Come Fly With Me

When I was a kid, my father was a captain with American Airlines during the golden age of commercial aviation. Flying in those days was quite a luxury. People would actually get dressed up. They could get their ticket and walk directly to their gate and board their flight. Passengers were treated like a valued customer. We were given meals and snacks and even drinks for free. People could smoke! Seats were comfortable. You could check your luggage without charge and not worry that some baggage handler would go through your things. If a bag did get lost, they would find it and deliver it to your door. The airlines competed to see who could be the most hospitable. It was a pleasure to fly.

With the advent of highjackers, terrorists, bombings, attempted bombings and 9/11, commercial aviation has become complicated, potentially dangerous and most assuredly…inconvenient. For the sake of safety, the flying public has had to endure many changes. First, we must all carry and provide approved forms of picture ID’s. We are asked to remove our shoes and stand in long lines to go through security checkpoints by TSA agents. Because of this, we are told to come to the airport at least 2 hours (now 3 hours!) before our flight leaves. Once we wind our way to the security gates we must empty our pockets, wallets, coats and keys into trays. These items along with our carry on bags are placed on conveyers to be scanned by X-ray machines. Any fingernail clippers, pocket knives, and liquids over 3 ounces are confiscated. Then we are poked and probed after stepping through the metal detector in our stocking feet. Having passed that procedure we race to the end of the conveyor to retrieve our bags, wallets, loose change, keys and shoes so that we can reassemble ourselves and move on to our departure gate.

Once at the gate, we wait for our section to be called for boarding. We are herded like cattle down a shoot into a metal tube with narrow aisles. We scramble to find space in the overhead bins near our seats (if you can get an assigned seat) before some moron shoves an oversized suitcase or duffle bag in your space. God help you if you are old or weak and cannot lift your carry on over your head and into the bin. Once that is accomplished we sink into our narrow seat with no leg room and pray that we do not get hemmed in by some large guy who drools in his sleep, a “talker” or a parent with a screaming baby. Forget about meals and snacks, we will be lucky to get a half can of soda in a plastic cup and a bag of peanuts. We will be expected to stay scrunched in our seat for hours. If we need to use the restroom, good luck getting past the other passengers also scrunched next to us. Once out in the aisle, we can stand in line with several other passengers waiting to use the one working toilet in coach (no one in coach is allowed to use the use ones in first class) and just hope the plane does not hit turbulence. Then it’s back to our seats with seatbelts on. Oh, New Rule! We can’t use the toilets an hour before landing. Suck it up and cross your legs. If you soil your seat…you own it. Coming soon: pay toilets!

Upon landing, we scramble to the luggage area to retrieve the extra bags that we had to pay a fee to check because we are allowed only one small bag as a carry on. Once there… we wait. We hope and pray that our bags made it by the baggage handlers in one piece. If we pass that hurdle, we scramble to find ground transportation and breathe a sigh of relief. The return trip starts the process all over again.

Yes, we want to stay safe when we fly, but come on! What happened to those days I remember when flying was glamorous and pleasurable, when we were treated like a real person, a valued customer? Fear is what has happened. Cost cutting to make the bottom line is what has happened. Not enough people flying are what has happened. Cut rate fares are what has happened. People stopped being valued customers. We became potential terrorists. We became a commodity to move from point A to point B in the cheapest way possible.

Moooo! Happy New Year!

Food for THOUGHT…