samak Posted April 5, 2009 Report Share Posted April 5, 2009 Star Alliance let Turkish Airline and Egypt Air join for the only reason that United might not be the worst airline of the alliance! i use them only for domestic flights in USA... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rchapstick Posted April 5, 2009 Report Share Posted April 5, 2009 I'd be curious as to which American carrier you are referring to. All major carriers are in some sort of alliance so your mileage most likely is good on several carriers which may include Asian carriers. Alliances used to be good, but the value has been reduced over time due to: 1) No mileage bonuses for elite members on partner flights. I get 2X redeemable miles on UA plus elite quailfying bonuses, where as I only get 1X RDM's on qualifying fares. 2) Lots of non-qualifying or reduced mileage fares. Also sucks Also, my corporate fares are only good for UA metal flights, and that is where my corporate TA books me. So I end up using UA for paid flights and rack up as many miles as I can. Then I use SQ, TG, or NH for biz or first class awards. If I need to, I will select the odd UA flight on my own to hit an elite threshold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cavanami Posted April 5, 2009 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2009 I was on UA891, Narita to BKK this Friday...would be nice if a certain board member could access the maintenance logs to see if the plane was OK'd to fly to Narita with the suspected faulty door seal...a little 007 action/recon here....pleeeeeeze! This info might put some bite into the nasty gram that I will be sending to United this week! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samak Posted April 6, 2009 Report Share Posted April 6, 2009 is the plane used for UA 891 really coming from USA? i had the impression that they use some of the planes for the routes from Narita to their various asian destinations only. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Goodtime Posted April 6, 2009 Report Share Posted April 6, 2009 Cava, mate, you are an old Asia hand. You should know by now that the number one rule of trans-Pacific travel is: Never Fly a US Carrier for Any Reason!!!! Cheers, SD I concur! I have been looking at the different flights for my next LOS trip. I don't even consider a US carrier. Korean Air seems to have the best deal for me since I want out and into my homeport without stopping in another US city (e.g. LAX or SFO). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rchapstick Posted April 6, 2009 Report Share Posted April 6, 2009 is the plane used for UA 891 really coming from USA? i had the impression that they use some of the planes for the routes from Narita to their various asian destinations only. This is actually quite true. Before, when I flew UA837 routed SFO-NRT-BKK, they would sometimes use a different aircraft on the NRT-BKK leg. The most obvious giveaway was when the livery was different (old grey versus new white-and-blue). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LAX Posted April 6, 2009 Report Share Posted April 6, 2009 is the plane used for UA 891 really coming from USA? i had the impression that they use some of the planes for the routes from Narita to their various asian destinations only. last time I took UA 891 it was the same aircraft , not sure if it always is LAX Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Hippie Posted April 6, 2009 Report Share Posted April 6, 2009 I was on UA891, Narita to BKK this Friday...would be nice if a certain board member could access the maintenance logs to see if the plane was OK'd to fly to Narita with the suspected faulty door seal...a little 007 action/recon here....pleeeeeeze! This info might put some bite into the nasty gram that I will be sending to United this week! Frankly, I find your rant pointless...here is why...first off, if they fixed the door seal in SFO, you'd have been delayed, and you might have missed the connecting flight to BKK...wherever the BKK bound plane started out, the mechanic/pilot might have felt the seal was "gtg" (good to go) however, the crew in NRT might have felt differently. I have found stuff on preflight that I wrote up, only to have a supervisor over rule me...in some cases, the pilot got involved and said "if the mechanic says fix it, then fix it or I am not taking the plane..." So the people involved matter... Now, as for a bull shit repair? don't think so, records are kept, and ANY airline would rather get a plane out or take a delay for ANY reason OTHER THAN MAINTENANCE! Mainly because too many maintenance delays has the FAA poking around more to find out what the problem is, and that means finding more shit... Now for your trip...any one of a few things could have happened...most likely, 1) the problem developed in flight 2) the problem was within limits on take off, but went out of limits in flight 3) the preflight inspection crew decided the problem had to NOW be dealt with...4) they did nothing and your plane dropped into the ocean... So yes, the service sucks on UAL I agree, but give them some slack for making sure the problem didn't turn into a disaster. I can assure you, they were NOT bullshitting you or playing games. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rchapstick Posted April 6, 2009 Report Share Posted April 6, 2009 2. No reason we could not have been taken off the plane...but due to "customs and security" we have to stay on the plane...bullshit!!! UA was likely telling the truth. The Japanese are very squirrely about this. From their perspective, once you get on the plane, you have "left the country" and you would need to be readmitted thru immigration and customs. Once I was flying CX from LAX to HKG, and it turned out that the crew had timed out and we had to land in Osaka and wait for a relief crew to ferry us on to HKG. The staff at KIX let us off the plane, but they literally locked us into the gate area ... could not even leave to use the lav (had to go back on the plane to use the lav). We sat there for 5 hours while they serviced the plane and waited for the relief crew. They did, thankfully, pass out sandwiches and bottles of water. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Hippie Posted April 6, 2009 Report Share Posted April 6, 2009 Non of this seems out of order to me...all standard procedure really...shit happens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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