PHL Airport #1, PHL Airline Last

Yeah. So the Philadelphia International Airport was named number one in customer satisfaction. Yes, the horrible PHL airport, the one everyone complains about and hates, was rated the #1 airport in the country. If you ever need to know that surveys are stupid, you now have concrete evidence.

But, wait! says airport chief Charles Isdell: “We have been trying for several years now to turn the corner in terms of people’s perception of the airport. And a lot of their perception quite frankly has to do with the performance of US Airways. The performance of US Airways has gone up in the past year.”

Uh, this is a consumer perception survey from J.D. Power. If people’s perception is that the airport service sucks — I’ve never actually had a bad experience there, but I never fly anywhere — how, exactly, did the airport win this contest?

In related news, the University of Michigan ranked U.S. Airways the worst airline in America, based on consumer surveys. Argh, how the hell does all of this work again?

PHL Airport Gets #1 Ranking in Satisfaction Survey [KYW 1060]
Travelers pan service at U.S. Airways [Bizjournals.com]

Delayed PHL Travelers Have Raging Hormones

Another new study, this one from AXE Deodorant Spray! Yes, CBS 3 informs us that the Philadelphia Airport is the #1 place to meet someone special (i.e. someone to sleep with).

So, yeah, the company that brought you deodorant aimed at fifth-graders says the best place to meet someone is at the airport. Ah, but the silver lining:

Philadelphia took top honors partially because they are one of the worst airports when it comes to on-time flights.

The large number of delayed or cancelled flights combined with the fact PHL has six times as many bars, coffee shops and social areas than other airports makes it the perfect place to meet fellow travelers according to the study.

Aw, how cute. Finding love through incompetent service.

Study: Phila. Airport #1 For Love Connections [CBS 3]

DIY News: Philadelphia Ranked [First/Last/Low (Whatever Is Worse)] In [Arbitrary Category] In Survey By [Random Magazine]

PHILADELPHIA — Fat. Ugly. And now [random semi-derogatory term].

“Boy, I don’t know,” said [name of random resident], [age], from [hip, but-not-too-hip neighborhood]. “I’ve lived here for [random integer] years, and I don’t think we’re [same derogatory term].”

Philadelphia may be the home of the mummers, the Liberty Bell and the country’s first zoo, but it has long had a self-esteem problem. These were exacerbated by several [recent/not recent, it doesn't matter] surveys, including Men’s Health’s ranking of Philadelphia as America’s fattest city in 2001 and Travel + Leisure’s ranking of Philly as the least attractive city among 25 tourist destinations in 2007.

And now the city is reeling again, after ranking first in [arbitrary semi-derogatory category] in a survey done in the [month] issue of [random magazine].

“Well, the editors at [same random magazine] clearly haven’t been to Philadelphia recently,” said City Council[man/woman] [random City Councilwoman/man]. “If they ever stepped foot in this city, they’d clearly see we weren’t [same derogatory term."

[Same City Councilwoman/man] said [he/she] is drafting a resolution denouncing [magazine] for ranking our city [so low/last/first/whatever fits] in a list of [same category].

“These people just don’t get it,” said mayor [name of current mayor]. “They clearly haven’t been to our fantastic bars and restaurants, our great public parks and our many good [something many cities have good ones of].”

[Same mayor] also pointed out that National Geographic Traveler named the city “America’s Next Great City” several years ago and the city has probably now moved from “next” to “current” in that category. [He/she] also pointed out [other random magazine] ranked Philadelphia first in [random good category, probably not cleanliness].

Philadelphia is also the home of several other notorious incidents in recent years. [What follows is a list of misreported or combined incidents, none of which are necessarily recent. Many of these revolve around sports. For example, it could be "Throwing batteries at Santa Claus at the Vet" or "Shooting a bottle rocket at Sandra Day O'Connor at the opening of Independence Hall" or "A stadium railing collapsing at Shibe Park at the World Series."]

The editors of [magazine] stand by the ranking.

“We certainly put a lot of thought into these rankings,” said [magazine] editor [name of editor]. “It certainly wasn’t just a way to get people to say [name of magazine] without us having to pay for it. We [researched these rankings carefully/had many people take our survey].”

Okay, now you can stop sending me this article.

Earlier:
Now You Have Even Less Of An Excuse To Be Dateless
Darrell Clarke Hates Spraypaint, Looking At Men
[Image by livingbrown via Flickr]

Now You Have Even Less Of An Excuse To Be Dateless

Travel + Leisure magazine recently had its readers rank 25 American cities on various categories. And guess how Philadelphia did? Well, you don’t really need to guess, you already know: Awful. Philadelphia’s rankings were pretty much low across the board, including an embarrassing last-place finish in “Attractiveness of People.”

Yes, we’re knew we were all pretty ugly, but it’s hard to take it sometimes. Philadelphia people were by far the lowest-ranked of all the several categories (see chart), but we really didn’t do well anywhere except Culture. (Food did pretty well, too.) Apparently, all of us ugly folk sit around and appreciate great art and theater. Oh, and Philly ranked #3 in “sports fan’s vacation,” which is kind of surprising.

One has to assume people who took the poll just didn’t know many of the things we have. For example, Philly ranked 14th in public parks, i.e. nobody knew where to take the SEPTA bus — which probably wasn’t running anyway — in order to get to Fairmount Park. (Or, more specifically, Belmont Plateau, which is just so, so awesome, but that might be the cross country runner in me coming out.)

Anyway, Philadelphia needs to turn around our rankings in this meaningless poll. So let’s get our fat, annoying, ugly asses out of our chairs and yell at tourists until they rank us higher. I’m pretty sure that’ll work.

America’s Favorite Cities 2007 - Philadelphia [T+L]
Not lookin’ good [Finger Food]