Last week I promised yet another column of holiday gift suggestions. I’d been talked into reviewing three digital video cameras as possible presents for business travelers. But never mind.
No sooner had I received one of the products did I get a frantic e-mail from a publicist that the gizmo was “in high demand” and insisting I return it in a flash. The other device arrived without a disk, while the third is apparently not being used by anyone right now, so what does it matter?
Bottom line, for all of you publicists reading this column, is this: I’m not going to review the Canon Elura 2MC (price: $1,799) because I don’t have enough time. Besides, I don’t think I can talk my readers into shelling out that kind of money for a camera. I will, however, evaluate the Leica Digilux 4.3 (price: $699) once the disks arrive – and I’ll also check out the ixla Digital SuperPro 640 (price: $99) once I can interview someone who has actually used it.
What does this have to do with anything? Well, coincidentally, this candid columnist snapshot coincided with the publication of another story in which I criticized the airline industry for widening what I called the digital ‘gap’ between it and travelers.
Let me start with what is apparently some good news. The week of my tirade, American Airlines announced it would introduce a mobile check-in service aimed at speeding up the boarding of flights at the three busiest airports in which it operates – O’Hare in Chicago, LaGuardia in New York and Dallas/Fort Worth.
Coincidence? Perhaps.
When readers weighed in on the debate, they agreed that there was no excuse for the digital gap and that it was up to the carriers to close it. Even the airline insiders I heard from grudgingly admitted that there’s no reason to be running on antiquated mainframes at the start of the 21st Century.
As I pondered the ill-fated gift column and the reactions from the digital gap story, the issue suddenly exposed itself. Weren’t we in some ways complaining about the same thing?
Aren’t the publicists who are pushing the gadgets – and here I really mean to single out my friends at Canon – trying to give travelers what they want to rather than what business travelers need?
I mean, let’s be honest here. Even with the bells and whistles that the pocketsize hybrid camcorder offers, it still is as pricey as a laptop and, and with all the peripherals, travels in a bag that airlines would count as a carry-on. Impressive though it may be, it probably represents the kind of gizmo that Canon wishes more affluent business travelers would buy, rather than the kind of product that readers of this column truly need.
In a similar way, the airline industry continues to offer travelers what they wish they asked for instead of what they need. (Among the amenities, as I’ve already pointed out, are cutting-edge wireless Internet access, ticket scanners that don’t always work, and Web sites that mask severely outdated systems.) At least that’s the assessment of Brooks Hurd, a frequent traveler based in San Luis Obispo, Calif., and numerous other travelers who wrote me to comment on the backward state of airline technology.
“The reservation systems … should be in museums,” he remarks. “Technologically, it’s the equivalent of delivering astronauts to the space shuttle in an ox cart.”
Joel Berman says airlines know how woefully inefficient their systems are and have resorting to low-tech, if not dishonest, methods of improving their on-time records.
“In Boston, Northwest Airlines actually turns the clocks ahead in the terminal in their zeal to get planes out on time,” he claims.
That wouldn’t surprise me, but would ultimately be difficult to prove.
So here’s the real question at hand: how much longer are travelers going to get marginally useful gadgets and technology thrown at them before they do something about it?
“How about our highly-paid congressional representatives?” asks reader Andy Maurer. “Can’t something be added to the traveler’s bill of rights? Can’t it be forced by legislation?”
Many have already given up hope.
“I estimate that we waste about two to three hours each day we have to deal with airlines and the airport,” says Kirk Robbins, a tour operator. “It is my opinion that the airlines do not give a damn about passengers, all they want to do is fill the seats with people that don’t know any better.”
Having an overpriced video camera thrown at us is really no different than being overwhelmed by useless technology at the airport or on the Web. It is someone else’s idea of what kind of technology travelers need. It is not our idea.
It is annoying, frustrating – even infuriating. But the reality is that frequent travelers have been conditioned to accept what they’re given. We don’t question it; instead, we fall in line like drones.
We obediently buy product ‘X’ – useless as it may be – and we believe the airline when it says its newest technology is for our own good rather than the good of its public image.
Maybe it’s time for us to do some of the thinking ourselves. Maybe it’s time to question the technology suppliers when they smugly declare that their latest amenities are offered strictly with us in mind.
One thing is for certain: we’ll be no worse off for second-guessing the big companies.
✓ Get the latest travel news, tips and commentary from Elliott’s E-Mail, the subversive newsletter from industry gadfly Christopher Elliott. You’ll travel like a pro. Sign up here. It’s free.
Sign up for my 
