The Unfriendly Skies

I flew for the first time since March this month, travelling to New York and San Francisco. And, I have to say that the airlines are doing all they can to make the experience a lot less enjoyable.

It started on the second leg of my trip last week -- coming back to Chicago from LaGuardia. Our plane taxied for more than an hour, without a peep from the pilot. All of us on the oversold flight were sitting there, waiting to hear why we weren't leaving, but the pilot must have thought that information should only be shared on a need-to-know basis. I don't know what made me more upset -- the fact that we were in the dark for so long, or that nobody else except for me seemed to give a rat's ass.

How much effort would it have taken for the United pilot to get on the intercom to say, "Sorry that we are waiting here for so long, but our union continues to fight with management, so we are making flights miserable for all of our customers until we get exactly what we want. We apologize for the inconvenience and we realize that you have a choice with your air travel. I'm just sorry that you picked today to fly."

I might not want to hear that excuse -- but at least I would have a reason.

Problems continued today, when I checked my bags for my American flight. I have seen the commercials from Southwest, saying that bag fees are $40 for other airlines -- but since I didn't have to pay at United last week, I figured that it was for bags that are more than 50 lbs. It turns out that it's for all bags, so I was stuck with a pretty hefty fee.

The airlines have been struggling for years, and the high cost of oil is making it even harder for them. So, I guess their strategy to overcome their challenges is to employ terrible customer service. First, they'll make you miserable on your flight, then they'll nickle and dime you to death, so that they can keep the middle class out.

Killer strategy! I guess that this way when the airlines fail, they can just turn to us tax payers to bail them out!

RoadRage