a bit rich

Last week, to try to learn about the airline hijackings of the 1960s and 70s, I looked up info on Google and found an article titled, "Take This Plane to Cuba."  Ever since then, I haven't been able to get the song "Take This Job and Shove It" out of my head.


Take this plane to Cuba
Take this job and shove it
...same rhythm, same number of syllables....





Meanwhile, back to the modern airline problems... ("if we do not have hijackers to worry about, then we must attack our passengers!" - "Why??!" - "We don't know!  We don't know anything, and that is why we must attack!!" ...)


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This weekend the New York Times ran an article under the rather dubious headline, "How Airline Workers Learn to Deal with You."  (It was something about "verbal judo" -- sounded dicey....)







Flight attendants,
past:










...and present:





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One Reader Comment under the story was from Rick Gray in Austin, Texas.  He wrote:


Everyone is more irritable now.  When the airlines were suffering financially, they extracted concessions from their employees to stay in business.  Now that they're doing well, have they brought salaries back to where they should be? 


I don't think so. 


So, you've got crew who are underpaid and overworked.  And, the passengers are in no better shape.  Everyone who isn't already rich is barely getting by.  Flying, which was once an exciting, pleasant adventure, is now a chore.


Friends of mine in the service industry talk about running a business as a "friendly innkeeper" -- someone who really cares about their customers and wants them to be happy. 


That certainly works when you expect repeat customers, but those working in an airline cabin are unlikely to have many regular customers. 


Neither the crew, nor the passengers, expect to see each other again. 


That gives both sides a little leeway since they're just jeopardizing a single, short-term interaction by being less pleasant than they could be.




The solution?  Everyone who does real work...needs to make more money.  Removing financial uncertainty goes a long way to making people happier. 


When I was young, raises in salary were common, as well as bonuses when the company did well.  You could expect that your income would steadily increase over time. 


That's no longer the case, and I think that's the root of the overall unhappiness (and surliness) in America today.




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[some other Reader Comments on the same story]


Richard Spencer    New York
---------------- The staff may be busy, they may have a lot to do, but getting in an argument or a power struggle over nothing is perhaps the biggest time waster of all.






Stella    Canada
------------------- Examples we've seen recently of horrifying behavior are part of a long trend of airline-orchestrated contempt toward all but Business Class clients.  It is a culture of disrespect cultivated by the companies themselves.


Airlines need to change.






David    NYC
---------------------- To say the airline industry "endured a wave of bankruptcies" is a bit rich -- at least in part.  Bankruptcy was successfully used to restructure airlines and force concessions from their workers, or so I recall.




Durham, North Carolina
---------------- I have just seen the stroller video.  My issue is with the mother, who is obviously sleep-deprived to dispute removal of the stroller from the plane. 


The behavior of the male flight attendant who "violently" took away the stroller, is not acceptable. 


But isn't it apparent that infantile behavior usually starts these confrontations? 




We have come to accept the outrageous fees, the reduction of seating space, the elimination of amenities that result in obscene profits for the airlines and harrowing experiences for all of us.  We also accept the airlines' treatment of its workers and expect they behave like therapists.  Predatory capitalism has wrought consumption-based narcissism, and it is shredding societal norms.  America, wake up!




Ryan    Harwinton, Connecticut
------------------ Southwest Airlines is the most heavily unionized airline in the country.  It's also one of the highest-rated in terms of customer service.


Next!




J.W. Mathews    Sarasota, Florida
--------------------- The idiocy continues.  The airlines sell a product and thanks to lack of enforcement of existing anti-trust legislation, we now have fewer airlines in this country than at almost any time in history.  They abuse and injure their customers, make flying hell and are driving away this flyer with mileage to foreign carriers.


Fly any number of international airlines and you'll be amazed at the improvement in your flights.  Open up American markets to foreign carriers and let's get competition again.  Deregulation was a farce.




S.    Florida
----------------------- Dr. Dao did not have a tantrum.  All reports, including the belated admission by Munoz, are that he was quiet and respectful until he was beaten to a bloody pulp, at which point he had a concussion, a broken nose, two teeth knocked out, and was probably disoriented and confused.  Saying that all rules must be followed is a very slippery path if the rules are arbitrary and enforced with fascist violence.




New Zealand
---------------- ...Don't be fooled.  All this ju-jitsu kabuki is great if you're dealing with the rare bozo but it's really there just as the security crap is ... to control us, when it's the airlines that are out of control and inherently abusive in their practices which increase profit and make air travel into an ordeal.  We need to organize as passengers and demand the re-establishment of the Civil Aeronautics Board.


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