The Ten Most Viewed Cranky Posts

Cranky 10

I told you I’d put together a couple of special Wednesday posts to look back on the past 10 years, but this one ended being bumped to Thursday. This week I’ve fought off a flu and what may or may not be strep throat only to get on an airplane up to Seattle to see the new Southwest interior. So you guessed it, I didn’t have much time or energy to put together a different post for Thursday. Instead, please enjoy this look back. I thought we’d look at the ten most viewed posts of all time.*

I do have to put that asterisk there, for three reasons. First, it used to be that you could read the post directly on the homepage, so visits to the post page were under-counted. Second, email subscribers aren’t counted and that number has only grown. Third, tracking wasn’t very good in the early days of my site. This, however, is as close as I can get, and it seems like it’s probably pretty accurate. So let’s take a look.

  1. I Now Have Global Entry and You Should Get It Too* (September 10, 2013): One thing you’ll find in this list is that often the most popular posts caught on with Google and became popular via regular searches. This is one of those. When I first discovered Global Entry, I was thrilled and wrote it up.
  2. Blaming United’s Problems on Continental (or Vice Versa) is Exactly the Problem (July 10, 2014): This post was one that caught fire inside the industry. I received a ton of email after this went live from within United and other airlines just hoping that what I had written would eventually change. It’s taken a long time, but it does look like things are finally improving.
  3. The 747 is Quickly Disappearing From Passenger Service (May 19, 2014): Ah the 747. So many different website have written about this topic, because the 747 is an airplane that inspires awe from even those who aren’t airline dorks. Sadly the next time I write about this, it’ll probably be to mourn the last flight of the 747 in the US.
  4. What Happens After You Check Your Bag (March 31, 2011): I’m thinking the generic title of this post has helped satisfy the curiosity of many a traveler over the last 3 years. People who haven’t been on the other side always wonder what happens to bags when they go down that conveyor.
  5. How Does Overbooking Work? (Ask Cranky) (January 21, 2014): Here’s another one to satisfy the curiosity of the masses. Though this one is probably a mystery to many people within the industry as well. After all, we’ve all either been bumped or seen someone get bumped, and we want to know why.
  6. Mixed Review of the New British Airways Premium Economy (Trip Report) (August 7, 2012): I knew a trip report would be here, but I was surprised this was the one at the top. I suppose I did write this in the early days of this version of BA’s new premium economy and plenty of people wanted to know how it was.
  7. The Emirates 777 and A380 Head to Head (Trip Report) (Guest Post) (January 18, 2012): This trip report wasn’t even mine! It was a guest post from Nate who compared Emirates on the 777 and the A380. It was an eye-opener for those who assumed that Emirates always had a superior product.
  8. The Good and Bad of MegaBus (Trip Report) (May 14, 2010): Anyone else find it hilarious that one of the top posts had nothing to do with an airplane at all? I took MegaBus once and wrote it up. Apparently plenty of others were curious about the experience. Go figure.
  9. The Good and Bad of Southwest’s EarlyBird Check-In (September 4, 2009): Number two is a bit of a sneak peek at number one. So let’s just move on and talk about it there.
  10. How Southwest Determines Your Boarding Card Number, and How You Can Now Jump the Line for $40 (January 24, 2013): The number one post of all time? Oh yes, it’s all about Southwest’s boarding process. If anyone at Southwest ever wondered if the newfangled boarding priority that was introduced a few years ago was confusing, here’s proof. Oh, and if you ever wondered if people like the process? Just read the comments. But we’ll talk about that next week.

Next week, we’ll take a look at the posts with the most comments.

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13 comments on “The Ten Most Viewed Cranky Posts

  1. Funny that the numbering is inverted in the email compared to the version on the website !…
    Hope you’re feeling better.
    I’ll raise my glass to the last 10 years, and once again to the next 10 !!!

  2. Hi CF – sorry to hear about your recent illness.

    a couple of comments/requests.

    – would you do a similar list but based on number of comments.
    – re: #2 on the list “blaming united…”. Would you be willing to do a follow-up post jeff’s exit. i know you posted one where the event that caused his “resignation”, but i was thinking more along the lines of how it was run (them v us) to what the new management is trying to achieve, though it may be too early to tell.
    – a post on catching illnesses on a plane and preventative actions & remedies and if there are conditions where a person can be denied enplanement because of a serious illness. I was once on flight from LA with wife and our 1.5 yr old child. Seated next to my wife was a person who had a bad cold next to us–crouched on her seat and sneezing/coughing. I switched seats with my wife who was holding our child. To the ill person’s credit she kept her head towards the window. I did not expect to get sick; however, I got really ill as the person on the plane.

    1. IO –

      1) Yes, comments come next week.

      2) That’s a post that probably needs some more time.

      3) I don’t really have much on this. I’d say if you’re really afraid, bring a mask. But there’s nothing that can stop people. (And if this is a nod to my illness, note that I am fully drugged up and not contagious!)

  3. So how many page views were there on these posts? Would be interesting to see just how close they are, or not. Guess I’m not surprised that the most popular posts had more broad appeal beyond the airline/airplane dorks.

    1. A – The Southwest EarlyBird one was number 1 by fare with 275,000 page views. (Remember, this doesn’t include email subscribers.) Global Entry at the other end was only about 35,000 page views. At least, this is what my system says. It’s hard for me to know how accurate these really are and what the total reach is. I know that a lot comes via subscribers and email forwards plus RSS feeds as well. But this gives you a sense.

  4. Hope you’re feeling better now. For next weeks topic I’m sure all the regular readers know what may be the #1 on that list, and where all those 747s may go…..lol.

    1. that may come if he decides to put together a list based on the number of comments.

      CF – what say you.

  5. What’s scary is I don’t think much has changed at Emirates in the 4 years since that trip to Dubai! Same seats in biz (although I thought I read somewhere that 77W’s are getting new ones..) and the First Class Suite has had some minor cosemetic changes (bigger TV, extra lamp, larger handheld monitor)

  6. No apologies required. Bigger fish than you! I think we all know that just about every stat related to the airlines comes with an asterisk (or, a “star”).

    Probably someday someone will decide to call their startup “Asterisk Air,” having the entire horizontal stabilizer with one big asterisk, and the airline code ** to complete the branding.

    1. “and the airline code ** to complete the branding.”

      Which in turn causes Southwest’s IT system to crash.

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