Rachel Wimberly

Unreliable Airlines Affect Us All
April 1, 2008

At this point, it’s hard to keep track of all the bad news coming from the airline industry about canceled flights and passengers stranded for one reason or another. Besides all of the winter storms that left people scattered around the country trying to get somewhere else with snow and wind getting in the way in the midst of it all, Southwest Airlines got into massive trouble for not checking their planes out properly.

To Southwest’s credit, they said they had filed all of their maintenance records with the Federal Aviation Administration and assumed everything was up to snuff, but the FAA balked at what it deemed to be serious lapses by Southwest and grounded a slew of planes. Of course, passengers who had no warning were caught up in the ensuing chaos as planes that were still able to fly were shuffled around to accommodate everyone.

It seemed like as soon as Southwest go its act back together, two more airlines, American Airlines and Delta Airlines, that were under scrutiny by the FAA decided they too needed to take a closer look at some of their planes’ wiring. Passengers, again, were adversely affected as both airlines took planes in and out of service.

One can only imagine how many people who were trying to go to, or get back from, tradeshows may have been affected by all of these problems. With air travel costing a fortune right now and the hassle of just getting through airport security and onto the plane, as well as the inevitable weather factor to deal with and, to top it off, possibly faulty aircraft, at what point will people just skip going to a show altogether?

Posted by Rachel Wimberly on April 1, 2008 | Comments (0)