As I have said before I fly about 100K miles a year and I have learned some things along the way. On Travel Tech I discuss technology that can help you with your traveling. In this week’s post I want to talk to you about delays. I don’t know if you have ever heard this joke but it goes like this.
How do you know a gate agent is lying to you? Whenever they clickity clack on the keyboard at the podium and then speak into the intercom and say these loud muffled words, “It will only be…”. Lies, lying like Michael Vick and his love of dogs. “There is currently a ground stop in La Guardia and it will only be a 35 min delay…” Lie. “There is a pneumatic distillery decongestant unit that is malfunctioning and we are going to be delayed.” “The captain said it will only be 90 min.” Or how about this. You hear the announcement that there is going to be a delay. You get on the line and when you get to the podium you ask “I have a connecting flight at Chicago to Seattle. Am I going to make it?” The gate agent’s reply is to clicky to clack clickty clack on the keyboard and then pick up a black phone from the 70s and dial a mysterious number meanwhile avoiding all eye contact. She gets of the phone and then clickyti clacks and then answers you “It will only be a 45 min delay so you will make it.” Lies. Or the biggest lie of all when you are delayed and nervous about your connecting flight is “Oh Yeah they will hold the plane for you.” Hahaha Lies Lies Lies. Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice and make me run from one concourse to the other in Chicago Ohare and suffering an asthma attack on the way and only find out that they did not hold the plane – shame on me.
The truth of the matter is that most agents are as clueless as you are. Since they have been doing this a while they can make educated guesses. Which is usually going to be closer to the truth but when you have oversold planes, irrate passengers, and cutbacks and that agents has to deal with 200 customers all asking the same stupid questions that agent will do or say anything to get rid of you.
In case of delays – information is your friend. Today I’m going to review a website called flightaware.com. This is a great site to get real updates on your flight status. It works well on iphones and blackberries and it is pretty reliable. It will actually give you quicker information than the airline’s website. Here are 4 scenarios in how I use it.
These are just some of the ways that you can use FlightAware. A great indispensable tool when traveling.
As I was writing this I checked FlightAware and they just announced an iphone app. Check it out here.
What are some of the things you use to see airport delays?
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On my last trip I used FlightCaster to check delays.
http://www.flightcaster.com/