Here’s an example. MCAT. I fly ORD-PHL frequently. The times stated are a 2 hour flying time plus the hour time change. So for example leave ORD 8 am, arrive PHL 11 am. But I know that the actual in-flight time is more like 1 hr 30 mins or so, not 2 hours. The airlines know this and pad it. That’s why they tell me my 8 am flight is due to arrive at 11 am, not 10:30 am.
Really? Ya’ think?
People print their own boarding passes at home all the time. If u check in online, printing your boarding pass is an option. I do it whenever permissible.
It’s hard to fake a boarding pass nowadays, bcs they have a bar code that gets scanned as the passenger boards the plane. The bar code is tied to the passenger, the flight, the assigned seat.
Mcat…this is considered holiday weekend travel time. While YOUR airport might not have been busy, the others using the system certainly could have been. If your so was flying Southewst, for example, it is very possible that other airports serving this airline are busier than SJC.
Next time, print your boarding pass from home. And avoid the whole counter thing by using only carryon bags. And don’t tell me this is not possible. I went on a three week trip with summer and winter climates, and my clothing and such was in my carryon bag. Packing light is a life skill.
“If there were a huge number of travelers, the whole check-in process could never handle it. The incompetent computer/IT engineers in the heart of silicon valley are incapable of managing their computers at airport today. (This is a major airline, AA. Not those little regional airlines.) Rant off.”
Even on the busiest holidays, people go to airports, board flights, get to their destinations all the time.
What does being anxious serve?
Didn’t you say you are in IT, mcat? Then surely you know, this stuff happens. Would not call the IT folks in SV incompetent. Besides, the airlines probably use some cheap offshore contractors to handle their IT ~:>
P.S. American Airlines is a huge airline…flying out of a gazzilion airports. No surprise that on a busy weekend, the kiosks would be slow, and so would the compuyers at the check in counters. SJC is only ONE of a gazzilion airports American serves.
I agree that it is frustrating when those kiosks are slow. I try to print my boarding passes ahead of time but sometimes have to use the kiosks and I don’t like it when they are slow either.
We actually almost always print the boarding pass at home. We rarely used the curbside baggage check-in. (Not sure how much to tip. Is $5 enough if only one luggage?)
We wish we can pack light in the future. We have made a lot of progress but still not enough progress.
I always print my boarding passes in advance. Even at hotels. DH has had occasional problems with using the phone app when occasionally the readers/scanners at the airport are not working (battery died or something silly).
Never have heard of people printing fraudulent boarding passes, though once a counter agent gave me the wrong boarding pass (different passenger, who happened to be seated next to me so we ultimately had a good laugh about it) and I made it all the way to the plane (though security and all) before I realized it and went back to get it fixed. Sheesh.
On a recent trip, two passengers had the same seat assignment. Both had boarding passes, and both were assigned the same seat. The second person got seated in first class. Stuff happens.
I have not taken AA for a while so I do not know their policy. For the 3 legs of flying AA (including the one this morning), DS always received a “free drink” coupon. I heard they gave out beer, whisky (a small bottle.) He was in the economy class (albeit not the cheapest “O” class due to the holiday travel.)
Do AA always give out free drink now?
I actually did not know I could simply type the flight number on Google and get the in-flight status. (But looking at the real-time display of the plane on flightaware.com is more “satisfying”.)
I also do not know kiosks could become slow.
@jym, No, I am not on IT.
Thanks.
“To check a flight all you need to do is enter, for example “united flight 322” into Google. You don’t need to bother going to a specific website.”
Some late gate change info (an hour or less before flight), does not alsays get picked up by Google. Always check the monitors at the airport or the airline’s website (if you are meeting someone at the airport). Happens to Alaska flights quite often.
“Do AA always give out free drink now?”
Free alcoholic drink? No.
DS’s first flight arrived at the connection airport only 3 minutes late. It gives him 52 minutes to change the flight, I think.
He could make it as he is very familiar with the skylink (inter-terminal light rail) there. It would amaze me if the baggage could be transfered from a plane at one terminal (terminal D) to another plane at another terminal (terminal A) within about 50 minutes. If they can do it, they are really efficient, IMHO.
They do this quite a bit. They’re pretty efficient 
Yes, I think so too.
Sometimes I am amazed by the productivity and efficiency in some segment of industry.
Alaska airlines now allows you to print out your luggage tags as well as your boarding pass at home. They provide a reusable holder for the luggage tag, which you print and fold so the bar codes are showing. You still have to show ID and drop it off at a counter, but you avoid using the kiosks and the drop line moves very quickly.
His 2nd leg of flight was delayed by 10 minutes - maybe they need to wait 10 minutes for DS’s baggage to be transferred from another plane (just joking).
Now his plane will land at the final destination shortly after 5:00 pm. This meets my wife’s requirement of air travel: The plane should arrive at its final destination no later than dinner time.
What we learned today is that the kiosk machine could be as slow as the Internet connection on our home computer occasionally. Today, it was so slow that most travelers thought they were broken. I think DS had tried on 4 kiosks before it was dawn on him that it was just caused by a extremely slow system but the kiosk is still usable with a lot of patience. The hardest part was to be convinced that the kiosk is not broken so it is useless to keep changing to another kiosk. I guess he has more “computer hacker” mentality than the average traveler. (after all, he had just spent a whole day to upgrade his MacBook Pro to Yosemite starting from a reformated hard disk so he was fully aware that it would sometimes take a lot of time to tame this kind of beast). This is because most travelers just gave up on using the kiosk and asked the ticketing agent to help instead.
He seems to be quite pleased with himself, when the 3 shiny pieces of paper (boarding pass, baggage claim ticket and the free alcohol drink coupon) were finally printed by that kiosk which “crawls” as slowly as a snail.
mcat, you are posting a LOT of identifying information about your son. Please stop doing that. It’s not fair to him that you’re pasting a play-by-play of his day on an “anonymous” internet site where anyone can see it.