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Airline Travel Predicted To Worsen

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By JOHN HERBERT

From Where I Sit

Published: May 30, 2008

Fasten your seat belt — and keep a firm hand on your wallet. Flying is going to be worse — and more expensive than ever this summer. Gone are the days when an airline announces a fare increase of some kind, only to back down when major competitors don't follow suit.
American Airlines, one of Tampa's biggest operators, will start charging for your first checked bag before the end of June. It will cost $15 to check in that first bag; you'll actually have to pay for the excitement of having an airline do what it does notoriously best — lose your bag.
The $15 fee is not so new. In fact; many airlines already charge $25 for the second checked bag. It's one more airline twist to try to cover soaring fuel costs by nickel-and-diming passengers. American's justification: "Customers only pay for the services and features they truly value." I suppose that goes for fuel surcharges, too; $150 to $300 per flight. I don't really want my plane to fly on "empty."
I "truly value" an airplane's overhead luggage rack. The rack is going to be heavier and more dangerous than ever as passengers cram tons of previously checked" must-haves" into their, as yet, free hand baggage. That, in turn, is going to create longer and more painful security lines as inspectors stop to plow through each passenger's travel hoard.
Look forward to paying more big bucks, $5 to $50 more, for all kinds of services we used to consider were a normal share of the basic ticket price. Many airlines besides American will be hitting you up for making a reservation by phone, for unaccompanied minors, for flying with a pet in the cabin, or even for a window or aisle seat.
There's a food fee, too; $8-$10 for a plastic sandwich or salad, $5 for a glass of wine. There was a time when the airlines discussed effective ways to help a passenger kill time on board, and catering of food and drink was a key element to making the customer feel good while traveling in a cramped metal tube. Goodbye, flight psychology; hello, ka-ching.
Just when all these higher fees and surcharges are coming to a head, a new book is out, detailing the hell of flying. It's entitled "Dear American Airlines" and is an irate180-page letter to the carrier's management crying for help and understanding when a flight is canceled. Sympathetic reading, to be sure; but I fear it'll coax you back in your car for that next family vacation.
American must be doing something right, though. It's currently U.S.'s largest airline, the only one of six major carriers not to have sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in our fouled up post-9/11 era, and an industry leader in both computerization and in frequent flyer loyalty programs.
But, somewhere along the way, American seems to have lost the human touch. Whether in the air or on the ground, there's something lacking. Maybe the airline is just too big to manage; it may, in fact, start selling off some assets to get back to basics — flying people, not airplanes.
My "love affair" with American started about 40 years ago. A friend said I just had to try one of those huge new American 747s. "They've even got a piano bar on board," he marveled.
I did as he suggested and got the shock of my then still-maturing drinking life. Sure enough, American had a piano bar in the air (long since a victim of airline economics). I ordered a brandy from the flight attendant-bartender, expecting my drink to be served in a large, warm snifter, an ounce at a shot.
When my brandy arrived, it was a full 12 ounces in a tumbler! Oh well, I thought, Americans don't have much of a brandy culture. It was a long overseas flight. By the time I landed in New York, the brandy had "evaporated," anyway.
A decade later, I was connecting in Chicago for a flight to Tampa. It was heavily delayed. "We're trying to find the aircraft," an over-optimistic but incautious gate attendant explained. That was a mystifying statement, especially to all my foreign co-passengers whose English was either minimal or nonexistent. If you're going to run a business out of Europe, you should at least speak the language, I mused to no one in particular.
Apparently, American's Chicago staff had been listening too closely to their CEO, Bob Crandall (since retired). At a meeting sometime ago, Crandall spent a couple of hours reflecting on the sour state of the airline business. He had downplayed the overall role of airplanes in his business." Airliners?" he asked, rhetorically. "I only buy whatever I need to stay in business." Tell that to all those confused Chicago hopefuls.
More recently, I have used American Airlines on many flights between Miami and South American cities. That's when my opinion of American went from "poor sods" to "never again, if I can help it." Chaos rules Miami airport, an American hub. The Miami mess isn't really of American's making, it's an airport grown out of control.
Buenos Aires' American departures are nightmarish. Four American flights are bunched together, the two-hour check-in line overflowing the traditional "snake" and weaving out through the departure hall. It might make American's bottom line look good, but it's tough on American's customers.
The lines are still there, years after we suffered through them a couple times just to check that we weren't dreaming the nightmare. Competition doesn't seem to have fazed American. Other carriers' much shorter check-in lines moved along at an efficient clip. But, then, their departures were spread out.
American's flight crews? They marched right through check-in, noses in the air, in front of the passengers who pay the crews' salaries. It's taught in business school that "the customer is king." Looks like the boys and girls at American gave that lecture a miss.
I don't know whether that trying scenario was the result of weak American management, powerful American unions or federal aviation rules. What was abundantly clear, however, was that American had not heard of putting the customer first.
It doesn't surprise me, then, that a passenger actually died on an American international flight a few weeks ago. In-flight tragedies sadly happen on occasion. A major European carrier flying over 25 million passengers annually thought one passenger death per 12 months was a "good" year.
It may be forever unclear why someone died on that American flight. Asthma, heart trouble and even diabetes have been mentioned as possible factors. The grieving family charges passivity on the part of American flight attendants on board. From what I've gleaned from my years as a (former) American frequent flyer, I'd have to go along with the family.
That said, my advice is to try not to fly at all if you're feeling punk. All those lines, at check-in, at security and at passport control, will only aggravate things. So will waking up at an unholy 4 a.m. to make a reasonably-sounding 8 a.m. departure.
Also, only so much can be done at 30,000 feet, even if the oxygen tanks are working and the attendants are willing, and even if there's a volunteer Good Samaritan doctor or nurse among the passengers. And, you can't expect the pilots to find much Western-qualified medical help when they're flying over Siberia or Greenland.

A regular columnist for Hernando Today and a former frequent flyer, Herbert lives in Spring Hill.

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