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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
People don't like airlines because airlines don't like people. If they could tie us in duct tape and knock us out and stuff us in baggage they'd do it. Flying was never really the glamorous worldly experience it was portrayed in the early jet days where men wore suits to fly and women's stiletto heels occasionally punctured the floor. People get on the plane already tired, frazzled, shouted at, ignored, delayed, poked, prodded, felt up and generally told that their 4 hr layover on a 57 minute flight won the right be criminalized by a mouthbreather who could't cut it at Abu Ghraib.
If an engine flames out on takeoff or we hit a goose or an indicator light burns out and we turn around and spend the afternoon being warned that if we stand up we'll get arrested then at this point it's pretty much what everyone expects anyhow.
This is a bus. Get it in the air somewhere near the published time and set me free just as soon as you can. You hate me, I hate you, let's leave this love story at that, thanks.
For the most part, airline passengers are treated badly because the frontline employees that they interact with are also treated badly. It's a longstanding maxim in the business world that how well a company treats the frontline employees is a good indicator of how they, in turn, will treat the customers.
The problem blooms when we reach a situation like we have now in the US. Distances are often large, and there is no practical alternative to air travel. I can only imagine that a functional high speed intercity rail system covering many travel corridors would go a long way towards making airlines a little more responsive to their customers, if only because those customers would then have an alternative.
Having been on the receiving end of airline stonewalling on occasion, I can say that there are definite differences among carriers, and as frustrating as delays for whatever reason can be, if a gate attendant or flight attendant tells me something, or helps rectify a situation, I always thank them. Gladly. And I try as best I can to not take it out on those who I know are being abused by their corporate taskmasters - I have to deal wtih that airline for the time I'm flying, and then I go home. They have to deal with it every day on the job.
I was flying on Frontier (a mistake I do not plan to make again), and we were coming in for a landing at Washington National (which is already an adventure unto itself), and about 50 feet above the runway, the plane suddenly goes into full thrust, and we're all pushed back into our seats as we make a rapid ascent. Aborted landing. Terrifying for a passenger. Maybe Patrick you can explain whether it's dangerous, but it sure feels scary when you're in the passenger seat...
People were crying and frightened, especially as 30 minutes outside DCA, they'd made the required "You have to stay in your seats, no bathroom, no nothing for the final 30 minutes of the flight into Washington National," a first-hand reminder of 9/11, and the fact that you are coming into Washington...
People were speculating -- was there a problem in DC? Was our plane hijacked? What was going on?
Needless to say, we had NO announcement from the pilots. NOTHING. Zippo.
We flew about 20 minutes north, and then circled and came back for another final approach over the Potomac. The second time we finally landed without incident.
When I was getting off the plane, I asked the flight attendant why the pilot didn't let us know why the landing had been aborted. She looked at me like I had 3 heads, and just said "buh-BYE!"
So I wrote to Frontier and asked, and I too got no answer, and a $100 voucher (which I threw away, because I'm not flying this airline again).
I talked with a friend who is a pilot, and he said it was probably another plane on the runway.
Fine, Frontier. You don't like my questions? You don't get my business.
I've been on an aborted landing once before, going into Dallas/Fort Worth, and that time I was behind 2 deadheading pilots, who were watching the thunderstorms were were flying through warily (needless to say, I was eavesdropping unabashedly), and they were concerned about the landing as we were approaching, and after we aborted, they sounded pretty keyed up, but they were also impressed...
This pilot (American Airlines) got on the intercom and said we'd had a wind shear warning right before landing, and that he'd had to pull up last minute to get out of it. Bravo for him, for his skill AND for having the guts to tell us what had happened...
I'm an airline brat since I was 11, and I have many family and family friends who were airline employees who worked in the 60s and 70s, and there was a great deal of respect for passengers in those days. I flew a lot as a non-rev standby passenger on employee passes in those days, and we all dressed up, acted politely, and passengers were king.
Now, passengers are viewed as a necessary evil...
It seems as if EVERY airline is "Trans-Eastern Airlines*" -- they're all like "flying in a cattle car with wings..."
-- Mary
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* Long ago, Saturday Night Live did a spoof of an airline commercial, and basically parodied -- quite accurately -- the derisive attitude many airline employees have about passengers, all the while, trying to sell you on the idea that flying is such a wondrous joy. Their theme song...
"It's like flying in a cattle car with wings..."
Take a look at the Saturday Night Live transcript for the "Trans-Eastern Airlines" commercial. One of my all-time favorite SNL ad parodies and a dead-on capture of the airline industry! http://snltranscripts.jt.org/81/81etranseastern.phtml
"Intrapersonnel breakdown": a phrase rife with possible silly meanings. This column did a great job of demonstrating a typical airline pilot's ability to communicate.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
