Hawaii Tourism Cool Down Looms - good or bad?

[HiloJulie]

I was on one flight from LAX to Boston for business years back. The gentleman seated next to me suddenly went into some sort of medical emergency. They paged the plane for a doctor and fortunately there was one on board. He was apparently having a heart attack. The jet was diverted to Phoenix and met with an ambulance. After getting more fuel, we took back off and continued on to Boston. 

About 3 months later, a package from United Airlines came with some very nice wines from a vineyard in California. Turned out, the guy who had the heart attack was some big wig winery owner and got United to send everyone on the flight a box of his wineries fine wines!

Fortunately, never had someone die on any flight I was on! At least that I know of!

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

never had someone die on any flight I was on! At least that I know of!

Sitting next to someone who died inflight would have been preferable to a few live passengers I’ve flown next to.

[HiloJulie]

HOTPE, I can only imagine!!!

I must say, both my husband and I have been pretty fortunate - so far - in not having any of the now seemingly daily outright insanity we see on flights today!

One of the funniest things I ever saw was some guy - who spoke two words of English - "Hello" and "Thank You" trying to go thru security in Denver - with what had to be about 50 dollars' worth of - coins! - Pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. At first, in his pocket! And at the end - after they finally got him to put his coins into a bin, he counted each one of the coins back out and shoved them all back into his pocket!

For some reason, I found it to be so damn funny that I have to admit, I got to laughing so hard I had to sit down and compose myself.

But i know this one colleague of mine who lives in Chicago was on a flight once where some guy decided that the beverage cart was the bathroom. And, well, let's just say it was NOT number 1. 

So much for those "leakers" hey terracore!!!

[randomq]

I once had the privilege of witnessing a lady pull out her hair while rocking and moaning a couple aisles in front of me. She just kept at it, going from partially bald to half bald over the course of a four hour flight.

[Durian Fiend]

I knew an airline employee and one of their jobs was rounding up the wheelchairs.  This was back when direct airline employees did stuff like that.  He said that a lot of the people who need wheelchairs... "leak".  And no, they don't sanitize them between users.  You don't want to sit in one unless you have to..

Was this back in the day before adult diapers, perhaps?   

I would have no qualms about sitting in an airline seat in which someone had died, providing it wasn't obviously contaminated with bodily fluids.   Ditto for wheelchair.

[Punatang]

Just reading this thread...

It's like we are now flying in a Greyhound Bus from the 70s.  Some of you will recall when our parents put on a suit and tie or Sunday best to fly.  Everyone was treated like first class.  Chicken or Pasta.  Cockpit visits and a wings pin for the kiddos.  The otherworldly haze of cigarette smoke coming from the least empathetic.  Those were the days.

[terracore]

"Those were the days". One of the reasons why air travel was so glamorous was that the government set the fares, routes, etc and few 'common folk' could easily afford them. Since the airlines weren't competing on price, they competed on service. When I was a kid, our family went to Europe twice (my mother is from there) and the airfare was so expensive my parents had to work second jobs to save up for it. They also had to pull us out of school early those years because the summer fares were significantly higher than the "off season" rates available a few weeks prior. We also drove past the international airport in our home state to one some distance in another state to eliminate a leg of travel.

After deregulation, they didn't immediately descend to cattle cars... but here we are. More people can afford to fly and more people don't want to do it. I recently read that the average *profit* an airline earns per passenger per flight is between $6.00 and $20.00. They have to make their money on volume.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

an airline earns per passenger per flight is between $6.00 and $20.00. 

Yes but multiply that by 200 passengers per plane and they’re raking in $4000!  And all they have to do is invest in a multi million dollar plane, terminal facilities, and highly trained personel.

[Durian Fiend]

The airplane food was horrible way back when- except for the bags of nuts. Cigarette smoke, high fares, no noise cancelling headphones. Oh yeah, those were the glory days of air travel.
At least hotels and rent a cars were cheap when you reached your destination.
Now the relative prices have reversed, with air fares more affordable but hotels and cars WAY more expensive. It seems to me that vacation travel is less affordable now. The reason flights are packed is because airlines are highly motivated to extract the maximum amount of revenue per trip.

[terracore]

At least hotels and rent a cars were cheap when you reached your destination.

FWIW, the last two times I left the island, I paid more to park my car at KOA than what I paid for a rental car at the destination.  This was before the recent parking price hike.  Next time it will be cheaper for me to get dropped off at ITO and fly to HNL to make a connection to the madland.  Crazy that it's cheaper to burn all all that excess fuel hauling me to HNL and back than to let my car bake in the sun at KOA and risk getting stolen.

Somehow, letting the airlines profit $12-$40 off me is preferable to feeding the bureaucracy some multiples of that to let my car sit almost a mile from their airport (with no shuttle).