Stephan Pastis draws parallels. Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.
The airlines appear to be nickel-and-diming travelers to death. I've heard a number of complaints after the holidays, and around the Superbowl, from friends who found they had to pay a lot more than just the ticket price when it came to surcharges, taxes, add-ons, baggage fees, and other bits and pieces.
I remember air travel in the 1970's, when the luxurious extras of the 1950's and 1960's were on their way out, but a lot were still available, and traveling was an experience to be savored. The seats were larger, there was more legroom, the meals were served on actual china with real knives and forks, and the air hostesses treated you like you were important to them. I can remember, on the inaugural BOAC 747 flight from Johannesburg to London, dining on filet mignon with lobster tail - and that was in economy class! Nowadays? Don't make me laugh! (How many of you remember BOAC, anyway?)
Oh, well. Since air travel has become as commoditized and financialized as anything else, I suppose it's only natural that everything surrounding it has gone the same way. I will give one shout-out to Southwest Airlines, though: when everyone else is charging for baggage, they continue to allow up to two bags per ticket-holder, and don't gouge you with extra fees for it.
Peter
11 comments:
I can remember, as a child circa 1970, having to put on a suit and tie (I was not happy) to get on an airplane to go see some family. I don't remember my parents to my whining, but it had something to do with dressing appropriately for the experience.
I had a job where I flew to a lot of places. Left it just before COVID. Haven't flown since and don't miss it. My employer would only pay coach. The occasional upgrade to business class was really nice. Very different experiences.
I'm nowhere near that old, but anyone remember flying Midwest express airlines in the late 1990s. Small planes with two seats on both sides of the aisle with nice legroom. Good coffee and an okay breakfast or dinner served on real plates and good coffee or tea. Actual silverware. They were more of a MidWest carrier, but they had flights to the East and West coast for about $200 more or less.
I've never done international travel on other airlines, so I have no idea about that kind of experience.
Most of my international travels in the 1970s were on student charter flights which were ... at least somewhat comfortable, and with generous and mostly edible meals. Or military charters, which were about on the same level.
I do remember a couple of domestic flights - I think one of them was called Allegheny Airways, where the meal was just a simple hot brautwurst in a fresh roll, with a fresh apple, served in a small basket. It was very good, simple, and low-maintenance. I thought it was very clever of the catering department to do something basic and good, rather than attempt something fancier but totally mediocre.
Later on - military transport, of which the less said the better, save that it made the regular budget airlines look good.
I flew on BOAC many times, mainly to the Middle East. Not for nothing were they know as 'Better On A Camel"!
Southwest is an interesting study on benchmark.
For a long while they were the “cattle car” of the air. The public bus. The rear facing seats and the extra row facing the bulkhead. The ordered-disorderly chaos of no seat assignments and the mess of people with filthy plastic boarding group cards all anxiously scrumming for positions as to avoid the middle seat or worse.
Meanwhile they used the cost savings and passenger load optimization advantages to roll into fleet expansion, utilizing fungibility in airplane configuration for crews, maintenance, fuel, freight, and gates to expand across second tier markets soaking up routes along the way.
IOW they appeared to be behind but were, apparently, correct to bet big on the commodification and financialization of air travel.
Not to mention the general social decline and decay of decorum and etiquette that now has every airline shuttling around tank top fatties and all kinds of rekt people in dirty pajamas alongside miserable business travelers and alcoholic cruise ship ugly Americans. Southwest used to be the rowdy, déclassé airline serving the “stripper route” to Vegas and the like but now that’s every route on every airline unless you are intl to Asia or Dubai.
Part of the lesson I draw from this is that my own strategy of “living poor” now and moving toward a more simple life of interchangeable parts and self-reliance interfacing via multiple avenues of subsistence and austerity is merely positioning for when that is just “normal”.
A more aggressive position might be to start living like it’s 1899 now as to be well ahead of the rest when one day for now reason at all we are living in some diverse dystopian Balkanized turn of the century frontier.
I'm old enough to remember when airyplanes had two big propellers, one in front of each wing and travellers were treated like honored guests - but that's another story.
I think that the airlines got the idea originally (that customers could be treated like trash) from the automobile sales people: the mickel/diming for each little addition/upgrade?.
My first flight was in August of 1963 on a 2-engine prop from New Orleans to San Antonio.I and several other recent high school graduates of the group were the only males on the plane not wearing suits. We were headed to basic training at Lackland AFB, TX.
The original Braniff, with china and cloth napkins in economy, and dressing up. The original Continental, likewise. Then along came deregulation which did, indeed, make air travel cheaper. Not less expensive, but cheaper.
I don't recall BOAC, but I do remember Pan Am, Midwest, Trans-Texas, Eastern, Air Florida, and a few others.
TXRed
Rear facing seats? That would be freaking fantastic! Much safer and more survivable than forward-facing, that's for sure.
"Rear facing seats? That would be freaking fantastic! Much safer and more survivable than forward-facing, that's for sure."
Maybe, maybe not.
I would be concerned for flying luggage, laptops, and unbelted paxs/crew smacking those seated directly in the face. I suspect the seats would have to be upgraded to take the stress of an upright person, as apposed to those current ones that mostly only deal with the stress of a person folded at the waist and held by their lapbelt. Note how badly the seatbacks next to that lost door plug got bent by airflow exiting the plane.
ISTR that complaints by the pax got rid of the backwards seats. Don't recall the details. If there is a notable survival rate for them, the FAA would have to make a blanket demand that all pax seats be so arranged.
"Flew in from Miami Beach B.O.A.C.
.....Didn't get to bed last night."
First lines in a Beatles song, "Back In the U.S.S.R."
That's my only recollection of BOAC.
-Steve
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