by United.)
It just sucks that so many Americans have to settle for the least bad of the big three unless they’re in a city served by, say, Alaskan.
ETA: And, of course, people in smaller cities don’t even get their pick from among the big three.
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a shortage the airlines created first by buying out staff with covid funds that were supposed to be used to continue employment, then by booking flights to the edge - and beyond the edge - of reason during a pandemic
the airline should have contingencies. actual plans. and honestly im sure they have, and they decided foisting this job on passengers was the most cost effective
easy solution off the cuff? position the bags in groups alphabetical by last name. something like that is the absolute lowest bar
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That appears to be Seatac in the video. The Seattle area (and most of the rest of Washington) has been a winter wonderland for the last few days, which has caused a lot of the cancellations (more than any other airport in the world for two days running now). Along with the staff shortages, it’s turned into a real nightmare.
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I don’t get it. Isn’t this basically how collecting baggage generally works anyway, but with it circling around a carousel instead of already off the carousel? This actually seems a little better because you could spy your bag right away in the sea of bags instead of standing there waiting like a chump.
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They basically have. By charging for checked luggage, of all things, they’re creating a Survivor-like competition for who can get their bags that would normally be checked past the gate and into an overhead bin. So you’ve got people who are struggling to get a small computer bag in the overhead if they are among the last to get in, while there’s someone who put a giant roller-duffel and their “backpack” in overhead.
Last flight I took, an overhead bin opened during takeoff and dumped a bunch of hard shells on people. Gave the person in the aisle seat a bloody nose. They keep it up and someone’s going to get killed by stray luggage during turbulence.
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They’ll have passengers arm wrestling over the last Chicken Kiev and Big Cookie.
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Isn’t it called “Ryanair”?
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747s no longer flying on Delta. Last flight four (4) years ago. On the Last Flight of Delta's 747: a Party for a Legendary Jet
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