Planes, trains, Carpool and Thrillrunning
Part 1
PLANES:
The week oil went over $105 a barrell coincided with American Airlines cancelling hundreds of flights. This somewhat panicked decision stranded passengers across the United States for a several days. I guess this was their response to the FAA slamming Southwest with ten million dollar fines for flying un-serviced planes.
A few smaller airlines outright folded. Aloha for example folded, stranding passengers in Hawaii trying to get home from Vacation. I suppose Hawaii is the place to be if your ride home goes out of business.
What about the people who had bought tickets and scheduled vacations? Like my good friend Larry who was planning to come out to L.A. for a visit? We planned to see a Dodgers game. We planned to see a movie at the Vista and maybe catch an electronic music show at Echo Curio. We had all these cool things planned out and his airline folded overnight.
It seems a relatively new airline called Skybus was running a promotion for $10! A great deal for the diligent consumer. Larry, being a diligent consumer, had bought one of these tickets. He recently called me with the bad new of his visit being abruptly cancelled. Then he and I talked about the marketing people who thought ten dollar airfare and hundred dollar a barrell oil was a good mix.
Larry I hope you get your ten bucks back.
Thanks for checking in.
Stephen A. Thomas
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:01 pm
When your ticket to the baseball game costs more than your flight across the country (direct, no less), it is probably too good to be true.
Larry