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Switching Sides
Ask Chris · April 20, 2000

Q: I have visited your site and I found a good amount of information to prevent possible travel snafus, but I am concerned about the tone of Ticked.com.

The tone of the last few columns has been to almost totally blame the passengers for their own problems. I had a real run-of-the-mill travel nightmare flying from Memphis to Chicago via Atlanta and I can't figure out what I did wrong but according to some of your columnists, I should have either:

(a) Never checked in any baggage, which would have been impossible and - if possible - would have been extremely rude to other passengers to insist on having one way oversized carry on bag.

(b) Checked in virtually all of my baggage. That would have been wonderful, except my checked baggage was "lost" for over 30 hours.

Yes, some travelers can make a bad situation worse, but I've seen airline personnel actually make a problem situation into a disaster. Is this travel hell considered the norm for air travel nowadays?

-- Robert Steinbach

Q: Trust me, it's normal. Travel has gotten progressively worse since deregulation, and despite the airline industry's preemptive Customers First program aimed at preventing stricter government controls, there's no sign of improvement. Complaints are soaring and the latest surveys, such as the Annual Airline Quality Rating, suggest that we haven't yet hit bottom.

I admit that this site's advice can sometimes be contradictory. That's not because we can't make up our minds on a given subject, but because the industry is so mercurial.

Let me give you an example. Last fall, it looked as if the airline industry was about to go into an earnings freefall. In my ABC News column I noted that airline profits were plummeting across the board and added "it's gonna be a scary Halloweeen" for the carriers.

Well, today I'm eating my words. Airline earnings have made a remarkable turnaround. American Airlines made $89 million in profits during the first quarter of this year, attributing the boost to "a wave of positive developments." Ditto for United Airlines, which earned $191 million after certain accounting adjustments. Even underachieving US Airways, plagued by a first-quarter loss of $1.72 per share, told analysts "things are looking up."

One minute you're up, the next you're down.

It's the same way with a lot of things in the travel industry: hotel rates, car rental charges, air fares, not to mention the disposition of your average flight attendant. So you'll have to forgive us if our advice changes. It's the business.

In your case, you noticed that one of our columnists advised you to check in your luggage. Another didn't. We have to allow for a difference of opinion. Ticked.com does one thing - and it does it well - and that's offer readers like you an informed opinion about travel. That doesn't mean it will necessarily be a uniform opinion about travel.

As to your concern about "the tone of the Web site" and its implication that we've abandoned our pro-consumer attitude, I think there's some merit to that. As Ticked.com has evolved, we've become far less willing to swallow every claim made by a consumer, hook, line, and sinker. I think that kind of attitude adds to the site's credibility, because when we do side with a traveler, it's for a darned good reason.

I'm personally troubled by the rise in complaints to the U.S. Department of Transportation's Aviation Consumer Protection Division because I suspect many of the grievances aren't legitimate. Some of them probably represent the ramblings of inexperienced travelers, spinning their wheels because it's the trendy thing to do. Their grumbling inevitably detracts from the real problems facing air travelers, and it gives carriers an excuse to send out more form letters in response - and to stall when it comes to making real progress.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator and author of A Bridge to Nowhere: A Year in the Florida Keys. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion. Ask Chris appears weekly on this site.