Customer Service

 

I am traveling on American Airlines this week and I am shocked how far their levels of customer service have fallen since I last flew on them. They still have the friendly and casual attitude that most Americans have but one of the crew members has his top button undone and two others were handing out coffee whilst having a conversation with each other and ignoring the customer. I am sure that this is because of the Bidding system used by all US carriers. The work rosters are issued and you submit a bid for the line you want, the more seniority you have the higher the chance of getting the line you bid. I am flying from London to Chicago midweek which will be a high bid line as a Chicago-London-Chicago five times in the course of a month is a full roster but only a three day week. The more senior you are in a US carrier the less chance of layoffs which are also first in last out and therefore the less you have to worry about your standards of service.

my final flight of the week was on one of their new B777's and with A Los Angeles based crew and the experience could not have been more different that the first flight, the crew were very attentive and the aircraft was new and equipped with new IFE and improved leg room.   

Still running

I am now on week 6 of the program and I am still running three times a week. The first week was run 1 minute and walk one minute seven times, week two doubled it too run two walk one  seven times week three was predictably run three walk one seven times. In week four the time started to rise with run five walk two but now only five times week and this week its run eight and walk 2 but only three times.  So far I have found it all quite easy but the step up to eight minutes has been a little tough especially as I have been running four repetitions and not the suggested three. The real challenge comes this week as I am on the road all week in the US and I need to find time in a busy schedule for running, I have invested in a GPS based free app Endomondo which overlays my run on a map and the poseur in me wants a run down the beach in Hawaii and Los Angeles so there is some incentive.

Running

 

I have recently decided to take up running for the first time in 3O years, the local running club where my son’s practice was offering a “couch to 10K in 10 weeks” I was motivated by the fact that I felt that I was getting old and less fit, no it was not a midlife crisis!  I have to say I was more nervous about this that I have been about anything for a long time. I deliberately decided not to do any practice in advance as I was concerned about injuring myself before I had even started so I had no idea how I would perform. The sessions run on a Wednesday evening and the day of the first session was as good as it could get, it was a clear day and the running area was bathed in warm evening sunshine. We started out doing some stretches and a couple of exercises before moving onto the main event which was running for one minute and walking for one minute repeated seven times. We then did a warm down followed by a talk on clothing for running.  We were told that we need to run three times a week and that the running would be stepped up in week 2. I have managed to run twice since then, the first time I ran for one minute and walked for one minute six times and then ran for two minutes. Not feeling any pain I went out two days later and ran for one minute and walked for one minute three times before running for two minutes and walking for one minute four time. There was still no pain the next day so I intend to move to running two minutes and walking 2 minutes seven times at the next session which should be tonight but unfortunately I am on a plane and will not be back in time so I will have to run tomorrow before work or more likely after work and before my governors meeting. I have to miss the second session but will step up to three minutes running and one minute walking next time. More to follow soon as they hope to have us run 5K by week 5.

Berlin again

I am made just three flights in May this year, a record low since I started working for the company. tow of them were a day return to one of my favourite cities in Europe, Berlin. One of the things I like about Berlin is the fact that I always get about 4 hours spare at the end of the meeting to just wonder round and soak up the atmosphere. This time I walked from the Station past the Reichstag and the Brandenburg gate to Potsdammer Platz. There is not a lot else to add other than it was an enjoyable afternoon and I would recommend the city for a long weekend to anyone.

How Much !!??

The family decided to go out to dinner the other night to celebrate my sons 16^th Birthday, to avoid driving we decided to use the train from the village where I live to the nearest town, arriving a few minutes early for the train and having bought our tickets we decided to play with the machine to identify what the highest fare we could achieve was.  This involved a reasonable knowledge of UK geography and in the end it turned out to be 9 first class return tickets to Kyle of Localsh for the small sum of £5140.00 the machine even offered to allow payment in coins which assuming the exclusive use of £2 coins would be 2070 coins at god knows what weight. 

Rugby Sevens

We had a day out at the Rugby Sevens at Twickenham last week, I has not realised what a party event that this was going to be, we turned up at 10AM and the place was relatively empty but I knew that it was going to be busy later because of the difficulty getting hold of tickets. The rugby was good but it was the crowd that was most interesting. Unbeknownst to us there is a theme to the event and the crowd all appear in fancy dress on this theme. It took us a while to put two and two together on this as the type font on the advertising and information signs were in a “monster” font and I had assumed that the monster energy drink was sponsoring the event. We were it had to be said surrounded by a number of zombies and a fair number of Honey monsters.  It transpires that they sold 75,000 tickets and I would estimate about 60,000 people in fancy dress.

The other thing that became really obvious is that I am getting old; it did feel like we were the obligatory grandparents at an 18^th birthday party later on. By about 3PM the place was busy and whilst very good natured it was turning into a party where the rugby was the entertainment but the party was the central event. A great day out but we left 2 hours before the end which I suspect was going to be far from the end of the party.    

Turkish Taxi Ride

We arrived in Sabiha Gokcen airport in Istanbul just after 8:15PM  and had a departure from Istanbul airport at 1:15AM the next day. My research on transfers between the two airports had revealed that there was a bus to central Istanbul connecting to another bus to Istanbul airport and that the total journey time should be in the region of 3 hours or you could take a taxi for about EUR80 and it would take about 90 minutes.  I opted for what was to be one of the most terrifying taxi journeys of my life. The driver did not speak English and I think my enquiry about “how long would it take” was mistaken for “I am in a rush”, we left the airport at 160KMH and when we hit solid traffic in all the lanes  he made the concession of slowing to 100KMH whilst driving on the hard shoulder, there was seldom more than a car length gap between us and the car in front, often less.  At one point we flashed the traffic police out of the way as they were not going fast enough for the driver, 55 minutes later we arrived at Istanbul airport.  it took a couple of drinks in the lounge to calm my nerves