Class Conflict: Flying coach as "entering the ninth circle of hell"

NYT: Class Conflict
By MICHELLE HIGGINS
Published: November 25, 2007


Ron Barrett

OVER the past few years — and this will probably come as no surprise to anyone who has gotten on a plane over this Thanksgiving weekend — flying in coach has become an increasingly miserable experience. Legroom is practically nonexistent. Passengers are more tightly packed together. Hot meals have been eliminated. Ditto pillows and blankets. And the next time that guy in front of you leans his seat back directly into your face, few of your fellow passengers are likely to blame you if you feel a brief, murderous urge to strike back.

All this has created a generation of fliers who now view getting on a plane as roughly akin to entering the ninth circle of hell.

***

The fact is that airlines, flying so close to full capacity today, have realized that they really don’t have to cater to economy passengers — most of whom are booking on price alone, and who increasingly have no real airline loyalty — because the cost of doing so would never be worth it in pure bottom-line terms.

Does that sound harsh? Well, an unexpected — but not totally surprising — insight into how airline executives think these days came this summer when B. Ben Baldanza, chief executive of the aggressively bare-bones Spirit Airlines, hit “reply all” to an e-mail message from a passenger who wished to be compensated for a delayed flight that caused him to miss a concert he was planning to attend. Mr. Baldanza’s response, which seemed to be intended only for a Spirit Airlines employee but subsequently appeared on multiple travel blogs, said: “Please respond, Pasquale, but we owe him nothing as far as I’m concerned. Let him tell the world how bad we are. He’s never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny.”...

Thus airlines are increasingly cutting back services in coach or charging passengers for things that used to be free, like meals ($5 for a snack box on United) or drinks ($2 for a 16-fluid-ounce bottle of water on Spirit) or, in the case of Delta, US Airways, Northwest and Continental, starting to use narrow-body planes more frequently on trans-Atlantic flights, making those long-haul flights more cost-effective, albeit at the expense of passenger comfort....

***

United says just 8 percent of its customers — the ones paying a premium for first and business class — generate 36 percent of passenger revenue. That’s why it is investing hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade its first- and business-class cabins with lie-flat seating and other amenities across its entire international fleet of wide-body aircraft. Industry analysts say that most airlines have rightly decided that it makes little economic sense to provide expensive perks to customers paying the lowest fares....

***

All of this restructuring has helped airlines make money again, even in the face of soaring fuel prices. After losing a cumulative $35 billion between 2001 and 2005, United States airlines recorded their first profitable year of the millennium in 2006, according to the Air Transport Association, when the industry posted a $3 billion net profit. This year, the association projects earnings to be in the $5 billion range....

http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/travel/25conflict.html?pagewanted=all

Keep your bag of pretzels and tint cup of coke -- I was sleeping anyway.

i only fly united -- because i get miles.

but inbetween times -- when i have add miles up -- and i have to fly coach -- it's awful.

still better than southwest though -- that's like riding a cattle car.

culture's face!

Like Amtrak.

or as I used to say years ago, "Anyone who thinks the post office is inefficient has never tried to get a dial tone from GTE"

this year. In other countries who aren't getting run by fascist "free market" nazis, the trains are great. BUT they are subsidized. The government always run things better than corpations because they don't have to FEED THE SHAREHOLDER!

All the government run businesses in this country are getting starved to death because the fascists want to privatize. If they have problems that is why. Starvation and sabotage.

Government always gives cheaper prices and better service. Just look around. The airlines used to run well until they got deregulated. Now they SUCK! If they privatize air traffic control we will have accidents everyday. You watch!

Everything that has been deregulated sucks.

Banks, energy, telecom and now mortgage. The mortage crisis is a good example of what happens when you like business run things. They just got degulated in 2005. It didn't take long for them to fuck the whole thing up! If Amtrak is privatized, it will be running off the tracks everyday!

Coach implies something that a king or queen rides in.
It is just one more example of how the intentional misuse of language is being used to create an illusion.

it's just that the rich have so much more money now that companies don't have to offer the masses anything but crap. The masses will never complain because they've been duped into believing they're lucky to be allowed on the plane at all.

It's the little things that used to add up to what was called the American standard of living. Yes, the pretzels and pop is what helped make your trip more than being shoved into "steerage".

of pretzels... wow, that sucks.. Even worse, you can't bring anything thru to eat or drink that is reasonably priced.. You know like a leftover turkey sandwhich and a baggy of crackers or something.

Thought you were going to say they charged you for the barf bag.

Cripes--I shouldn't give them ideas. :rofl:

both suck donkey dick! Okay....so I am pretty disgusted at the whole traveling thing....

My sister traveled this morning, went through security and they confiscated a tube of lotion....wait for it because it was simply too much liquid....WTF?

If you have money you can bypass a lot of this silly bullshit....

And they made no pretense at service.

the disappearance of a decent place to sit on the plane, well, I think 'ninth circle of hell' is very, very appropriate.

That's the same time as my trust in their maintenance programs disappeared. They remind me too much of what John Glenn said before his historic flight: "I can't help but remember that everything that will get me up there and get me back safely was supplied by the lowest bidder."

We no longer will fly. If we can't drive there, and trains are certainly no longer a viable option, then by damn, hell no-we won't go.

I haven't seen a movie on a domestic flight for years. I don't even think those damned puny 737's, 757's and A319s they fly all over the country have video screens.

I can't watch on the laptop or do any work because the fucking tool in front of me has his seat reclined into my chest the second the damned thing gets off the ground for my 5 hour flight.

I used to love flying, now unless I'm going overseas I avoid it like the plague. My company allows Business overseas but not on domestic, which includes Canada for some reason and I don't fly enough to build up miles for regular upgrades.

Christ I hate flying, my blood pressure starts to climb the second I enter the airport.

Headsets cost $5 though. :rofl:

Asshats...

to make those seats so much smaller and closer together.

I have pretty much been 5'6" for the last 30 years of my life. It do make a difference to have that (now missing) 3" of legroom that they squeezed out in order to get one more row of seats back there.

$3 for a bag of trail mix and they don't even give you a bottle of water any more. Just a 5oz cup of it to 'tide you over' for the next 4 hours. Tye your legs into pretzels in order to accomodate that shiny new row of seats and they wonder why we get cranky and our ankles swell.

I LOVE travelling on Amtrak though and here in the north east we even have rail lines. Big, roomy seats, all the water you can carry, internet access, cell phone access, electrical outlets for the phone/laptop when the battery gets low, street-to-seat in under 10 minutes, almost NEVER off schedule, etc, etc, etc...

If they end up having to sell off Amtrak due to the corporate squeeze, it will ruin it all together. We will be sitting in chairs smaller than the kindergarden classrooms with everything but a pencil stored in a Thousands Standing Around approved storage spot.

in coach are the same size they always have been (F/C & B/C have been getting larger), however moving them forward/aft takes about 5 minutes as they are only mounted in two tracks in the floor.

as a 5'4" person I wonder how anyone with legs longer than me can tolerate it