You Know What Really Grinds My Gears? Now with 3x more gears...

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

Can’t remember the last time I saw someone proclaim how they think the convenience of online banking, mobile check deposits and extended evening and weekend hours is a worthwhile trade-off for the ####tier service we get in a bank versus what we got the 1960s.

I absolutely wouldn't trade those things for friendly conversation with a local banker. I go inside a bank branch as little as possible, and without those features it would be like 100x more often.

[fotze2]

For sure. Taking a pic of a cheque to deposit is insane. It’s not the online stuff it’s if you ever need to talk. Good god. They hide the phone number for starters. The bots are infuriating and 100% to frustrate you into saying ‘fata it, I’ll just ignore that mystery $56 charge because it’s not worth my time’. I wish we could have both. Good service and the online stuff but I know that’s never gonna happen.

That’s the problem with age, you know how good it was. Young people don’t have that so it’s normal.

And I know the world is better than it’s ever been, just service seems insanely worse. Lying commonplace now.

[you&me]

Originally Posted by Sliver

I always get a kick out of people complaining about how cramped planes are and not correlating that to how cheap airfare is. Like you'll see photos from the 60s when everyone was eating steaks and had legroom for days. Yeah, well only the 1% were on those flights. You can still have that experience in first class, but not many of us want to pay for it, so we have to tolerate the cattle car experience.

No ####.

You can fly all across Canada for about $100/hr... I don't know what people are expecting it to cost to go 1,000s of kms in a plane that costs 100s of millions.

On top of that - as you mentioned - cost of flying is pretty linear... You want more leg room, or space for more luggage? Pay for business. You want expect to fly for hours for the price of a decent meal, then you should expect some, um, compromises is in your experience hahaha

[GGG]

I’m at fault for the race to the bottom of airfare and service. I will absolutely choose flights on two things price and travel time. Quality of service is irrelevant. Flying sucks. Making it marginally better doesn’t make it great. So just having it be the cheapest becomes the deciding factor.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by btimbit

I love that if people give them #### on Twitter they just give it right back

Those crack me up.

I still think we should have 'sedation aviation.'

I'd love to get to the airport, get stabbed in the arm and wake up at my destination.

I mean...so long as its still with all of my internal organs and not in a bathtub full of ice.

[Zary's-Mustache]

Originally Posted by you&me

The cost of modern air travel should be considered a wonder of the world.

It blows my mind how some people think they should be entitled to every perk imaginable when they're flying 1,000s of kms for the price of a pizza.

What kind of pizza are you buying that costs $500?

[PaperBagger'14]

Originally Posted by Zary's-Mustache

What kind of pizza are you buying that costs $500?

Where are you going that only costs $500? I can’t even get a flight home from YYC for $500 and I live in Calgary.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Locke

Those crack me up.

I still think we should have 'sedation aviation.'

I'd love to get to the airport, get stabbed in the arm and wake up at my destination.

I mean...so long as its still with all of my internal organs and not in a bathtub full of ice.

Hey it's what nhlers do. Ambian, shot of rum, next thing you know you're in nashville

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by you&me

The cost of modern air travel should be considered a wonder of the world.

It blows my mind how some people think they should be entitled to every perk imaginable when they're flying 1,000s of kms for the price of a pizza.

Originally Posted by you&me

No ####.

You want expect to fly for hours for the price of a decent meal, then you should expect some, um, compromises is in your experience hahaha

Buddy, I know you're a high earner from your posts on CP, but try to at least pretend to be part of society. Pizza? A decent meal? Like **** off, lol. You sound like an out of touch King from the 1700's trying to give a relatable speech to the peasants.

You guys are flying to Canadian cities for the price of a $1300, casual Tuesday dinner in a private room of the best restaurant in Vancouver, as we all do a couple nights a month, right? Right?

[Barnet Flame]

Originally Posted by Lubicon

First time on Ryanair (I have also flown Vueling which is similar). There's a lot of good and a lot of bad with LCC's but I agree for the money it's hard to argue and they certainly are successful. They don't screw around or put up with any BS, they just get you from point A to point B.

Reliably and safely getting to where I want to go, at the time I want to bet there is the important thing to me. I can deal with the cramped conditions for what are maximum 3.5 hour flights.

I’ve seen so much of Europe thanks to Ryanair.

The main people I see having problems with Ryanair are those that treat clearly and repeatedly articulated Ryanair requirements as ‘guidelines’.

[jayswin]

I'm going to start explaining my flights in pizza prices because of this fool, lol. "Do you guys know I just flew to Montreal and back (real flight I just checked for ****s and giggles) for $477 each way?

That's just 38 premium pizzas, who can believe it!!?!"

[Locke]

Originally Posted by jayswin

I'm going to start explaining my flights in pizza prices because of this fool, lol. "Do you guys know I just flew to Montreal and back (real flight I just checked for ****s and giggles) for $477 each way?

That's just 38 premium pizzas, who can believe it!!?!"

I'm going to do this for Taxes.

"Oh, its not so bad, thats only 387 Large Chicago Deep Dishes!"

It can be our new unit of currency measurement.

You need to take the Bus? Thats a slice of Papa John's!

Heaven forbid you want to go to a movie, do you have any idea how many Sbarro's that'll cost you?

[cam_calderon]

To be fair, the references to Ryanair mean the pizza scale could actually be relevant.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

Who cares what it used to be like flying? I don’t care who used to be able to afford it and who didn’t. It doesn’t change the ####ty service that people get now. And somehow airlines are one of the very few industries that everyone obsess over when it comes to price now and use some golden age of flying as the comparable.

Can’t remember the last time I saw someone proclaim how they think the convenience of online banking, mobile check deposits and extended evening and weekend hours is a worthwhile trade-off for the ####tier service we get in a bank versus what we got the 1960s.

Like yeah lots of things have changed since the 1960s. So what?

"So what"? It's 100% relevant to my point. It is my point.

I mean, the change is for the better if you want a luxury experience. My wife flew to Europe a few months ago with her job and slept the whole way in a private pod. Lounges on either end away from the riff raff. It's way better than the 60s experience if you want to pay for it.

And it's also way better for the rest of us now because we can actually afford to fly. Most people would have never set foot on a plane if it hadn't become so affordable by the creation of this whole third class of travel situation that wasn't available until maybe the 70s and became cheaper and cheaper in the following decades.

But I'm with you in it being a crappy experience in the cattle car section of the plane. My femurs are literally too long to fit in my seat on many flights. I've recently started paying extra to upgrade to a business class just so I can fit. It used to make me really mad until I thought about the economics of it. Now I just figure I have to pay more to get what I want, like with anything else. I'm not going to buy a Corolla and then complain it isn't as nice as a Camry.

[Wormius]

Online banking is great, but I refuse to do the mobile cheque deposits until I can scan the cheque and toss it away immediately. I dislike having to hold onto it for some period of time incase the bank at some point in the future decides to verify it. I’d rather just run to the ATM whilst running other errands.

[CliffFletcher]

When my family moved to Calgary in 1979, the cost of one-way flight from Toronto was $400. Which is $1,650 in today’s dollars. My first flight to Europe in 1989 was $1,100 - which is $2,385 today. You paid for the leg room, hot meals, and free booze.

Cheap, mass air travel wasn’t really a thing until the 90s. Before that, flying was for rich people or very special trips. I had an aunt who was a flight attendant for 25 years, and she said until the 90s it was vanishingly rare to see a child under 6 on a plane. Who would splash out that kind of money for a kid too young to appreciate a trip? In the early 90s people still drove across Canada to save money.

So yeah, flying has gotten incredibly cheap. And it’s not really comparable to technological advances, because the reduction in price is mainly due to competition and a race to the bottom in fares. We the customers have demonstrated that when it comes to air travel we’ll sacrifice everything else for price.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by you&me

No ####.

You can fly all across Canada for about $100/hr... I don't know what people are expecting it to cost to go 1,000s of kms in a plane that costs 100s of millions.

On top of that - as you mentioned - cost of flying is pretty linear... You want more leg room, or space for more luggage? Pay for business. You want expect to fly for hours for the price of a decent meal, then you should expect some, um, compromises is in your experience hahaha

It’s laughable to me that you’re basically defending the airlines here. It’s a bold stance. They’re absolutely atrocious, in almost every way!

You can pay for extras, and I’m fine with that. But they have these policies that are just so ridiculous. My wife booked a flight for June and added expense to this with the option to cancel/change ahead because we have aging parents and it throws some uncertainty into things. About a month ago she realizes she has to cancel the trip, and while that sucks, at least the flight costs are going to reimbursed. Well, not quite. The flights are reimbursed, but she paid to pick her seats on the 4 flights and they don’t give you that part back. So, they just keep that $230 on a $1000-1300 (can’t recall) flight. In no possible way does this make sense, and my only response is AYFKM?

But here we are. The airline is not taking her anywhere and they know that 3 months ahead and she paid more for the option in the first place. But apparently that’s only what, 10 pizzas?

And we all know this is the tip of the iceberg. We all put up with this kind of stupidity because we want to go places and do cool things. You’re forced to accept that you’ll be paying to go somewhere, the entire experience is inconvenient and irritating. People are inconsiderate (maybe the height of this is while we’re traveling) and the airlines only compound your frustration.

[Sliver]

Haha "10 pizzas". The birth of a CP meme. Right up there with measuring the size of hail stones using our hashbrowns scale.

[you&me]

Originally Posted by Zary's-Mustache

What kind of pizza are you buying that costs $500?

Originally Posted by PaperBagger'14

Where are you going that only costs $500? I can’t even get a flight home from YYC for $500 and I live in Calgary.

Originally Posted by jayswin

Buddy, I know you're a high earner from your posts on CP, but try to at least pretend to be part of society. Pizza? A decent meal? Like **** off, lol. You sound like an out of touch King from the 1700's trying to give a relatable speech to the peasants.

You guys are flying to Canadian cities for the price of a $1300, casual Tuesday dinner in a private room of the best restaurant in Vancouver, as we all do a couple nights a month, right? Right?

A quick google of YYC to YYZ shows flights consistently over the next month or so for under $300 for a 4hr flight.

YYC to YVR, commonly available for low $100s... What can I say? I have a big family and pizza night is a >$100 affair...

That said, the original pizza post was more in response to a reference to Ryanair, where flights are commonly available for the price of a single pizza.

My point is still that I don't understand what people expect for a few hundred dollars considering everything that's involved with transnational air travel.

Now to Slava's later post that I didn't quote, none of this is an excuse for the abysmal customer service and ridiculous policies of Canadian airlines... Just another shining example of Canadian exceptionalism - our airlines are all exceptionally ####ty

[fotze2]

Were those Ryanair flights actually $1? Or $1 for the flight plus $287 in fees. Why don't they go all the way and advertise free flights and all you need to cover is the OPEX? We should do that with Chocolate bars.

$0 Oh Henry!........plus the packaging fee, chocolate surcharge, business sustainability fee, retailer logistics charge, carbon fee.