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Airline Industry Has Little To Be Proud Of These Days

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By JOHN HERBERT, From Where I Sit

Hernando Today

Published: August 28, 2008

"May I have a drink of water?" I asked the cabin attendant on an SAS flight from Stockholm to Berlin recently. The female attendant (once called a stewardess or air hostess) gave me a plastic pint bottle of water and sniffed, "That will be $4." No "please" or "thank you." And no apology for having to charge anything for plain water.
That's one of my latest encounters with the new world of commercial aviation, a mode of travel that used to be rather glamorous. Little wonder most airlines don't do much advertising any longer. It isn't the print or broadcast costs that stop them; they obviously aren't so proud of their products any more.
I guess we, the customers, will put up with just about anything in the name of 9/11 these days. The price of fuel has soared since we carried the war to Middle Eastern terrorists. Fuel used to make up about 10 to 12 percent of an airline's operating costs; now, it accounts for about 51 percent.
Of course, it isn't all the fault of the volatile price of oil; the value of a good old American dollar has tanked, for the time being, too. Some European and Asian airlines, which are not so dependent on the dollar, still turn a profit on flying, not just on selling off their assets, firing tens of thousands of staff or charging $5 for a can of beer that's probably cost the airline only 25 cents in the first place.
British tycoon Richard Branson, among those few entrepreneurs who make money flying all over the world, once advised an eager disciple how to become a millionaire quickly. "Invest a billion dollars in an airline," Branson replied. And his remark was made a decade before 9/11.
I had more or less taken for granted that drinking water was free on both international and domestic flights. Not any longer, even though jet fuel has dropped back to $3.70 a gallon from the $4.60 it was just a month ago. Most airlines have added fuel surcharges several times this year; don't expect them to be recalled just because crude oil is selling for $115 instead of $145 a barrel.
If you make a stink about being hosed on a flight, airline staff will gladly hand you over to one of the 65,000Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents for further humiliation or to arrest you as potential terrorist material. All for a drink of water.
TSA can also stand for "Thousands Standing Around." I got a good illustration of that particular moniker at the Southwest terminal at Tampa this past spring. About 400 people were lining up to pass security checks. Only three departure screening channels were open, while six inspectors were taking a leisurely break (with me) in the Southwest smoking lounge.
The TSA, by the way, is moving into new headquarters at a remodeled insane asylum in suburban Washington, D.C. How fitting! The TSA will soon be based in a nut house.
The airlines are setting themselves up for some pretty hefty lawsuits by not giving you water. I thought an air carrier had an obligation of sorts to keep its passengers healthy and hydrated during a flight. They've already jammed in several additional seat rows. Legroom is tight enough to cause a thrombosis from hours of flying in a fetal position.
Many airlines have become more inventive and daring in pricing products and services we once took for granted were free -- like $15 to check your first bag, $25 for a second bag, $7 for a pillow and blanket. Some carriers charge a premium to let you board first. Other airlines charge $100 or more to board an unaccompanied minor -- once also a freebie.
Pretty soon, the airlines will figure out a way to charge you to use a pay toilet on your next flight. That's buffo; you already have to be a contortionist to do your business in the narrow confines of the forward john of a 737, the most commonly-flown short- and medium-haul jetliner.
Most of us are going to fly, somewhere, sometime, for some reason. There isn't really an alternative, except for a skimpy Amtrak network or time-consuming Greyhound buses. Some airline is going to wake up to the fact that the easiest way to make money is to take out a few rows of seats, provide more legroom, a pillow with a blanket, and include drinks -- or at least plain water, all worked into a higher ordinary fare.
A few in-flight comforts might also make your compulsory pre-flight TSA screening a wee bit more palatable. A little common sense coupled with some politically-incorrect profiling would help, too. There's no reason for Ted Kennedy, the celebrity senator, to be held up (as he was, last year) for an extra airport screening just because someone with a similar name is on the TSA blacklist.

A regular columnist for Hernando Today, John Herbert lives in Spring Hill.

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