Originally posted by Snapper
And as they seem to turn it into pathetic-rugby, why do they need to armour plate themselves? Should play like real men. Ugly men with cauliflower ears that is.

I’m not going to clown on rugby, I’ve been to a few rugby matches in Australia, and those guys are tough. Any real fan of American football will admit how tough rugby is, as well. You can’t even compare rugby and ‘gridiron,’ however, so I’m not even going to waste my time. Two completely different sports. The reason for the ‘armour plating’ is obvious, if you know the game. If the NFL did not require its players to wear pads and helmets, you would have 5-10 deaths per year, minimum. We really don’t want that, do we?

Originally posted by duxfordhawk
Besides you saw that sense of humour when we sold you a crappy old Bridge that you all thought was something special.

Nobody in America gives 2 $hits about the London Bridge, nor do they know what it is, if that’s what you’re referring to.

Originally posted by wannabe pilot
And the bar is that of an Airbus, can be used on a variety, but most likely to be A320 or A319.

The only Airbus types UA operates is the aforementioned A319/A320, so yeah.

Originally posted by mikeconnell
(this was quite important to us as this was my emigration flight).

Congratulations! Let me know how all your paperwork and everything goes. My wife is currently in the process of naturalization.

Originally posted by mikeconnell
IMHO the immediate rebooking was a very customer-friendly move by United. As you say, hotel accommodation would have cost less if it was needed. In the event I guess they must have wished they had not rerouted everyone, but that’s how the dice rolled.

Rather unrelated, but the first time I flew out of LHR with UA in ’01, I was booked on the last ORD flight of the day, although this was not final destination (I had 2 segments after ORD). Apparantly our flight was overbooked and they were asking for volunteers to bump. I attempted to get bumped and possibly get a voucher and whatnot, but because ORD was not my final destination, they probably factored that in, and figured they would have to pay for a hotel for me. Turns out they didn’t let me give up my seat. Oh well, I tried to be nice. 😎

I have no idea about profitability of Airlines. I know all the U.S. majors have been losing bigtime the last few years. I would think that EK is doing pretty well, seeing as they are expanding and purchasing new and used aircraft on a regular basis.

I have wondered the same thing myself, Mike. A similar situation happened to me, albeit on a much shorter flight. Last Novemeber I was flying from Eugene, OR (EUG) to Phoenix, AZ (PHX) on UA (of course) via SFO. The flight out of Eugene was late which caused us to miss our connection in SFO. The next UA flight out of SFO to PHX was some 4 hours later, and being with the wife, I didn’t want to wait around that long. Had I been by myself, I wouldn’t care as SFO has great in-terminal viewing and outstanding facilities. At any rate, I was pretty upset when I found no-one at the UA customer service counter airside so I had to go landside. I told the agent my situation and knowing that America’s Worst, errr, America West flew the same routing, I asked the agent if he could put me on an earlier flight on HP. He called over to HP and asked if they had 2 seats available so he put us on that flight, which left 2 hours earlier than the next UA flight. Since the flight was only an hour and a half, I really didn’t care. Besides, I still got my UA mileage credit for that leg, even though it was on a different carrier. So yeah, back to original question, I don’t know what happens in that situation. If they have each others backs, even though they are competitors, that would be cool, in my opinion. As Mike mentioned, these scenarios happen to every airline.

Gentlemen (and lady),

I’m a regular in the commercial forum, but I jump in here occassionally just to see what’s up. I am not Aussie, but my wife is. Apparantly they voted about 2 years ago whether to break away from the Queen or not. The Queen won, so I don’t know if they want to do the same election again and obtain different results, or what.