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Flying the Funny Skies
Opinion · October 4, 2002

The airline industry's current malaise is no laughing matter. Or is it?

Yeah, things are bad. The nation's carriers could lose more than $8 billion this year. They're hitting up Congress for billions in aid, and they're cutting flights and adding onerous new fees to their tickets.

At a time like this, the whole industry should feel dejected. So what's with all the jokes?

"We're loading some air freight on the plane," a pilot explained over the intercom on Robin Archey's delayed flight from Baltimore to Albany. "We've gotta make money somehow. Because we sure didn't charge you people much."

Richard Wong, a Washington attorney, was surprised by a recent in-flight safety briefing. "One of the attendants said that in case of a sudden cabin decompression, 'complimentary oxygen' would be provided," he remembers with a chuckle.

On a plane from Los Angeles to Washington, Eleanor Santic caught the following announcement: "I'll dim the lights during the food service since it will probably help the appearance of the food." The menu in economy class featured a prepackaged snack with a "hot" sandwich, cookie, and juice.

"He was right," smiles the Barboursville, Va., consultant.

Passengers are laughing right along with the airlines. When Chris Scollon found his assigned seat on a recent flight, someone was already sitting in it. "We compared boarding cards and both had the same exact seat number," says the information technology consultant from Atlanta. "He looked at me with a grin and said 'Top or bottom?'"

But these days, some of the best one-liners are reserved for landings.

At the conclusion of an extremely turbulent American Airlines flight, a cabin attendant finished his "stowed-tray-table-and-upright-seat" speech with a cheerful, "We'd like to thank you for flying American Airlines. But if you were displeased with the flight, thank you for flying United," remembers Thomas Wilmer, a Las Vegas magazine columnist.

On a recent United Airlines flight from San Francisco to Portland, as the plane taxied to the arrival gate, flight attendants began making a "choo-choo" sound over the speaker system. "Then they announced that we would be pulling into the station -- in Peoria," says Phil Kurjan, a software engineer from Sunnyvale, Calif.

After a bumpy landing in Las Vegas, passenger Keith Lesser heard the following humorous explanation: "Ladies and gentlemen, we would like to apologize for the rough landing you just experienced. But we would like to make you aware that the landing was not the pilot's fault, and it was not the co-pilot's fault. It was the asphalt."

No sooner did Elizabeth Ballo's flight from Philadelphia to Boston land than most passengers started unfastening their safety belts, defying the cabin crew's directions to remain seated. "Do I hear something?" a flight attendant asked over the PA system as the sound of clicking seatbelts filled the cabin. "What's that sound? OK, I'll tell the pilot to get back in the air and we'll do this landing again until we get it right."

"Much laughter followed," she recalls.

There's a reason why airline employees are cracking more jokes, according to therapist Mark Gorkin. The so-called "Stress Doc" says humor helps people cope with difficult situations, including the very real possibility that their employers will file for bankruptcy protection, lay them off, or even close down. Laughing helps them handle the hopelessness.

But this isn't just a question of dealing with the trauma of working for America's worst-run businesses. On some level, the employees who are making light of their jobs are also mocking the managers who ran their carriers into the ground. Every one-liner, every joke, every gag that we hear on a plane is, in some respects, a bittersweet commentary about the plight of the airline industry.

In effect, the crewmembers who are trying their stand-up routines on us are really saying it's their airlines that are the biggest jokes of them all.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator based in Key Largo, Fla. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion.