On July first a cruel hoax was played on the American trucker—Pilot bought Flying J Travel Centers. Unfortunately its not a hoax. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of visiting “the hook” these locations, more than 200 across North America, they offered pretty good food in their full service restaurants, roomy showers with soft towels, a good sized TV lounge, and several games in the game room. They were the FIRST truckstop chain to offer Wi-Fi throughout their network.
Pilot, on the other hand, has just fast food, only a few showers that are barely what one would consider clean, towels you could use to sand wood, no TV lounge, no games, and their version of Wi-Fi is spotty at best. While Flying J’s parking lots were huge (typically more than 100 parking spots), Pilot’s lots are small (less than 20 spots).
Pilot has purchased other truckstops and every one of them was ruined when they took over. If it wasn’t for Pilot offering deep discounts to major fuel users such as large trucking companies they would have been out of business a long time ago.
