Life hack

I saw a guy yell at the gate employee. The guy's flight had arrived late and the employee was telling him that the door to his connecting flight was already closed so she could not let him board even though the plane hadn't left yet. Eventually a manager showed up and got yelled at too and he opened the door and let the guy on the plane. So it can work.
I would have just taken no for an answer and ended up waiting in the airport for however many hours it took for them to find a new flight for me. Stupid me.
- It absolutely can work, because people are also lazy fucks etc. It is not like any worker will always want to help you as best as they theoretically could.
  
  They probably also don't have the final say themselves and don't want to bring every complaint to their manager.
  
  I once qued up for a line to the airplane and stood there for basically most of the que. Then suddenly PA announcement calls me out of the que to talkto the employees at the front of the que. The reason: "You sit near emergency exit, are you aware? Y/N".
  Then they sent me to the back of the fucking que.
  I did not smile to them or say thank you that day.
- "The squeaky wheel gets the grease" is an adage that is unfortunately true, and I find it absolutely infuriating.
  I would much prefer that we can all be polite and courteous to each other, so when being polite fails but having a screaming tantrum gets results it really makes me annoyed at the unfairness.
- At this point you are training your customers to be abusive arseholes.
  Should have revoked the ticket for being abusive and barred that customer for a few months. You are a big boy now, you can work it out. Maybe try not being a cunt next time.
  
  Declining the customer's reasonable request disproportionately affects them. The corporation is a big boy too, and can eat whatever associated cost of accommodating (paying the customer off, resetting the "clock" the pilot is on by opening the door). In some cases, there's no impact to any other customer (such as making up the lost time once you're in the air and can cruise faster). These random occurrences are built into the price. If it happens too often then the corporation needs to track their own data better and not issue tickets with unreasonably timed or otherwise risky connections, because to not do so will enable their competitors to one-up them. Free market, amirite?
- There is a trick that may or may not work in this circumstance - tell them your baggage is already in the hold. If they know you aren't on the plane, they would have to unload the plane to recover the baggage. It's worked with me once, where the gate staff called the pilot, who told them to let me through.

I mean, they don't, but they do have some obligations about rerouting you in other flights, reimbursing you or helping you return home if you are in transit. They also have to help you deal with the delay time and they may owe you some compensation on top of the ticket price.
So hell yeah, be nice to airline ground staff, but don't let them weasel out of the company's obligations, either.
- and the flight they rerout you to only departs the next day so good luck sleeping on the floor
  
  Well, they do have to give you the option to just take your money back if you can arrange better alternatives. But I do believe they need to help you find accommodations for that as well. At least according to the EU portal about flight passenger rights:
  Assistance in the event of cancellation
  Airlines should offer you and provide assistance free of charge while you wait. In the event of travel disruption, you should make yourself known to the airline, to avoid a situation where you have to make your own arrangements. Airlines should also ensure, where available, that accommodation is accessible for people with disabilities and their service dogs. The assistance to be provided includes:
  
  Refreshments Food Accommodation (if you are rebooked to travel the next day) Transport to your accommodation and return to the airport 2 telephone calls, telex, fax messages or emails
  If assistance is not offered and you paid for your own meals and refreshments etc., the airline should reimburse you, provided the expenses were necessary, reasonable and appropriate. You should keep all receipts for this purpose. You only have the right to assistance as long as you have to wait for re-routing, under comparable transport conditions, to your final destination at the earliest opportunity or a return flight.
  In exceptional cases, the airline may decide to limit or decline assistance if it would cause further delay to passengers waiting for an alternative or a delayed flight.
  So I get that it's annoying for the ground staff being used as a human shield for anger, but you ARE supposed to "make yourself known" and there is clearly an implication of some back-and-forth to agree on what's possible. Given what the expectation being set is I'm not sure I'm ready to blame passengers for being angry when getting less than expected. If you're sleeping on the floor somebody wasn't ready to deal with cancellations as well as they should have been.
  Also, fax and telex being explicitly listed there is delightfully 80s.
  For the record, I once got stuck at an airport in the US for maybe five extra hours during a layover (the longest delay I've had that wasn't just a warning before I got to the airport) and they did buy me a Burger King meal while I waited, so it's not like this isn't done. I think the scenarios we all visualize where this is a problem are mass cancellations in emergencies where tons of flights are grounded all at once and hundreds or thousands of people need help.
  On the one hand I get how those are impossible situations, but they also happen regularly, so the protocols for them should probably be better than they are.
  
  Twice I've had a flight that was canceled or returned to origin after 90 minutes in the air and then couldn't redepart until 24 hours after we landed.
  They provided hotels both times.

I learned from a recent conversation (in which I was the jerk) that many of the airplane employees are not actually employees of the airline.
Often they are contractors without any benefits, including free flights. When they have to travel for work, they sometimes have to pay for their own hotels. They literally have to pay just to work.
- This story was brought to you by the US of A

I’ll never forget this one. Used to fly a lot for work. Got stuck somewhere cause of “weather”. The low level person and I were talking. I watch a plane takeoff through the window behind him. He’s like you hear that, thunder.
- Sometimes it’s about the class of plane and the weather on the specific route you’re taking.

It’s all AI now. They check the decibel level of how loudly you scream at the workers who have nothing to do with the actual problem. Whoever screams loudest gets access to the secret Karen fleet.
- I can’t wait for snack time on the Karen flight. You better believe they’re gonna have those fuckin pretzels.
- nah, there's a secret code for most places. it's
  000000000000000000000000000000000000000
  edit - yeah, i've got special plans for the ones that don't let you do that now

I did not know this. Thanks!!!
Time to book a flight...
- Complimentary life hack: since practice makes perfect, you can just go the airport anytime to treat them like shit, without a ticket. That way, when you really need to, you’re all ready a pro.

Maybe someone who works for an airline can explain this to me. Most other industries that rely on a piece of equipment to function, have backups on standby. The number of backups is a function of the failure rate of that specific piece of equipment. So let's say you are a trucking company, and you know from experience that one out of twenty trucks on average will go down in a given week for some repair issue but it's in your company's best interest to keep the freight moving on time. So you have 5% of your fleet on standby across your shipping route to keep your business functioning. It doesn't seem like airlines do this, or they do it very poorly and don't seem to have any incentive to improve. What gives??
- Airlines store their airplanes on airports most of the time when not in the air. Airports charge them a huge amount of money for this. Even if if there is a few minutes delay, they get big fines for occupying a gate.
  Imagine having extra planes on standby.
  
  That’s really inefficient, just keep them flying round, constantly, you can fly them to the airport that they will be needed at.
- Because planes that aren't moving aren't generating money. And airlines inherently are NOT catering to the Uber rich. The Uber rich have their OWN planes and jets.
  A trucking company by comparison has much more to lose if something doesn't ship on time, especially if contracted with high value or time sensitive goods.
- If you account for the backups having the same failure rate it’s 5.2631579%

We need shitty life hack comunity
- it's called reddit
  
  The real LPT is always in the comments

I choose to believe this.

Airlines don't typically want to delay aircraft; they usually have to due to mechanical or other issues they have to check. The more the aircraft is in the air, the more money is made.
If you could see the list of delay causes, you'd think twice about questioning delays.
- If the world was halfway organised, airports would have spare unbranded planes that airlines could use in a pinch when their aircraft need some emergency issues.
  Fly it out and back and the main plane is back in use.
  Make airlines pay proper compensation and they'd sort this themselves.
  
  Won't work. Too many different systems between different airlines and aircraft. Pilots won't be rated to use the right equipment and that's the last thing you want.