Reply #27: I do not blame the front line personnel at all [View All]

because they have no choice but to carry out managements' lame-ass decisions.

For example, one of my favorite in-flight drinks is plain tonic water and lime. It's refreshing, but not as dehydrating as a vodka tonic. All of a sudden, I couldn't get lime with my tonic water on a certain airline. It was only for the people who were paying for the alcoholic version.

I complained to an acquaintance who was a flight attendant for that airline, and she said that some bean counter had decided that the airline could save $40,000 a year by not providing free lime and lemon slices with their soft drinks.

Another acquaintance, who worked at the check-in counter for the same airline, said that she and her colleagues were being heavily pressured to accept part-time schedules, especially if they were senior employees. If the check-in agent was crabby, she said, that was the reason.

Then there's the seating! Arrggghh, I could rant for hours about the seating! A 31" seat pitch and an 17" width is simply not adequate for anyone who is over 5'6" and/or 120 lbs. While air rage is inexcusable, you never heard of it before the seats were crunched together. I'm normally a placid person, but after a few hours in one of those tiny seats, I'm ready to punch out the walls of the plane.

There's a reason that passengers seek out the cheap seats: they know that increasingly, they'll get the same cramped, hungry, irritating experience on every airline unless they pay exorbitant prices for business or first class. Take, for example, the flight I know best, NWA's non-stop between PDX and MSP. The walk-up fare is about $2100 RT, but I've gone for as little as $298 on an advance-purchase fare. On a "bereavement fare," it's $700. There have been times when the AP fare has stayed at $550 for weeks, only to drop below $300 without warning. But whether they pay $2100 or $298, the passengers will be jammed into tiny, hard seats, receive a "meal" that Swanson's TV dinners would be ashamed to sell, and possibly have an overworked flight attendant snap at them. Under those circumstances, who wouldn't try to reserve a fare as close to $298 as possible?

I may be going to Japan in the fall, and NWA has a non-stop from MSP to NRT, but I will try to avoid taking it unless I have to--or unless I feel like using my World Perks miles for an upgrade. I'd rather pay a couple hundred dollars more and have an extra stop on the West Coast in order to take one of the Asian airlines, preferably ANA, which has good leg room and the world's sweetest flight attendants.

There should be a market for passengers who don't want the cattle car atmosphere but can't quite afford business/first class.

Why not have a standard fare that is higher than the current discount fares but lower than the current full fare and stick to it, except for an old-fashioned standby fare available only 1/2 hour before boarding. Planes would fill at the standard price during heavy travel periods, and during slack periods, people with more flexible schedules could go at cheaper rates. In-flight services and seating arrangements could be restored (even 1980s levels would be an improvement).

If I were in charge of drawing up airline bailout packages, I would specify that all cost cuts had to come from executive compensation, with no executive allowed to make more than 25 times the lowest-paid employee. This would prevent the Icahns of the world from using the airlines as cash cows.