Airline group suggests smaller carry-on bags.

Liam Hall said:
Not sure the US airlines could make air travel any more painful than they already have. They have sucked the lifeblood out of air travel in a needless race to the bottom. Flying on low budget airlines in third world countries is a far superior experience.
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When I travelled to Tanzania, I flew via Amsterdam (no time to explore during the layover, unfortunately), on a US carrier (United, I think) from Seattle, and on Royal Dutch from Amsterdam to Tanzania. The difference was shocking; the Royal Dutch flight was a LOT nicer; better food, more drink options (complimentary), more pleasant seating, and so on.

I suspect that the only thing keeping the European based airlines from taking over US domestic air travel from the US-based airlines is the federal government's protectionist laws that don't allow them to. The service on non-US based major carriers an on smaller regional carriers like Alaska and JetBlue and Virgin America have for years been quite a bit better than on the likes of Delta and United.
 
Sir, please do not confuse ideology with actual experience. When you start throwing around words such as fascist, soviet, and tyranny, you can no longer be taken seriously. I don't know what Kool-Aid you have been drinking, but a couple of shots of VO would be a good alternative. To address just one of your falsehoods, just where do you think DARPA got the funds they granted? Alumni donations? DOD nourished those institutions, going all the way back to MIT in 1947.I actually experienced superior telephone service for 30 years, without a single service call, or interruption of service. Fast forward to today - AT&T has been to my house three times in 18 months. They slammed my voice service from Telco to Internet without my permission. I finally had to cancel all services completely and start over. All incoming calls to my iPhone go to voice mail - the signal to my house in a major city is too weak. Can you deny that deregulation of the original AT&T led directly to this abominable hassle that we all go through every day which formerly we did not?I doubt if I can get through to you any level, but let me try with an example from another arena, retail. Decades ago, most cities had a major department store. They were wonderful places. If you needed a baseball glove, a refrigerator, clothes, books, or cosmetics, they had a good selection at reasonable prices, and every department had a cadre of knowledgable salespeople who could help you get exactly what you wanted or needed. Now we have Wal-Mart and Target. I can't replace the wine glasses I bought at Target because they are always out of stock, and there are six Target stores within driving distance. Salespeople? You're lucky if they can speak. So, now I will have to find the the replacements on line, and wait for them to be delivered, and if they screw up the order, or a glass is broken, I get to sit on hold for 20 minutes after going through a voice menu. Does that resonate on any level?
 
Curtis Mack said:
Sir, please do not confuse ideology with actual experience. When you start throwing around words such as fascist, soviet, and tyranny, you can no longer be taken seriously. I don't know what Kool-Aid you have been drinking, but a couple of shots of VO would be a good alternative.
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Tons of actual experience here. No ideology, just facts, logic and quite a bit of knowledge about history and economics. Neither am I throwing "words around", or being flippant. I am genuinely identifying your economic prescriptions as fascist, soviet, monopolist and corporatist.

Curtis Mack said:
To address just one of your falsehoods, just where do you think DARPA got the funds they granted? Alumni donations? DOD nourished those institutions, going all the way back to MIT in 1947.
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When did I contend that DARPA was ever funded with anything other than good olde American taxpayer money? Well that, and a lot of borrowed $$$. I did however, challenge your assertion of how the internet was created. Read again. I gotta say, out of all of the creations to arise from USgov's military industrial complex, the internet was an exception to all of the toys that the U.S. creates for death, dying, destruction, imperialism and world conquest. The internet is a beautiful and notable exception indeed... of course, that's why they want to get it back under their control.

Curtis Mack said:
I actually experienced superior telephone service for 30 years, without a single service call, or interruption of service. Fast forward to today - AT&T has been to my house three times in 18 months. They slammed my voice service from Telco to Internet without my permission. I finally had to cancel all services completely and start over. All incoming calls to my iPhone go to voice mail - the signal to my house in a major city is too weak. Can you deny that deregulation of the original AT&T led directly to this abominable hassle that we all go through every day which formerly we did not?
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Sounds like what you need, is better service... more competition. If your phone company committed fraud, you should either go after them... or go shopping for new service. Choices are a thing of beauty. By the way, the old phone companies fought tooth and nail to ground mobile service before it ever took off. Those wonderful monopolists that they are. And, what took you so long to switch service?

Curtis Mack said:
I doubt if I can get through to you any level, but let me try with an example from another arena, retail. Decades ago, most cities had a major department store. They were wonderful places. If you needed a baseball glove, a refrigerator, clothes, books, or cosmetics, they had a good selection at reasonable prices, and every department had a cadre of knowledgeable salespeople who could help you get exactly what you wanted or needed. Now we have Wal-Mart and Target. I can't replace the wine glasses I bought at Target because they are always out of stock, and there are six Target stores within driving distance. Salespeople? You're lucky if they can speak. So, now I will have to find the the replacements on line, and wait for them to be delivered, and if they screw up the order, or a glass is broken, I get to sit on hold for 20 minutes after going through a voice menu. Does that resonate on any level?
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Maybe you live in a particularly unfortunate locale, but even on the local level, there are multitudes of choices beyond Target and Wally World. You don't have any sports stores? Best Buy? Sears? ad infintum. You do know you can use the internet for customer service queries and issues- right?

Let me get his straight, you are blaming the lack of good retail help on deregulation?... Sounds like we should have a discussion on government schooling? Nah, just kidding... ;-o

Weird, I have such a different online experience than you- how can this be? The world is at my fingertips, price competition and more choices and product knowledge than one could hope for. There are first person product reviews, and I can not only acquire information for the retailers site, but in most cases from the manufacturer as well. Once more, typically I get far better service from an online retailers server than I can get from the local (industry dependent) sales jockey. This has been particularly true when it comes to purchasing photo/video equipment. Oh, then there's the fact that I don't need to leave my house to purchase.

By the way, if you find yourself tempted remind me (and us) of the good olde days, back when etc... FWIW, I was born when Kennedy was president.

I'm bowing out of this chat. The mods unfortunately, along with others here construe these types of conversations to be "political". Au contrare, politics are a blight on humanity. I am post political, I have no desire to discuss how one party or another would care to rule over me and pillage my property.

Peace. Over and out.
 
Curtis Mack said:
Now we have Wal-Mart and Target. I can't replace the wine glasses I bought at Target because they are always out of stock, and there are six Target stores within driving distance? ...
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Back in the late 1970's, when I was somewhat younger than I am now, a neighbor of ours and I got into a conversation on the relative quality of Soviet and Italian ice creams. My assertion was that the Soviet made better ice cream. He said, "You should buy higher quality (Italian) ice cream". Back then, it meant a cone not for ~ 15c-25c but for ~ 40c (and up to a dollar). And so I did and understood that he was right.

And while your old neighborhood Target may have closed, a brand new Amazon has opened and you don't even have to get out of your chair to shop there.
 
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