Have you ever really pondered if we simply had access to too much information these days? With the internet, smart phones, and so many other ways to query information anything you want it literally a matter of key strokes away…. Actually if you have a smart phone you don’t even have to type, just speak what you are looking for. It’s pretty amazing.

But sometimes the fact we have so much only makes our decisions more complicated. I remember the last time I booked a flight all the information I had to view was the date, time and where I was going. And oddly enough that was just the right amount of information.

Well, the other day I had to book a flight for work so I started searching expedia, travelocity, orbitz, kayak and all those other cheap flight sites and couldn’t find any good deals, so I went to southwest and they of course had the best fare I could find. I found the exact flight I wanted and was about to buy the ticket but then noticed a little bit of information that popped up. That information told me averages for that flight. This is good and yet oh so bad.

See the flight I was booking had a 30 minute layover in Denver, and I had thought to myself that was perfectly fine. We land on time, I make the connection and I’m good to go. But then I saw the flights statistics that showed me 44% of the time the flight was on time, so 4 out of 10 flights it’s on time. And 44% or 4 out of 10 times the flight is over 30 minutes late which would eat up my connection window. Then you see the average delay time of 35.9 minutes and doing that math that delay is greater then the window I had to make my connection in Denver. Now these numbers are statistics, they aren’t real. Well they are but things can change. I could happen to be on the flight that isn’t delayed and lands on time. But because this information was avaiable to me I started looking for other flights.

So then I came across this next flight with a great travel itinerary. But I only had 20 minutes to make my connection. And the stastistics for the first flight were good, 100% of the time the plane arrives on time, the average delay is a fraction of a minute. It doesn’t get any better then that. But then you look at the second leg of the journey and find out that that flight is late 50% of the time and the average delay is 78 minutes. Well, that means that my layover would be 98 minutes if I choose that flight and happened to be on one of those flights. And I’m not sure why the number only totals 50%, what happens to the plane the other 50% of the time? I’m guessing it’s just late but less then 30 minutes.

Anyways, booking a flight really has gotten to be far to complex. I think if a flight has a 50% or greater chance of being late based on historical data, they need to REVISE the schedule and just schedule it 30 minutes later to adjust the departure time.

Don’t give passengers this false sense of security when your own statistics show that its more likely then not that you are going to be delayed and/or miss your connection. I wish I could implement this in my daily life at work. My boss tells me to do something and I say I’ll have it done on time, but have a little footnote explaining that on average my promises to deliver are 50% late with an average lateness of 78 minutes. In other words, the chance I deliver on my promise is a crap shoot. But I can’t do that, if I promise to have something done I need to have it done, yet the airline industry is allowed to publish timelines that are pure fantasy, proven by their own statistics.

And I’m sure someone out there reading this objects to what I’m saying. It seems like as of late I always get one flamer posting a comment to me telling me just how wrong I am. But it’s all good.

Well, I’m writing this from about 20,000 feet as I sit in row 5 of my southwest flight. I knew before I left this had the potential to be one interesting trip. Call it a premonition if you will. Let me explain the adventures I have had thus far, keeping in mind I just now finally got out of my local airport.

I had me wife drop me off at the airport today around 1:30, after all the tsa said they recommend people showing to their flights at least 2 hours early. My flight was scheduled to leave at 3:35 so I had plenty of time.

As I wheeled my one bag In to the terminal to have it checked for free I went through the many rounds of ropes like a mouse in a maze and finally reached the back of the line. I will say the people that fly southwest seem to be a much more aggressive bunch of people. Perhaps this is because they all don’t know their seat yet and need to check in fast to get a decent one. Anyways I digress, so I’m standing and watching the line of people and one guy caught my eye. He was anxious to check in and he had no baggage so he went under the ropes to get to the nearest self checking kiosk….. Well had this bozo been paying attention he would have seen that there were about 15 kiosks for southwest, but only 5 that were opened. It just happened the first 3 he hit all said “close.” I watched as he tried to get each one to work.

Meanwhile back in line a kiosk opened up and everyone was pointing and telling this elderly couple where to go, surprised no one pushed them up to it. So those one dude finally gets checked in and I make it to the front and I hit the first kiosk that i saw was open and entered my cofirmation info, it comes back “please see a customer service agent.” I look up and this lady is just starring at me. She finally says after a few moments “I can help you, put your bag on the scale.” so I tried but they put a pole holding the 2nd floor up directly in front of the scale and the people to the left of me had no clue what they were doing. Eventually I picked my bag up over them and dropped it on the scale. The lady put my tag on it and asked me to carry it down to the baggage check……so I had to once again pick my bag up, lift it over the couple to the left of me and wheel it down about 30 feet…. Finally luggage checked… I don’t imagine I will ever see it again, just a gut feeling.. I would say maybe if I am lucky I have about a 25% chance of successful luggage reunion in California.

So I get down to security to do that whole song and dance and I thought I was prepared. I only had my iPad, headphones, wallet and boarding pass. I put the iPad and headphones in a tote to ru. Through security and the lady said I couldn’t bring my iPad with me……ummmmm….what? I guess her supervisor came over after she heard her say that and corrected her but that could have gotten ugly. So I finally get through security, put my shoes back on and gather my gadgets.

I look at my watch and it’s about 2:15 now so I decide to stop at the store to get some gum and a drink to take on the plane. I grabbed some m&ms as well, total cost $6.50 for $2.50 worth of product. Man I love airport pricing.

Now I head to my gate and sit down, weather is nice and I’m chilling talking to a nice couple across from me. Guess the husband was afraid to fly so we were just chatting it up wasting time. About the time for the flight to board I looked out the window and saw nothing. A huge storm moved in, seconds later loud thunder and flashing from the lightning outside the window and a loud BOOM. Lights at the airport went off…. We sat in the dark for a few minutes and finally some lights came back on followed by the pa system where country singers prerecorded messages were welcoming me to Nashville. I decided to hit the bathroom. While I had time and found the lights were off in there, thought to myself about the priorities of the airport. Let’s not fix the runway lights first, lets not get the general lights on… Let’s put a few random lights on followed by the PA system.

So we sit in the dark with few lights, no ac and no clue whats going on. I however was watching the weather, using my iPad 3G and weather bug. Suddenly the southwest worker came over and looked over my shoulder and asked me what the weather looked liked followed by about 80 passengers. I thought to myself, stuck in an airport with no clue whats going on? There’s an app for that!

Well. Sit and finally the list came back on and everyone started clapping….and the. The lights went back off for another 20 minutes and the was a loud unison sound of “awwww.” pretty funny.

Finally the lights came back on and the. They made 2 questionable announcements I don’t think they should have made.

1. The runway lights are not working.
2. Our aircraft is delayed further because it MAY have even struck by lightning…
Now runway lights not working ok, but you don’t tell all the waiting passengers maintenance is coming over to look at the plane because it may have been hit by a lightning bolt. That caused a bit of panic amongst those first time flyers and especially the guy I had even talking to.

Finally we boarded, turns out the plane was fine, or so they say. When I got on I checked for smoldering holes in the wings, didn’t see any. Thats about the extent of my abilities to check for damage on a 737.

Now we are flying and lots of turbulence so the flight attendants are staying seated, no drinks or peanuts, not a single luxury.

I’m beginning to not like southwest so far. This trip not the best experience. And I realize it’s not southwests fault, but still its like being a fish in a tank, at some point you blame the tank for being in a lousy situation.

Anyways, I will say I wrote all this on my ipads on screen keyboard and it is slick. I’m loving this thing more and more every time I use it.

This just in, guy next to me is reading a book called “you are not a gadget.”… He’s been reading since we took off.. He just put the book down and got his laptop and ipod from his bag, I think dude IS a gadget. And I know I am no better, but at least I. Not reading a book trying to convince myself and then push it aside.

Well I just watched the movie XIII on my ipad while on the plane and its not a bad movie. Sure beat the heck out of snakes on a plane. While watching this movie I couldn’t help but notice the line of people streaming to use the on board toilet. Made me wonder if you took bacterial swabs of that tiny little disease room what all would you find? I sure don’t want to find out but it cant be healthy for anyone.

We should be landing in LA shortly, I suppose this will just about finish this chapter. As soon as we land I’ll try to post this. Should anything else interesting happen look for my next post as I’ll put it in that one.

Well, it’s been a while but I’m going to be at 30,000 feet here in a few hours. I’m flying to San Jose to attend my sisters graduation. While looking for the best deal I decided to fly southwest. After all, southwest is the ONLY airline I am aware of that still lets your bags fly free. What a concept. You travel and your bags get to go for the price of the ticket. This is great beacause the last few times I flew I didn’t bring any luggage because it would have cost just as much for me to buy a new outfit as it would to check my luggage.

I figure if I’m going to pay that kind of money I’d rather have clothes to show for it and then mail them to me for like $8 instead of the airlines $50. So this time I actually have luggage, hopefully it makes it to where I am going, historically there is about a 50/50 chance I won’t get it back. Often times my luggage makes it overseas when I’m traveling domestically. Once it even made it on a flight that was cancelled…. Seriously, took over a week for them to find my bag after that one.

I did find one interesting thing about southwest. When I booked the seat it said “direct” but it didn’t say “non-stop.” Well last night when I was checking in to get my boarding pass I found out what exactly the difference was. See I had thought I was going from Nashville to San Jose “direct”, but because it didn’t say “non-stop” that was wrong. Instead I’ll be traveling to San Jose via Los Angeles… And the wonderful thing is I don’t get to get off the plane, nope, we land and pull to the gate, some people get off, some more get on and 20 minutes later back in the air. It’s really not that bad of a concept, but when you hear “direct” you often think straight there. Now I know next time when I book a plane to look for “non-stop”.

Lesson learned. But regardless the trip should be entertaining. If this trip goes like most other times when I travel I’m sure I’ll have some sort of story to tell although it most likely won’t be nearly as interesting as my Amarillo Texas blog I once wrote when I was down their for what seemed like forever.

But who knows what awaits other then the uncertainty of where I’ll be sitting.. I love having a seat number and not fond of Southwests “first on” policy. But for a few hundred dollars savings over American and Frontier I’ll give it a whirl. On the plus side I’ve got my iPad loaded with lots of movies I have never seen, about 4 gigs of work that I can review to get up to speed on my new job and a few games like Demolition Master, Plants Vs. Zombies so I have plenty to keep my occupied. Thankfully the trip is only estimated to be about 6 hours and the iPad battery life lasts around 10-14 from my past experiences. Hopefully whoever sits next to me leaves me alone. One of the guys I work with who traveled weekly as a contractor said when he brought his iPad on a plane EVERYONE wanted to play with it and ask questions… Perhaps I should load up the credit card terminal app and charge people by the second….. Hmmmmm….

Short and to the point. Why is it that NO ONE seems to know how much oil is leaking into the gulf? Everyone is guessing and everyone is saying those guesses are wrong…

It seems like the answer should be fairly obvious here.

See the oil rig Horizon was sucking oil out of that well at X number of barrels a day. NOTHING changed except the oil is no longer going into tanks, instead it’s now going into the gulf. So if X number obarrels were being sucked out a day then it seems like X number of barrels would now be leaking into the gulf… The same amount of oil is most likely flowing, the only variable here is where doe it flow to?

Does that not make sense or am I just terribly overlooking something here?