Posted on 02/02/2008 7:12:57 AM PST by 3AngelaD
...Report From Week 747 in which we sought amusing ways to improve the experience of airline travel. My, were you bitter -- Heaven forbid that you are a fat person or a parent if you ever ride with these entrants. Numerous Losers suggested having the planes just travel on the ground; that passengers should get to vote people off the plane; potluck meals; and, for some reason, in-flight karaoke... 4. Have the first-class passengers board last, to spare the rest of us their smirks as we file in. 3. Parents with small children must wait to board the plane until after it has taken off. 2. the winner of the VHS tape of "Fisher Price Little People Discovering Animals," one of the few items arguably more irritating than sitting for an hour on the tarmac: It works for FedEx: Instead of this complicated network of city-to-city flights, just send everyone to a holding pen in Memphis, and then when there are enough passengers for a flight to, say, Yazoo City, just load up and send them out! While waiting, passengers in the pen could fold napkins or something.
And the Winner of the Inker: Install removable tray tables. Then when the person in front of you reclines his seat to the supine position, you can place your tray, drinks and all, right on his face.
Serve the meals already in barf bags.
Seat the smelly fat guys next to the screaming children: more space for the former, muffling the latter, and saving me from both.
When the person in front of you reclines too far into your space, his entire seat snaps shut like a bear trap for the remainder of the flight.
Hire a second person to handle luggage at Dulles....
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Bring back the Pony Express.
American air carriers are the one business segment which I believe could be nationalized with no measurable decline in service quality. Heck, I don’t think Aeroflot in the Khrushchev era could have been any worse.
How could this NOT have won??!! If only.
My all-time favorite Style Invitational response (which also didn’t win) was for Excuses for Not Coming to Work:
“The voices told me to stay home and clean all the guns.”
Here's the rub, if you provide comfortably spacey seating and great service, but ask for a 50% premium on a 2 hour flight, no one will fly your airline.
So is the public not really getting what they want, i.e. the lowest price, whatever the quality?
Welcome to the club of The Circle of Hell Dante Didn’t Describe: being on an airplane full of children. Other suggestions were: Allow infants and small children to relax during the flight inside specially padded and soundproofed overhead compartments in the rear of the plane. Water and food pellets can be provided as in guinea pig cages; A free drink for everyone surrounding a crying baby; two free drinks for the baby...
If restaurants were like airlines, you’d have Mickey D’s and $400 steakhouses, nothing in between. If the auto industry were like airlines, you’d have Kia and Bentley, nothing in between. I don’t get it.
You are exactly right.
I’m as guilty as anybody, as I invariably take the cheapest flight.
But then I don’t spend a lot of time whining about a system that gives me exactly what I want, cheap fast safe travel. The other things are to me, and obviously to a sufficient group of other travelers, luxuries not necessities, certainly not something I’d happily pay significantly more for.
Would passengers act more civilized if they dressed better than when they work in the yard?
I doubt it. I have seen some nicely dressed people acting like jackasses on airplanes.
For sure.
My nephew (retired Delta) flew from PA to NV on Southwest Air and told the following:
1) The "kitchen" is no longer needed because no food is heated, so it was shrunk so another row of seats could be installed. That left the entryway to the emergency exit so small that if a fat person got stuck, he would be like a cork in a bottle.
2) Naturally, no food - not even a bag of peanuts. Bring your own or go hungry.
3) ONE bathroom at the back of the plane.
4) If you want a pillow or a blanket, you have to pay for it.
5) No seat reservatons. You request Group A, B, or C. (No First Class). All that means is that A gets to board the plane first, B is next to grab the remaining seats, and then C. (Who would ask to be C?)
Between this kind of "service" and TSA, I haven't flown in years and have been fortunate in that I could drive to get where I wanted - even cross-country.
International flights, however, are completely different, and you are not treated as cattle (hearsay).
[Sidebar] A new use for ground coffee. Years ago, on a cross-country flight, one of the passengers was a young woman with a squalling baby. Another was one SCRAGGLY looking black guy in a long trench coat, who sat center seat on the opposite aisle (I had an aisle seat).
We were barely in flight when an overwhelming stench of vomit wafted through the air and I thought that that damned baby had barfed. I looked across the aisle and the guy that had the aisle seat gave me a dying-cow look.
About then, the scraggly black guy stood up with his coat held in front of him - full of vomit. He staggered up forward toward the First Class bathroom leaving little vomity footprints behind. All of us were ready to barf ourselves.
The stewardess quickly appeared, sprinkling coffee from packets on the footprints, which instantly filled the air with the scent of fresh coffee. The guy alongside of me woke up and said, "Gee, that coffee smells great!" I told him he didn't want to know and should go back to sleep.
Thankfully, I never had to use that method in normal living, but I'll always remember how that coffee instantly wiped out the stench. I wonder if they taught the stewardess that trick in flight school or if she learned it the hard way.
You are absolutely right. Yet, its hard to argue with the market. People look at $100 more for 1-2 hours and most people think its worth the hassle to save the money. The others sit in first-class. If there were a higher demand for first-class, the airlines would expand those sections and add more flights.
After safety, how about just civility. That should not cost extra.
Apparently its not that important to the vast majority of their customers.
Don't get me wrong. I think domestic air travel is abysmal. I hate it. And I drive over 3000 miles every Summer with the family to avoid it. I just don't see it changing for the better until more people follow my example.
That 1" of meaningless tilt results in about 6" less of knee room for those of us who are vertically unchallenged.
Yeah, I know I can pay three times as much for a bit more kneeroom or I can get there 3 hours early to guarantee a seat in the exit row, but why?
I could understand it if the seats truly reclined. Why don't they just get one of those neck gaskets so they can sleep sitting up?
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