I recently had the opportunity to do some air travel for a
business/pleasure trip. Now, I've been flying for a couple of decades
now. I'm not an avid traveler but I usually do at least one flight a year
and I have to say, things just keep going downhill.
First of all, let me be clear that the
skies are still pretty friendly. The airline employees are nice for the
most part, on the ground and in the air. Every once in a while you get a
nasty steward/ess, who is clearly having a bad day but since there is a 95%
chance their bad day was caused by a nasty person on the plane (what is up with
all the nasty people?), I'm not holding it against them.
Now, I'm not really going to address some
of the silly security rules in which I can't bring a bottle of my own water
with me but then when I get thirsty inside I am charged $5 for essentially 5
sips of Poland Spring. Nor am I going to wonder what people are thinking
in their choice of footwear when they must (must!) know they are going to have
to take their shoes off with 40 angry people right behind them (today was not
the day to try the knee high lace up boots that can't be pulled off) nor why
they don't step aside for a second and let those of us wearing laceless loafers
slide by. I'm not going to wonder why I pay hundreds of dollars to fly and then have to pay extra to bring my bag with me. Nor am I going to complain about how they no longer serve food
on planes. Do you even remember how bad it tasted? Why would we
want that back?
No, I really just want to talk about the
absolutely awful policies and procedures the airlines have in place. It
used to be that I checked my bag at the curb, gave the nice guy a few bucks and
I was done. I had my boarding pass in hand and was relieved of my giant
suitcase without having to take it very far at all (depending on where my ride
dropped me, we could be talking 5 feet maximum). Damn that was easy.
Now I have to cart it all the way inside and regardless of how I check
in, I need to bring it myself over to the giant x-ray machine or whatever that
is.
Particularly special this time around was
when on the return flight, I used a self-serve kiosk to avoid the long check-in
line (there were only a few people on line for the kiosk - hello efficiency!).
Upon completion in less than ten minutes (line and check-in!) the
computer told me to bring my bag to baggage check-in. I did not immediately
see where that might be and asked the very friendly employee whose sole job
seemed to be standing there in case anyone had any questions. Turns out
the baggage check-in was the same place as regular check-in, so I ended up
getting my ass on that line after all - I just delayed it by a now completely
wasted ten minutes. Goodbye efficiency! Why was the super friendly
employee not spending his time telling people not to waste theirs at the kiosk
if they planned to check baggage? I appreciate friendly even more when it
is remotely helpful to me. Meanwhile I should note that after all this
time I am still carting my bag with me and I assume at some point I'll have to
lift it onto some conveyor belt somewhere.
Yet, nothing (nothing!) in the airline
experience beats the extraordinarily inept and unorganized boarding procedures.
I have no idea what they are doing here and, I suspect, neither do they.
First they make what seems like 40 announcements for special groups to
board first. First class, business class, gold class, silver class,
purple class, blue class; eventually they get around to people needing
assistance (yes that's right, they come after the special paying more people).
I appreciate wanting to reward your most valued customers but if they
include 75% of the plane it's really not a reward and it's definitely not a
benefit to anyone. Finally, for the 20 of us who still haven't boarded,
they use the very logical Groups 1-4. It takes about a minute for them to
zoom through all four groups and move us to the boarding queue where it would
seem 80% of the passengers who have already "boarded" are waiting in
the always cold walkway thing to the plane. This line eventually brings
me to Thunderdome.
People fill the aisles (let's take a moment
to once again acknowledge the completely ineffective boarding procedures)
attempting to shove huge pieces of luggage into already full overheads (when
did people start refusing to check *anything*). They are moving around
their fellow passengers stuff with apparently no concern for the owners (I
surely don't hear a single "is this yours?") nor for the contents.
I am talking no concern whatsoever. "Hmmmm I need about 10
more inches of space to fit my huge bag and make sure it has a buffer zone so
nothing else touches it or the very valuable items inside - I think I can
squoosh this bag here into the corner if I fold it in three - yikes that didn't
sound good - better increase that buffer zone so the broken glass doesn't touch
my very valuable stuff." Lest you think asking a steward/ess to help
would lessen the damage - nope. They come along and do the same thing -
just in half the time thanks to their experience - and then "wham"
they sure do slam that overhead shut. Lest you think you might open a closed
one in search of space - don't...they spot that from thirty feet down the
aisle. "That one is FULL. Don't open it." Do not
mess with onboard personnel who can smell an imminent take off and will likely
hear it from the pilot if they screw up his on-time percentages.
Back in the dark ages when I began to fly
they used the incredibly simplistic order of families with kids, first class
and then coach starting with the back of the plane. I always thought this
was a pretty logical boarding concept that minimized aisle blocking and perhaps
I'm being overly nostalgic but I recall getting on the plane a lot more quickly
and people having a lot less trouble getting overhead space. (Of course
this might have also been due to the fact that people didn't carry everything
they own onto the plane). In fact, I seem to recall the only times it
didn't work were when the airline employees didn't enforce the row boarding
numbers.
So I have a suggestion. I say we
return to the back to front boarding process, and make the skies a little
*less* friendly. I want fewer smiles, less customer rewards and more
"Rows 21 and above only right now! Wait your turn!" I
might even be okay with a taser or two for any row 10 people who try to sneak
on early. The airlines can make extra money selling the seats in
the back (aren't they the safer ones anyways?) and if they are really smart
they can add a door in the back so they let them off first as well.
This is what's known as a win-win
solution. You are welcome airlines!
