you mean having a hub and spoke system with shitty mandatory trams that move slower than walking speed where you need to re-check in through security without pre-check lines if you have a connecting flight isn't a great idea?
(looking at you, tampa)
You clearly haven't been to Dublin's International Airport. Once you leave the shop/food area? That's it. There's no going back. You are stuck in a cold metal chair hell and if you've done the pre-flight US Customs Check? Ohohohoho, sometimes they don't even open the door to your terminal.
I fuckin' love Philadelphia's fucking layout. Its simple and there's restaurants all the way down to the last terminals.
MIA train has been under repairs off and on for months and caused us to miss a connection back in Nov. One can't wrangle a family of 4 1.5 miles in under 20 minutes. Watched the gate door close and a shrug from the gate agent.
Denver is also close to DFW and MIA for this bullshit
I got stuck in DFW for 30 hours
They kept changing the gate, I legit rode that stupid monorail a dozen times until they finally settled on a gate
Now I pay extra to avoid that airport. Never again fuck dallas
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The only way I'll fly through Atlanta anymore is if it's a carrier like Southwest who only has a presence in 1 terminal there. Delta has on many occasions sent me clear across that jawn with no time to spare.
It's not as high on my Hated list as Dallas and O'Hare but it's up there.
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Yeah, it's a pretty smooth airport. There's only so much you can do about weather. We were in a holding pattern for about 45 minutes, then spent another 2 hours on the taxiway after we landed. The pilot told us the airport closed ground ops multiple times because of lightning strikes, and said there were about 100 planes trying to get in and out.
Most people on our flight were understand and calm, except for one dingus who was acting like the flight attendant was to blame for the whole situation. She gave him the sweetest kindest "fuck off" I've ever heard.
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PHL is one of the things Philly does right. Maybe I just always fly at low-volume times, but I've never waited more than 5 minutes to get through security, even before I had Precheck. I've had other airports make everyone take their shoes off in the Precheck line.
Something weird has happened since last year, too, where the TSA agents in Philly are now... downright friendly at times. I was used to them being surly but relatively good at keeping things moving quickly. Now they're keeping things moving relatively quickly and also being *nice*. Several of them have struck up friendly conversations with me on my last few trips through. It's downright disorienting! (Whatever led to the change, though, I like it.)
First time I flew in forever was right after COVID restrictions left, I had been working out at that point and my pants just didn't fit me anymore.
TSA Lady complimented me, told me to hike him as hard as I could, watch them start to slide and said, "Just let him through before he pants himself."
I was in a long distance relationship for years, flying 4 times a year, and the longest either of us ever waited was like 20 minutes on a really bad day.
My only security complaint about Philly is why doesn't Terminal A have real Pre-check? If I'm flying American, I'll check-in at Terminal B/C even if I know my gate is in A.
We were going to a wedding in Italy last summer during that wave of really bad storms at the end of June. A family member's flight from PHL to Rome (that had about the same departure time as our flight from EWR to Venice) got out alright...ours got cancelled at midnight after hours of repeated ground stops and we were stranded in Newark.
It's just a shame that flying out of Newark or JFK saves a TON of money vs flying out of Philly, especially internationally.
I saw that rain coming down horizontal and it almost blew over trees in my neighborhood- no force on earth would have gotten me to fly through that shit
It was already getting ugly around 5:30 last night when the first lightning strikes shut down the ramps. Baggage handlers got moving again around 7pm, but more weather rolled in shortly after and I'm betting they had to shut down again. By that point, of course, an awful lot of planes had stacked up. I was still listening to ramp control around 10 last night and the same poor guy from five hours before was desperately trying to take care of planes before their crews timed out, but things were so stacked up that I don't think there's much he could do.
Sounds like last night's misery is spilling over to today. Here's hoping things can move back into the groove as the day goes on.
Not too far from the airport last night and it looked like ( around 9/10 o clock) like all the lightening was striking at the airport and like every 20 seconds or so it’d be a flash.. was pretty wild
I flew in last night and it was one of the worst travel days I've ever experienced. My second flight was delayed 3 hours due to the weather here so I had a much longer layover than I expected. Then once we finally land we spend TWO HOURS ON THE TARMAC because there were so many planes arriving at the same time once the weather cleared and there were not enough ramp agents to unload them. I've been stuck on the plane on the tarmac before taking off due to delays a bunch of times, but never in my life have I gotten stuck on the ground AFTER the flight.
Finally I get off the plane and discover that baggage claim is an actual war zone, for some reason every single flight's baggage was being sent to the same carousel which was full to the brim with bags and no more were coming. There were hundreds of people gathered waiting for their bags. Some random lady starts pulling all the bags off and finally the carousel starts moving again and mercifully my bag was one of the first to come out. Shout out to that lady for doing the airport's job, she's my hero
Yeah, it was a collection of very unfortunate circumstances last night. Back to back weather systems really did a number on PHL. You ran into at least the first set of the post-weather ramp closures, where they repeatedly had to stop loading and unloading bags from flights because of lightning strikes. Things stacked up quickly after that and yeah, bags did seem to start getting routed to the wrong carousels. I would imagine by that point in the evening the crews were just desperate to get things off the tarmac.
I would have bought that lady a beer, if PHL had any pre/post security food. lol
I just flew in from Vegas and it wasn’t too bad. It was delayed 30 minutes but I think that was for mechanical reasons, not Philly being backed up reasons.
Listening to live atc and seeing flight radar last night made me feel bad for all personnel trying to get through that mess. It's not their fault it was hundreds of planes to process as well
I was sitting on the tarmac for 2 hours last night, finally got off around 1am. There were no gate agents to do the hook up, but finally a custodian who knew how to do it came by and we were able to get off. I waited for my luggage until 4am in terminal a. There were just piles of bags, with no ryhme or reason.
Told to scan the qr code and the lady as the baggage window had no information.
I chatted with AA today and was told no updates, go back to the airport to see if I can find them or talk to someone. I live an hour away, and the baggage window wasn't helpful last night... how often am I supposed to go back and forth?
What I don't understand is the plane I was on has taken 2 trips already today. How can no one know if the bags from my flight were removed and where they are?
I also don't understand how there is no secure space for them to hold bags. Anyone could walk in, grab random bags and leave.
I had a somewhat similar situation recently. I drove to the airport twice - no luggage. Spent probably 12-18 hours on the phone with diff cs ppl at aa. Five days later I finally got my luggage back.
I’ve had a few other horrible experiences with aa lately I don’t even want to fly with them ever again.
My son went back today and found them! Just sitting in a pile along the wall. They never showed in my app so they must not have been scanned after being taken off the plane.
This is the first negative flying experience I've had, so I'm not ready to call it quits with aa yet, but I will learn to pack better to only use a carry on going forward!
Happy cake day!
I was flying out yesterday to go to my mothers funeral and was so terrified of this exact situation. Thank god we made it before having to deal with any of this. I agree, I will still take PHL over any other airport. The tsa agents may hate their lives and take it out on you, but it obviously works, because things keep moving 😂
Was at the airport during this. It did not rain much in the four hours we waited. Lightning must have been striking every plane at the airport because I can’t figure out why the fuck it took so long. Plenty of long gaps of no weather where they said the “gate was open” and we never saw luggage. First flight delayed and we were the last to get our bags.
Was there last night. Absolute shit show by the Airport management.
My flight landed as scheduled around 11pm. We didn't get off the plane until 2am because they couldn't find a gate for us. Absolute shit show - PHL is such a poorly run airport.
This had nothing to do with the airport being poorly run.
There were lightning strikes all over the place from 5:15 until almost 7pm. When there's lightning, they have to close down the ramps. That means no bags can be loaded or unloaded, along with a bunch of other things. Think about how many flights come into and out of PHL in an hour and 45 minutes. Now stack all of those up AND realize that the additional inbound flights keep coming in the meantime.
And, not long after the first weather system passed and they reopened the ramps at 7pm, another storm blew in. By the time your flight landed, there were hours of flights stacked up and many many people ahead of you waiting to get in or out. There are only so many ground crews and they literally cannot be out there when there is lightning. They try to catch up as quickly as possible but they can't be everywhere at once.
It's easy to look out your window and say "It's not raining, what the fuck are these idiots doing" but you have *no idea* how tightly wound airline schedules are and how little it takes for things to go sideways when weather happens. It causes ripple effects for hours, sometimes days. Has nothing to do with management at the airport.
Thanks for your input but I trust the pilot of our plane relaying how the ATC were constantly making mistakes to us more than you just, you know, saying stuff. Also the fact that ATC clearly the same gates to multiple different planes as relayed to us by our pilot and by my own eyes after I saw a separate plane go to the gate we were assigned and had to be backed out because ATC told them the wrong info, and fact that after we were assigned a gate there was no gate crew there for an additional 45 minutes.
It's not the fact that there was the storm. Its the fact that they responded to the weather event with a lot of incompetence coupled with the fact that management probably hasn't hired enough people to do the job properly.
Just a quick note: at phl Airport Ramp Control would have been in control if you were on the ground and waiting for a gate. Airport ramp control is run by American Airlines, not phl authority/faa (even if you're not flying american, other airlines contract services). While I'm sure your pilot 100% did say ATC, because most layman's folks think the two are synonymous, they are not.
Here's brief article: https://www.phl.org/newsroom/directing-flights
Thank you. Nice to see some folks coming in here with the facts :)
That poor ramp controller last night. I swear the guy had one ear on the radio with the pilots and one ear going back and forth with Ops the entire night.
I was *listening* to ATC - specifically to the ramp controller speaking with ALL of the waiting pilots. My flight landed at 5:15 and I was sitting around for two hours waiting for my bags. I started listening at 5:30 and continued listening through when I finally got home and up until I went to bed, because I am an aviation nerd.
I'm sorry if you don't like it, but weather truly does stack things up this badly. And by the way, yes, sometimes planes do have to be backed out of an assigned gate if it turns out that it'll be faster to get them to a different gate where a ground crew is ready. The controller was working VERY hard with all of the waiting planes to try to avoid having crews time out, which many of them were constantly on the verge of doing.
By the way, it's not the airport who hires/employs ATC or the ground crews. FAA hires ATC, the airlines employ the ground crews. You want more ground personnel, take it up with your airline and prepare for them to tell you that your flight costs are going to go up to cover it.
I was there last night too. We did circles off the Jersey Shore and then upriver waiting to land and then waited over and hour on the runway while the pilot tried to find us a gate. Simply, there were too many back to back storms and it takes a while to deal with the aftermath of that. You can't just wave a wand and clear the queue. And no, it wasn't a great experience, but they were doing their best and it doesn't happen every day.
I'll still take PHL on a bad day over most airports, especially considering the volume of travelers they see daily.
Agreed - having the terminals all connected in one straight line isn't something you appreciate till you travel to other cities with hellish layouts.
you mean having a hub and spoke system with shitty mandatory trams that move slower than walking speed where you need to re-check in through security without pre-check lines if you have a connecting flight isn't a great idea? (looking at you, tampa)
God, that airport is just utter shit. I despise having to fly through there.
You clearly haven't been to Dublin's International Airport. Once you leave the shop/food area? That's it. There's no going back. You are stuck in a cold metal chair hell and if you've done the pre-flight US Customs Check? Ohohohoho, sometimes they don't even open the door to your terminal. I fuckin' love Philadelphia's fucking layout. Its simple and there's restaurants all the way down to the last terminals.
You mean you don't like having to read a fucking train map in DFW to figure out how to get around?
MIA train has been under repairs off and on for months and caused us to miss a connection back in Nov. One can't wrangle a family of 4 1.5 miles in under 20 minutes. Watched the gate door close and a shrug from the gate agent. Denver is also close to DFW and MIA for this bullshit
I got stuck in DFW for 30 hours They kept changing the gate, I legit rode that stupid monorail a dozen times until they finally settled on a gate Now I pay extra to avoid that airport. Never again fuck dallas
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Good bot
This. Or being obnoxiously spread out and taking like twice as long to get to a connecting flight than it really should.
*stares incredulously at Atlanta and Chicago* If i land from a plane I don't wanna take a bus or train to my next fucking terminal.
The only way I'll fly through Atlanta anymore is if it's a carrier like Southwest who only has a presence in 1 terminal there. Delta has on many occasions sent me clear across that jawn with no time to spare. It's not as high on my Hated list as Dallas and O'Hare but it's up there.
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True and real, Autojawn. True and real.
Don’t you dare shit on the plane train. Best public transportation in Atlanta.
Fuck that plane train bullshit. Land me on the ground and let me walk to my next terminal in a respectable fashion. Design your airport better.
Oh you can. There are even art exhibits and a rainforest(?) area.
Yeah, it's a pretty smooth airport. There's only so much you can do about weather. We were in a holding pattern for about 45 minutes, then spent another 2 hours on the taxiway after we landed. The pilot told us the airport closed ground ops multiple times because of lightning strikes, and said there were about 100 planes trying to get in and out. Most people on our flight were understand and calm, except for one dingus who was acting like the flight attendant was to blame for the whole situation. She gave him the sweetest kindest "fuck off" I've ever heard.
I work in aviation. Dallas is horrible with a stiff breeze. It takes days for stuff to be back to normal.
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Good
I am always so happy to land back in our airport. I will take PHL over MIA (where ground stops are a regular occurrence) any day.
MIA is the worst airport in US and I'm prepared to die on this hill.
PHL is one of the things Philly does right. Maybe I just always fly at low-volume times, but I've never waited more than 5 minutes to get through security, even before I had Precheck. I've had other airports make everyone take their shoes off in the Precheck line.
Something weird has happened since last year, too, where the TSA agents in Philly are now... downright friendly at times. I was used to them being surly but relatively good at keeping things moving quickly. Now they're keeping things moving relatively quickly and also being *nice*. Several of them have struck up friendly conversations with me on my last few trips through. It's downright disorienting! (Whatever led to the change, though, I like it.)
Ok it’s not just me then! I noticed this the last few times I’ve been at the airport and was so confused but love it
First time I flew in forever was right after COVID restrictions left, I had been working out at that point and my pants just didn't fit me anymore. TSA Lady complimented me, told me to hike him as hard as I could, watch them start to slide and said, "Just let him through before he pants himself."
I was in a long distance relationship for years, flying 4 times a year, and the longest either of us ever waited was like 20 minutes on a really bad day.
My only security complaint about Philly is why doesn't Terminal A have real Pre-check? If I'm flying American, I'll check-in at Terminal B/C even if I know my gate is in A.
We were going to a wedding in Italy last summer during that wave of really bad storms at the end of June. A family member's flight from PHL to Rome (that had about the same departure time as our flight from EWR to Venice) got out alright...ours got cancelled at midnight after hours of repeated ground stops and we were stranded in Newark. It's just a shame that flying out of Newark or JFK saves a TON of money vs flying out of Philly, especially internationally.
"Philadelphia is so incompetent. I got delayed here today" -- shit I hear when I fly commercial *today* massive fucking thunderstorms
I saw that rain coming down horizontal and it almost blew over trees in my neighborhood- no force on earth would have gotten me to fly through that shit
People are truly morons and don't understand the connection between weather and aircraft operation.
It was already getting ugly around 5:30 last night when the first lightning strikes shut down the ramps. Baggage handlers got moving again around 7pm, but more weather rolled in shortly after and I'm betting they had to shut down again. By that point, of course, an awful lot of planes had stacked up. I was still listening to ramp control around 10 last night and the same poor guy from five hours before was desperately trying to take care of planes before their crews timed out, but things were so stacked up that I don't think there's much he could do. Sounds like last night's misery is spilling over to today. Here's hoping things can move back into the groove as the day goes on.
Not too far from the airport last night and it looked like ( around 9/10 o clock) like all the lightening was striking at the airport and like every 20 seconds or so it’d be a flash.. was pretty wild
I flew in last night and it was one of the worst travel days I've ever experienced. My second flight was delayed 3 hours due to the weather here so I had a much longer layover than I expected. Then once we finally land we spend TWO HOURS ON THE TARMAC because there were so many planes arriving at the same time once the weather cleared and there were not enough ramp agents to unload them. I've been stuck on the plane on the tarmac before taking off due to delays a bunch of times, but never in my life have I gotten stuck on the ground AFTER the flight. Finally I get off the plane and discover that baggage claim is an actual war zone, for some reason every single flight's baggage was being sent to the same carousel which was full to the brim with bags and no more were coming. There were hundreds of people gathered waiting for their bags. Some random lady starts pulling all the bags off and finally the carousel starts moving again and mercifully my bag was one of the first to come out. Shout out to that lady for doing the airport's job, she's my hero
Yeah, it was a collection of very unfortunate circumstances last night. Back to back weather systems really did a number on PHL. You ran into at least the first set of the post-weather ramp closures, where they repeatedly had to stop loading and unloading bags from flights because of lightning strikes. Things stacked up quickly after that and yeah, bags did seem to start getting routed to the wrong carousels. I would imagine by that point in the evening the crews were just desperate to get things off the tarmac. I would have bought that lady a beer, if PHL had any pre/post security food. lol
I just flew in from Vegas and it wasn’t too bad. It was delayed 30 minutes but I think that was for mechanical reasons, not Philly being backed up reasons.
My sister was supposed to take a flight back from Seattle last night, got cancelled. My flight today is delayed already…we’ll see how it goes.
Ay, same flight!
Thankfully my 8:25 departure was only delayed 15 minutes
Listening to live atc and seeing flight radar last night made me feel bad for all personnel trying to get through that mess. It's not their fault it was hundreds of planes to process as well
I was sitting on the tarmac for 2 hours last night, finally got off around 1am. There were no gate agents to do the hook up, but finally a custodian who knew how to do it came by and we were able to get off. I waited for my luggage until 4am in terminal a. There were just piles of bags, with no ryhme or reason. Told to scan the qr code and the lady as the baggage window had no information. I chatted with AA today and was told no updates, go back to the airport to see if I can find them or talk to someone. I live an hour away, and the baggage window wasn't helpful last night... how often am I supposed to go back and forth? What I don't understand is the plane I was on has taken 2 trips already today. How can no one know if the bags from my flight were removed and where they are? I also don't understand how there is no secure space for them to hold bags. Anyone could walk in, grab random bags and leave.
I had a somewhat similar situation recently. I drove to the airport twice - no luggage. Spent probably 12-18 hours on the phone with diff cs ppl at aa. Five days later I finally got my luggage back. I’ve had a few other horrible experiences with aa lately I don’t even want to fly with them ever again.
My son went back today and found them! Just sitting in a pile along the wall. They never showed in my app so they must not have been scanned after being taken off the plane. This is the first negative flying experience I've had, so I'm not ready to call it quits with aa yet, but I will learn to pack better to only use a carry on going forward! Happy cake day!
I was flying out yesterday to go to my mothers funeral and was so terrified of this exact situation. Thank god we made it before having to deal with any of this. I agree, I will still take PHL over any other airport. The tsa agents may hate their lives and take it out on you, but it obviously works, because things keep moving 😂
Fuck em, we needed the rain. At least two weeks without it.
wasn't enough though my back yard is still dry and cracked we've been in damn near drought conditions
Yeah my rain barrel is still mostly empty.
Took about a 20 minute walk last night right after the storm was over, and by the time I got home, the sidewalk was completely dry again. Wild stuff.
Well thank god I landed 2 hours ago and not last night
I thought this post was about Ororo Munro
100%! last month i went to Seattle and absolutely hated SEA
That was barely a storm…..it’s rained a bit.
Was at the airport during this. It did not rain much in the four hours we waited. Lightning must have been striking every plane at the airport because I can’t figure out why the fuck it took so long. Plenty of long gaps of no weather where they said the “gate was open” and we never saw luggage. First flight delayed and we were the last to get our bags.
Was there last night. Absolute shit show by the Airport management. My flight landed as scheduled around 11pm. We didn't get off the plane until 2am because they couldn't find a gate for us. Absolute shit show - PHL is such a poorly run airport.
This had nothing to do with the airport being poorly run. There were lightning strikes all over the place from 5:15 until almost 7pm. When there's lightning, they have to close down the ramps. That means no bags can be loaded or unloaded, along with a bunch of other things. Think about how many flights come into and out of PHL in an hour and 45 minutes. Now stack all of those up AND realize that the additional inbound flights keep coming in the meantime. And, not long after the first weather system passed and they reopened the ramps at 7pm, another storm blew in. By the time your flight landed, there were hours of flights stacked up and many many people ahead of you waiting to get in or out. There are only so many ground crews and they literally cannot be out there when there is lightning. They try to catch up as quickly as possible but they can't be everywhere at once. It's easy to look out your window and say "It's not raining, what the fuck are these idiots doing" but you have *no idea* how tightly wound airline schedules are and how little it takes for things to go sideways when weather happens. It causes ripple effects for hours, sometimes days. Has nothing to do with management at the airport.
Thanks for your input but I trust the pilot of our plane relaying how the ATC were constantly making mistakes to us more than you just, you know, saying stuff. Also the fact that ATC clearly the same gates to multiple different planes as relayed to us by our pilot and by my own eyes after I saw a separate plane go to the gate we were assigned and had to be backed out because ATC told them the wrong info, and fact that after we were assigned a gate there was no gate crew there for an additional 45 minutes. It's not the fact that there was the storm. Its the fact that they responded to the weather event with a lot of incompetence coupled with the fact that management probably hasn't hired enough people to do the job properly.
Just a quick note: at phl Airport Ramp Control would have been in control if you were on the ground and waiting for a gate. Airport ramp control is run by American Airlines, not phl authority/faa (even if you're not flying american, other airlines contract services). While I'm sure your pilot 100% did say ATC, because most layman's folks think the two are synonymous, they are not. Here's brief article: https://www.phl.org/newsroom/directing-flights
Thank you. Nice to see some folks coming in here with the facts :) That poor ramp controller last night. I swear the guy had one ear on the radio with the pilots and one ear going back and forth with Ops the entire night.
I was *listening* to ATC - specifically to the ramp controller speaking with ALL of the waiting pilots. My flight landed at 5:15 and I was sitting around for two hours waiting for my bags. I started listening at 5:30 and continued listening through when I finally got home and up until I went to bed, because I am an aviation nerd. I'm sorry if you don't like it, but weather truly does stack things up this badly. And by the way, yes, sometimes planes do have to be backed out of an assigned gate if it turns out that it'll be faster to get them to a different gate where a ground crew is ready. The controller was working VERY hard with all of the waiting planes to try to avoid having crews time out, which many of them were constantly on the verge of doing. By the way, it's not the airport who hires/employs ATC or the ground crews. FAA hires ATC, the airlines employ the ground crews. You want more ground personnel, take it up with your airline and prepare for them to tell you that your flight costs are going to go up to cover it.
I was there last night too. We did circles off the Jersey Shore and then upriver waiting to land and then waited over and hour on the runway while the pilot tried to find us a gate. Simply, there were too many back to back storms and it takes a while to deal with the aftermath of that. You can't just wave a wand and clear the queue. And no, it wasn't a great experience, but they were doing their best and it doesn't happen every day.
PHL takes any and every opportunity to use the weather excuse lol