AIRLINES
I fly a lot, not 100k, but solidly between 25-50k per year. I used to fly more, but it has gotten harder and harder, so I fly less as the level of abuse continues to grow. We all know the airline industry is having a rough time of it, and the attacks of 911 certainly made things worse for these businesses overnight.

I just wish that they handled the situation with more grace, style and integrity.

Grace
I always felt that the best measure of grace is how you handle it when something goes wrong. I recently saw a study of airline on-time arrival rates that said this past year was the worst in history, less than 80% of planes arrive on time. Given that passengers have a significant delay 1 out of every 5 trips, it’s amazing how poorly the airlines deal with these situations. Personally, I’ve been delayed 3 out of the last 5 flights.

-San Francisco to JFK in January, with a plane change in Chicago. Connecting Flight canceled. I spent an hour in line, twice getting rebooked on successively cancelled flights. Ultimately, I made it to NY, 8 hours late. During the whole ordeal I got 11 e-mails on my Blackberry from United titled: ** UNITED AIRLINES ON TIME DEPARTURE MESSAGE ** telling me that my canceled flight was going to depart ontime…the last one arrived hours after the originally scheduled departure and cancellation. It’s not that I blame United for the weather, I blame them for understaffing the CS counters and having terrible information systems. I took some fun pictures of the freaky tunnel between terminals at O’Hare to pass the time.




-Burlington, VT to San Francisco, plane change in Washington Dulles. My flight was canceled due to a mechanical problems and there was a half-full USAir flight to DC departing around the same time, which would have allowed me to catch my connection. Unfortunately, I committed the offense of using frequent flyer miles to take this trip…so NO!!! United would not put me on their codeshare partner…I must be punished and made to sit for hours in Burlington and even more hours in DC to arrive 6 hours late and well after midnight.

San Francisco to Seattle on Alaska Airlines. Here we were delayed on the tarmac for 2 hours (it’s only a 2 hour flight) due to a mechanical problem. An hour into the wait the pilot said it was resolved and that we were just waiting on the paperwork…an hour after that, what must be the world’s longest form was filled out, and we were on our way. To their credit, Alaska did comp us a free drink, which is one of the small things that makes me think Alaska is better than most. United didn’t offer so much as an extra bag of peanuts.

Style
In the 30+ years I have been flying, people (including me) have been complaining about the airlines. One of the principal complaints used to be about food….they have found a fix for that, they just eliminated the food. Actually, that’s not true…they have morphed it into a strange experiment where they try to sell you the food, with little success as far as I can tell. I’m writing this at 35K feet and they tried, unsuccessfully, to sell me a “$3 Mystery Snack Box” earlier today.

The overall decline in amenities and comfort lead me to wonder where will it stop? I’m writing this on a Northwest Airlines flight, serviced by Mesaba Airlines. Now, I’d never heard of Mesaba airlines until today and I think I’ve found the new race to the bottom (pardon the pun) for this industry: cleanliness. I’ve been on cleaner buses in Mexico than this. I took a few choice snaps of the crusty seats, lost potato chips, and less than restful restroom (mercifully not shown).


Integrity
Here’s a big one for me. I don’t know anyone who travels frequently who doesn’t feel like the airlines lie to them.

Micro-Lies
It may seem like a small thing to some, but I think the situation with electronics is emblematic. We are prohibited from using electronics from the time the doors close to 10 minutes after takeoff and 10 minutes prior to landing. During the flight, nothing that can receive or transmit any radio signal is may be used. The fear is that this equipment may interfere with the plane’s navigation and control systems. Problem is nobody knows. It’s my understanding that no significant scientific studies have been done to determine the risk of this actually happening. So, based on someone’s hunch, millions of people are inconvenienced on a regular basis. What’s worse is, nobody really believes these warnings, so many of us either intentionally or accidentally violate the rules by leaving cell-phones, games, etc turned on. At some point there will be electronics that can interfere with the increasingly complex systems of airplanes, and the “Cry Wolf” syndrome may actually cause a crash. Two pet peeves include the premature order to extinguish all electronic gear…the crew on my first flight today issued the mandate 25 minutes before landing…..OH WAIT…I’m 30 minutes out of DC and they just said I need to shut down…oh well…there’s no real dange….

NEXT DAY
Whew…I’m back. I managed to shut down my laptop just in time to avoid taking the plane into a fiery tailspin.