Like GRR needs more expensive flights…

walterh April 2, 2013
[2] comments

For six months in 2010, I flew into GRR airport (Grand Rapids, Michigan) every week.  The thing that got me?  I was paying a buttload of cash just to fly into there, or the tiny AZO (Kalamazoo) airport to the South.  Never failed; there were about a dozen consultants, though I was coming from the farthest, since I’m West Coast based, and my tickets were always around $1,000 per week.

A few times I flew on Frontier, one of the only LCCs to fly into GRR.  And now, Frontier just announced that they’re getting out of the GRR market.

Sources say that it’s because Southwest is going in there.  AirTran has been in GRR for a while, but apparently now parent Southwest is going to move in as well.  Will it have an effect on the $1,000 airfares?  I doubt it.  Why?  Because it’s not really had an effect in Atlanta.  So why should it have an effect elsewhere?  Higher fares – and fewer flights, on more and more unreliable aircraft (can you say ‘maintenance delay’?) – are here to stay, it seems.

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Oh TSA, how I hate thee

walterh July 1, 2010
[0] comments

BLAH! So I’ve talked about the TSA quite a bit, and what a joke I think they are. After all, what about all of the stuff they COULD stop but haven’t? But today, even though I think something is up, the TSA is officially ‘going through the motions’ and of course, being the douches they normally are – and pissing me off.

So I mentioned my problem with the TSA here at the GRR airport before, and how they allowed a security breach to occur, but did nothing about it.  So you can imagine that if they don’t take their job seriously, I can’t take them serious.  I get up to the TSA line and an agent approaches me.  (WTF, do I look approachable or something?) They say, “Excuse me. Please hold out your hands so I can swab them.”  Swab?  And WTF am I the only one being swabbed out of a group of people?  And WTF are they trying to do, anyway?

That said, there is something going on out there.  Driving into the airport, there were two agents standing scanning cars as they were approaching the terminal.  There were others wandering around (other than looking dumb, like usual).  And then the hand-swabbing.  I tell you, there is something going on the public doesn’t know.  I’ll have to start digging around.

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What if there was a security breach at an airport, but TSA didn’t care?

walterh April 8, 2010
[1] comment

Just happened right in front of me here at GRR (Grand Rapids Airport). Interesting.  Actually, not interesting.  Maddening is more like it.

Me: Um, there’s a guy that just walked up the “exit only” area.
TSA Agent: I wouldn’t worry about it. Probably just one of us.
Me: No, he had a bag. He’s a traveler. Turn around – he’s right THERE.
TSA Agent: Don’t worry about it.
Me: WTF?

After I got through security, I walked the terminal, and found the guy.  He was sitting with his bag at a window, waiting for his flight.  No sense in telling the TSA – they have already showed that they could not care less.

At least it’s Thursday!

Posted in Air Travel, Airports | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment