The boarding announcements often begin with the reminder that “we are primarily here for your safety”–an oblique way of saying that unless we’re in flames, I’d really like to be undisturbed as I chat with my colleagues or read my magazine. This is certainly a blanket statement–and often untrue–but that it should be true so often is a clear indication of just how far service standards have fallen.

Some staff also seem to have decided that they are also arbiters of behavior as well. We all know that children can be unpredictable, even in cases where the parents are doing their best. We also know that some parents don’t try very hard to limit their kids. Nonetheless, how many restaurants or hotels throw people out based on a young child’s demeanor? Very often, the norm in other venues is to ask how one might be of service to help, but that apparently is no longer the case for many airline staff since threats take so much less personal involvement.

On some American carriers, the use of the toilet by the cockpit crew is preceded by the erection of a barricade of food trolleys and a flight attendant on guard. Given the fact that one of the things we learned on September 11 was that once passengers perceive a threat, they will be a first line of defense, this seems to be a poor course of action. Nonetheless, carriers often treat their passengers as threats rather than allies, building additional roadblocks in the client relationships.

In short, I will not be driven from flying by higher prices but rather by rudeness, intolerance and poor attitudes. And those things, Mr. CEOs, you can fix.

What about people who live in places where the attractions aren’t as numerous or convenient? I have no answer other than we got along quite nicely for many years without cell phones in movie theatres. Non sequitor? Sorry :) It’s a way of saying sarcastically, “how did we ever survive without airplanes!?!” I think we did just fine, and if we all choose not to fly, we’ll still be fine.

My company does not fly our people anywhere anymore. We’ve got ooVoo for video conferencing, Skype for teleconferencing, and Outlook for written communication and scheduling. It’s really too bad that I may not see some of my clients face-to-face for many years, but they don’t want to fly either, and they really appreciate how well we communicate in lieu of in-person contact.

Bill the Cat: Aaack!
Mrs. Fletcher from the “life alert” commercial: Help! I”ve fallen and I can’t get up.
My bathroom: (the sound of flushing)
My 6 year old: How do planes fly? My answer: Customers, dude. Customers.

Cheers, -Big Daddy Alan

HOWEVER, I do not wish to see a raise in fares through ‘nickeling and diming’ the customers. There are plenty of airlines out there who are not raising their fees and are still earning a profit.

The reason a customer used to fly an airline such as American or United was for a certain guarantee about the level of service. You assume that if you fly a name brand airline then you will be treated like a value customer. However with the new added fees we are receiving a discount airlines level of service for a premium price. If thats the level of service I want, I will pay for it, but I will pay the budget airline fare which is often a fraction of the cost of the big airlines.

I continue my point by showing that many budget airline who charge under $75 for round trip flights with all added fees and taxes are still turning larger profits than the major carriers. The only answer to this can be mismanagement by the airlines and not as a direct relation to oil speculation.

I loathe the arilines like everyone else — flying is just a pain in the rear end these days, and with increasing prices, I am sure I will hate it even more — but with that said, anything that helps them, helps me, so I did not take the suggestion to write Congress as them whining.

Wachovia sent out an interesting graph the other day showing demand has been all but steady for over 20 years, but not the price. I have heard all types of oil execs saying it is not the fundamantals, ie supply and demand, driving this price increase.

So I went back to United’s web site to see where I had missed that little fact. It was very easy to find the price of a ticket but the only mention of a penalty for canceling was one buried deep within their web site that said cancellation would mean a small charge.

I went online to find any mention of that steep fee. Sorry, without being a member of their frequent flier club, it’s not available.

Misleading? Intentional obfuscation? You be the judge.

PS: I own my company. United can keep my $167. I get to prevent any of my partners and employees from flying United. Last year’s flights were just over $250,000.

Maybe instead of asking consumers to stop oil speculation, they should ask when we’ll be ready to acknowledge that fares need to actually go up rather than nickel-and-diming us on the small stuff.

That’s my real question. How low cud they go to save money so that their managements’ payment kitty is not affected?

And I second the motion to eliminate bonuses for any industry leader who is whining about loosing money and blaming the other guy. I live on 1/10 of your salary and I get by, so can you.