Air Rage

I can remember a time when people dressed up (not down) to travel. It’s laughable now but it was a sign of the respect people had for the privilege of being able to fly at 600 mph 6 miles above the earth.

How times have changed. In today’s NY Times, the business/aviation columnist, Joe Sharkey reports that 720 million people flew in 2009, up from 629 million in 2000. That’s a 14% increase in travelers. Domestic airlines employed 493K workers vs. 607K in 2000. That’s almost a 24% DECREASE.

The experience of flying would be worse even if the number of employees had remained constant. Air travel is now about as luxurious as taking a Greyhound. (That’s why they call it Coach. Or Economy.) And it’s not always faster. After a brief era of glamor, flight attendants became waiters/waitresses in the sky. Now they’re Walmart employees in the sky. No wonder they’re permanently disgruntled. David Sedaris wrote in The New Yorker that flight attendants admitted to him that they fart in the aisles as a kind of revenge. They even have a term for it: crop dusting.

If this trend continues we’ll soon be flying in crammed cabins like troops on their way to Afghanistan.

There’s been a lot written about the widening gap between the haves and have nots in our society. The difference between a private jet and economy class travel is an apt symbol of this. It seems everywhere you turn, there is evidence of the decline of our country. Decline in standard of living. Decline in standards of service. Decline in innovation.

It makes you want to grab a couple of beers and pull the lever for the emergency chute.