Kayoh @ 190

I’m off to Toronto again tomorrow night, I hope I remember to get a Canadian stamp in my passport this time!

Anyone want to make any bets? 

The trip I am on now is a delightful mix of cities and countries. I just spent the previous two evenings in Toronto, tonight I will be in Boise and tomorrow will take me to Puerto Vallarta. I love trips like this where each of the cities that I go to are so completely different from one another.

Because several of my flights on this trip include international destinations, I spend more time than usual walking between the international and domestic gates. There are usually large distances between gates (sometimes even a mile or more) that need to be covered in short periods of time, especially if you need to grab a bite to eat or use the restroom (any restroom other than an airplane lav is a welcomed treat during the day!). The distance in itself isn’t really a problem, but trying to walk a mile zig-zagging through the crowds while dragging your luggage behind you can get a little hairy. You learn how to do this “airport walk” over time with speed and grace. The one thing I never get used to, though, are the “diagonal walkers”. You know, the person you end up walking behind who is on their cell phone or is just looking around trying to figure out where they are going. The person who walks diagonally in front of you, limiting your options to get around them smoothly. I haven’t yet figured out this phenomena, but it is so prevalent in the travelers of today’s airports that there must be some link between walking and distraction that causes people to walk in a diagonal.  Would it be rude to stop somebody one of these days and ask them if they realize that they’re walking diagonally?  I’m just curious!

There are also the people who just stop in the middle of the concourse. The “stoppers” I really can’t complain too much about since we are all guilty of that one!

Also on this trip I received my first stamp in my shiny new passport!  Of course, it was from the U.S. The one stamp in my passport at this very moment is from the United States….apparently I should have asked Canada and Mexico for a stamp. Next time!

Walking off the jetway in Chicago the other night, I hear the gate agent say “It’s not my problem!”.  Now I have felt that way on several occasions throughout life, but as I look around and see a woman in a wheelchair with her son standing by her side, I take notice of the situation.  Apparently we had three people in need of a wheelchair with only two wheelchairs actually present and only one woman to push all three.  I guess in Chicago after midnight, they hide all the wheelchairs.  The gate agent promptly disappears leaving these three people to fend for themselves.

We (the crew), go in all directions trying to find another wheelchair, and as I get back to the gate I hear one of the flight attendants say “I don’t know why we have to deal with this”.     Are you kidding me?

I am fully aware that it is not in my job description to chase down wheelchairs, but in the interest of not being a complete jackass, I do it anyway.  Would you really want your loved ones to get stranded in an empty terminal of Chicago O’Hare in the middle of the night?    There are just some things in life you don’t do, and stranding elderly people who can’t walk in an airport definitely falls in that category.

A few minutes later, everyone is on their way to baggage claim and off we go to the hotel for our layover, but this whole epsiode got me thinking.  How on earth did we become such inconsiderate jerks as a society?  Has it always been this way over the decades?     When did America become the land of the free, home of the rude?

These days, I believe you can actually taste the negativity looming in the airports.  Everyone is upset, understandably so.

The passengers, having stood in hours of lines (from the ticket counters to the security lines, to the lines at the various eateries and gift shops) are usually at least a little perturbed by the time they get on an actual airplane.  “A little Perturbed” is only a valid statement if things are going well. If the flight is going to be late, or there is some sort of problem (ie. crew issues or a mechanical), then I think “angry” becomes a much better descriptor at that point.  If a flight cancels altogether then comes another possible hour of standing in line at the customer service counter praying to be re-booked and subsequently make it to the desired city on the same day (hence why I always tell people to take the early flights. If something happens, you will be the first to be re-accomodated and have a much better chance of NOT getting stranded in a city you don’t want to be in).

The crews-not the happiest people to be at the airport either.  Getting around the airport is quite a feat these days-trying to navigate our way through the crowds to get from gate to gate can be quite a challenge while dragging around sixty pounds of your life behind you (I apolgize to anyone and everyone who has or will be affected by my luggage dragging techniques through a crowd..sometimes the luggage just has a mind of its own!). Not to mention we too have to endure the security lines (albeit not as long for us), and the other various airport lines every day that we are at work.

It is usually there, standing in the lines at the eateries where passengers like to strike up a conversation, usually about how bad their experience has been on my airline.  I always say how sorry I am to hear it (I truly am), and almost always the conversation ends with “I’m never flying this airline again”.  Unfortunately, after years and years of having this particular conversation, I have resorted to avoiding any line that I can and I try to get to my next flight without having to hear yet again how bad the airline I work for is (believe me, all of us employees are WELL aware of how bad our airline is!).  Most of us are very cautious when being approached by a passenger….in a way, we “gear up” to hear the worst  (another reason to fly early-the employees are much nicer when they are fresh for the day).

So there I was, walking through the terminal at my normal fast pace when I was stopped by a woman:

“Excuse me!”

As I kind of slow down “Yes?”

Woman:  “Do you know where there is good pizza in this airport?”

Total relief!  I can answer this one! I stop and have a pleasant conversation about airport food.  Now, I rarely know where the restroom is, I never know which carousel your bag will be going to in baggage claim, and nine times out of ten I will have no clue what gate your connecting flight will be going out of, but I sure can tell you where the good places to eat are in almost every major airport in the US!  Something to be proud of? I think so!

So with a little conversation about airport food, I smiled and felt as though just maybe not all airport experiences are negative

What good experiences have you had in airports or because of an airline employee?

They say that every airline pilot lives through at least one strike and one furlough.  I came within minutes of going on strike about five years ago, and yesterday the mailman was kind enough to deliver THE certified letter from the company stating that “due to economic times, high fuel costs, blah, blah, blah” that I will be furloughed sometime in the next eight months.   EIGHT MONTHS?????    They’re kidding, right?  I realize that corporate America somewhere along the way has lost any heart (ethics) or loyalty (integrity) towards the “cost units” down on the bottom rung of the corporate ladder, but “sometime in the next eight months?”.  I’m having trouble wrapping my head around that.  “We don’t think we want you, but we don’t want you out there finding another job either.”    Wow, it feels like a few relationships I’ve had in my time!

My next task is to frame the furlough letter and hang it proudly on my “ME” wall because now, I am a REAL airline pilot.

How often in our lives does it feel like everyone in the world wants money from us?  This would be in addition to the daily struggle we face to not be completely torn apart in every direction.  Perhaps my awareness of everyone wanting and expecting money from me is heightened solely because of the non-recession recession that we are in at the moment.

On top of all the usual suspects, I have noticed in the last week alone three requests for donations to various causes (very noble causes, I might add!), the hotel van drivers being more expectant than usual for their dollar tip (one actually started following me to make sure I gave it to him), as well as various other union and legal causes all wanting donations too.  There are more, but thinking about them is too daunting!

What do we do- what do you do when you feel like the world is grabbing at your pocketbook?

An excellent question!  Rather than nickel and dime everyone out of house and home, why don’t they just raise the fares?  Here are my thoughts on the subject, and please note that any pseudo calculations and numbers that I mention are just examples, not fact…..especially with the price of oil declining like it has been recently (yaay!).

Now the first theory I have to offer you is the frog-in-pot theory.  If you throw a frog into a boiling pot of water, it will just hop right out, but if you put the frog into a pot of lukewarm water and gradually bring it to a boil, the frog won’t notice.   (Here’s where I throw in some numbers and remember, they’re not exact)   On average, it costs about $299 per passenger in fuel to transport them from Point A to Point B.  That is just fuel!  We musn’t forget about leases on airplanes, landing fees, gate/airport facility fees, the cost of the use of Air Traffic Control (more of a factor if we’re flying into a neighboring countries’ airspace), catering fees (you wouldn’t believe how much it costs to have a flight catered!), crew salaries (thank you!), and of course all of the peripheral stuff we don’t see or hear much about (think of the poor guy who has to service each and every lavatory!  Ewwww!).

Rumor has it that in order to break even, the average airfare must rise up to around $500 to $600 per ticket.   The average ticket price in the First Quarter of this year was somewhere around $330 per passenger.  If an airline would like to make a profit (of course they do!), the fares must rise up to around $600 to $700 per ticket.

So this is where the froggy comes in. Do the airlines overnight raise all fares upwards of about $600?  Would the American public still fly or will they stop flying altogether?  OR do they raise the fares little by little whilst nickel & diming America?

I pose this question to you again - “So what do you think?  Nickel and Diming or huge fare hikes all at once?  Which would you prefer?”      I ask again simply because most of the feedback I get is from people saying “Just raise the fares $50!”, but I wonder will people still say Raise the Fares when they realize that we’re talking about several hundred dollars?

Yesterday, the airlines began charging for everything.  The nickel and diming continues!  First, it was the second checked bag, then it was ANY checked bags, and don’t forget paying a small fee to have a better seat.  By better seat, we’re not talking first class, oh no, apparently there are actually better seats in coach class!  Who knew?  It seems that the first few rows in the beginning of coach class are actually better seats and worth a premium price.  Now, I get the idea of slapping down the Visa for an aisle or window seat.  I think all of us have a story or ten about the time when you were stuck in the dreaded middle seat between two people who fought you the entire flight for an inch of the armrest. Or those times when you’re in between two people who definitely didn’t bother to shower that morning, or possibly any other morning in the previous week.  So, on that note, I actually do encourage everyone to purchase a premium aisle or window seat- money well spent!

Now that the flying public has just started getting used to paying extra for “premium” seats and checked bags, the airlines also started charging for every type of beverage on board the airplane- the soda, water, coffee, juice, and of course alcohol (ok, they always charged for that in coach class, but now it’s even more!).  Ever since the new charges have been announced to the public, it seems that everywhere I go, I get asked “Why don’t they just raise the fares?”.  Ahhhhhh, excellent question, I will have to get back to that one another time (Awww….I know, you were just dying to know my thoughts on that one!).  What has been surprising to me in the past couple of days is how I have not heard a single complaint from the passengers.  The passengers appear to be content with the situation.

So what do you think?  Nickel and Diming or huge fare hikes all at once?  Which would you prefer?  Have any of you experienced the new “charge-for-everything” plan?  How did it go?