Airlines: Always worse than lawyers and Congress

The A-Games are moving along which means I'm on more airplanes than I would like. Yes, it's cold down here, but I have more leg room than you do, and I get to take my own food with me. And, yes, the baggage handlers totally try to destroy your bags. But they're nice to me.

I'm glad I could help get flight 1118 to Phoenix Sunday night. That was the only reason we sat on the runway in Dallas for hour after hour in a rain storm instead of being taken back to the terminal where we could have found lodging for the night. The evening followed a typical pattern in U.S. air travel. No information, surly flight attendants, passengers afraid to ask questions or assert themselves for fear of being arrested, or fear of the unknown in the post-9/11 world of air travel.

A polite request to the flight attendant to learn how long we would stay here before heading back in, resulted in an aggressive "We will stay as long as it takes."

"But at some point the pilots will time out and have to go back. When is that?"

"I'll find out, but we're going to stay here until we can leave." she said as the rain and lightning continued outside the windows.

"Well, if you could just find out when we have to go back in...."

"I said I would ask."

"OK, thanks."

But 45 minutes went by. She walked up and down the aisle, but didn't stop to give an answer. (I know what you're thinking right about now, and I'll have you know that just because my paws are creaky doesn't mean my ears are, too.) There was no outward indication that she felt she had to retrieve that information for any of us. It apparently wasn't a valid question, therefore she wasn't going to answer it. I could sit and wonder with the rest of the passengers.

We all expect poor service from airlines. No one on board seems visibly upset at this idiotic position we're in. Pawns in the movement of aircraft into position for the following days' flight schedules. We're the poor folks who were unlucky enough to be on the plane in a rainstorm, in Dallas no less, where a Delta plane crashed several years ago when it encountered what was later identified as a wind shear.

If they let us off the plane, then they'd have to fly it empty to Phoenix, book us on other airlines and cause a lot of work for themselves, which, they arrogantly admit, isn't of their making. The idea of accepting responsibility is not in the corporate culture of airlines. They proved that within 24 hours after the attack on the U.S., when they compiled the A-Team of lobbying prowess and extracted 15 billion from a U.S. public and Congress that was in shock over the worst attack in the history of the U.S. So the fact that it is raining is not their fault--and we all have been conditioned to agree with them. The problem with their argument is that while it is not technically their fault that it is raining, it is their fault if they do not put the needs of customers first. And this is impossible with the current air travel system in the U.S. Putting customers first only causes major headaches for airlines--so they don't. Under the current system, they would go broke providing what even approached customer service. The plane I am on needs to be in Phoenix before morning where it will go somewhere else in Delta's byzantine hub and spoke system. It needs to get there as full as possible. Doing what's right for the passengers -- letting us off -- means this plane would fly empty to Phoenix. No good for the airline.

This isn't something new for the airlines. It is not a post 9/11 phenomenon. What is post 9/11, besides the fact that you get no food on flights, is that people have been cowed into not complaining anymore. And the airlines are taking this as reason enough to not only continue, but to perfect customer disservice.

As long as airlines can put together SWAT teams of power-lobbies and extract money from a Congress that has been previously bought with campaign contributions, we're going to sit on runways in Dallas using the second battery on our laptops trying to drown out the the stupidity of the air travel system with trance music.

We knew it was problematic that we'd leave anytime soon, when the pilot said, "We're going to turn off the Drew Cary Show" (actually it was Drew Cary hosting "Who's Line Is It Anyway"), and put on a movie. Within a minute Gosford Park started. That's not a harbinger of a quick takeoff.

I suppose flying has become a privilege in our post-9/11 world, like driving always has been. A privilege we pay for with our patience, time, and sore muscles, but not usually with our checkbooks or credit cards. Flights are cheap. My ticket to Phoenix from New York, round trip, is $150. How can that be? How can an airline fly me from New York to Phoenix for $150? It can't. Unless it totally disregards my comfort, my expectations of good service, and its timetable. And then, it's not making profit of any consequence.

We've built an airline infrastructure prison for ourselves in the U.S. When Jimmy Carter deregulated the airlines, what nobody realized was that these people were guessing. They didn't have a clue about how to make money in the air travel business, and they haven't. But we let them keep trying while service degrades further and further. What we realize when the euphoria of discovering a cheap ticket wears off, is that we've gotten exactly what we've paid for. The idiots who paid more have real reason to complain because they're sitting all around me in the same situation.

I wonder what form of transportation will replace airlines? It's a matter of fact and time. There won't be a consumer uprising, a revolution, which reorganizes the airlines. That's not what the people around me would ever do. Instead, someone will come along with an alternative to flight, the same way Eddie Rickenbacker came along with an alternative to the trains, and these folks around me will vote with their aching backs and credit cards. And then we'll hear the old folks talk about how good the TWA coffee used to be, or how efficient the Pan Am stewardesses were during the salad days of commercial aviation as they lament the demise of this antiquated system.

I'll be dancing at the gate.

But before I get that chance, we are going back to the gate. No. No. No. Not to get off the plane. It's only 12:56 am New York time. Two hours late to arrive in Phoenix and we're still in Dallas. We're in the shank of the evening on the airline clock. No. We're going to the gate to refuel, because we've nearly run out of kerosene sitting here idling on the runway in a rainstorm. Of course, the pilot says he would appreciate everyone staying in their seats at the gate so we can refuel and get back in line.

Nope, the dancing at the gate will have to wait.

The credits are rolling on Gosford Park, and the inmates are running the prison, for now.

This plane full of people, many of them no doubt sporting U.S. flags from the rear side window of their SUV and beating their chests about how they won't be intimidated by Bin Laden, are walking wussies precisely because of what he, or whoever did it, did. I remember an LA Law episode at least ten years ago where Douglas used his cell phone to obtain an injunction against an airline which forced it back to the gate. This episode was widely watched and people cheered as Douglas did what they didn't know how to do. These same people, despite their testosterone-laden anti-Laden speech, are the ones standing barefoot in the security lines as a minimum wage worker learns little else except whether odor eaters are working. And they're the same ones sitting around me, hungry and tired, but not complaining. The inmates have convinced them, with $15 billion of tax money, that it's not patriotic to assert basic consumer rights. But the $15 billion the airlines have taken from us isn't the worst they've done. The worst is our acceptance of their sloppy, uncaring attitude, and their relentless flogging of a business model called the hub and spoke system that has never worked, and doesn't work today. They've rolled what they're smoking in the flag and we're saluting it quietly and accepting it passively.

My boyfriend, Jim, usually packs food when I take plane trips, and this time I left home with two tuna sandwiches, two turkey sandwiches, pears, bananas, five sports bars, two litres of water, three muffins and a bag of rice sticks. So far today, between leaving home at 2 pm New York time, and now, which is 1:22 am New York time, I've eaten both tuna sandwiches, one turkey sandwich, half the rice sticks, a pear, a banana and nearly all the water. My second battery is still going strong, the CD's are playing and I'm feeling guilty after having just finished a muffin and realizing nobody around me has eaten for who knows how long. It's a strange world when, because I happen to nutritionally prepare for the inevitable delays, and the airlines don't, that I should feel guilty. I'm feeling guilty because, again, they're not doing their job. But the rain is not our fault, they say. We can't be expected to feed people because the flight is delayed.

What they are saying is that this is an expense, similar to that category of expense incurred by other industries, but for which they refuse to accept responsibility. They refuse because they cannot and stay in business. Other industries can, and do, cover unexpected costs when customers are inconvenienced because they can. The reason they can is because other industries don't incorporate abuse of customers into their revenue model as airlines do. Airlines refuse to acknowledge that, in their industry, storms delay planes and customers are inconvenienced. Instead they adopt the solipsistic position that they are in fact being inconvenienced because their equipment cannot get to its destination in time to leave for the next one. And so, what is either an unusual occurrence, or one that is factored into other businesses' cost structures, is standard operating procedure in the airline industry. And guess what. This really idiotic part of this equation is that nobody benefits from this system. There isn't a group of people, not investors, employees, senior management, nobody is benefiting from this cruel and un-businesslike situation. In fact, everyone is suffering. Just ask the pilots, the flight attendants, the gate agents, the shareholders, the passengers, senior and middle management. Return on equity is among the poorest. Morale, too.

Gosford Park is starting again. And when we finally arrive in Phoenix the rental car people will be there, even though we're very very late, and I'll get my car and drive away as if I had arrived on time because the rental car companies have factored reality into their business plans and instead of penalizing the customer when life doesn't adhere to an inflexible business model, they expect late planes and cancelled flights, and they still make a profit and refrain from chronically irritating their customers. And when I check into the hotel, they too will have made allowances for my unexpected late arrival, and like the rental car company, they will make me happy despite the intrusion of unplanned events, and they will still make a profit. Now explain to me again why the airlines can't achieve the simple dual objective of being profitable and satisfying customers? Oh yea, I remember, because it's not their fault. Their companies run on the assumption that the world is perfect and when it's not, well, it's not their fault, or their problem, so they can't be expected to take any action to help alleviate the problem unless it first alleviates any problems they may have incurred because of the imperfect world.

Next time, I'm going FedEx.