The not-so-friendly skies
November 14, 2006 — If this site were an airline, this page would certainly not be representative of economy class. Instead, it would be a navigable nightmare, broken JavaScript, illegible content, and, of course, some terrible marquee effect or other such Internet annoyance (pop-under ads, anyone?) To make things worse, you’d also have to pay for more content than a short excerpt. Comments, of course, would be locked, since I wouldn’t really want your comments anyway. I’m not supposed to be catering to you — after all, you’re the one that decided to spend your time here.
Over the past year, I’ve been in the air eight times, both in economy and first class, primarily on Northwest Airlines, Detroit’s primary carrier. The experience in economy class is absolutely awful: after being corralled into a too-small seat, I’m forced to write on a sticky tray table with terrible lighting. While the child behind me finds a new way to force his minuscule, Velcro-fastened shoe into the small of my back, the obese Midwesterner on my left can’t keep his gut in one seat, the excess weight spilling over my armrest into my chair. Meanwhile, the obnoxiously loud passenger of ambiguous gender in front of me reclines the full ten degrees, slamming my tray table into my stomach and pinning my right arm against the spotted window.
As if the spatial issues weren’t enough, I’m supplied a tiny plastic cup of soda (I can’t even keep the can anymore!) and sternly reprimanded by a passing stewardess that my iPod must be turned off immediately, even though the pilot hasn’t signalled descent. In a last-ditch effort to make it to the lavatory, the aisle is dusty and stained. The lavatory reeks of airsickness and I still can’t find a way to get the sink water to stay on for more than three seconds.
By the time I get to my destination, I feel worthless. Somebody — be it myself or a client — paid hundreds of dollars to get me to wherever I am; I’d probably have been treated just as well flying FedEx.
Meanwhile, those in “First Class” (which is generally just business class with first class prices on regional flights) are able to enjoy an actual drink, a decent amount of space, and quick, friendly (if not artificially so) service. Because of this, I nearly always upgrade my flights to first class — at my own expense — at the gate simply because I cannot stand the economy class experience.
It has nothing to do with snobbery; I am certainly in no position to be a snob. After all, I’m just a college student working a few hourly jobs and doing academic research. However, that extra $40-100 I spend for the business class flight pushes me further toward that ideal aesthetic when flying was something to be excited about. In all but one occasion this year, I boarded an aircraft wearing something other than my old wear-to-lecture clothes, be it a full suit en route to a corporation’s headquarters in March or business casual for my vacation in July.
I secretly long for the old days of airline travel, the days when passengers received decent food and real drinks, the era when small children were given plastic pin-on wings as they left the plane, and the days when you could get a pillow or blanket from the cabin crew. I secretly want to fly across the country in a clean plane with equally clean people, where it’s evident that both crew and passengers have paid attention to every detail. I want to be able to carry on an interesting conversation with an adjacent passenger or a flight attendant. Somewhere, however, the glamour of aviation that prevailed throughout the Cold War (on both sides of the Iron Curtain) was lost. While 9/11 certainly can be blamed for some of the airline industry’s negative effects, the hijackings have given the airlines a veritable carte blanche to strip whatever beauty was left from airlines.
Maybe it’s the industry; maybe it’s just the people, but no one really seems to care anymore. Our airlines have spiralled into a disastrous finance-cutting spree of bankruptcy post-9/11, and the irony of all of the cost-cutting is that nearly every single corner they cut in the cabin decreases the incentive to fly. What happened to marketing the airline as luxurious or fun? What happened to the sky girls of Braniff International? What happened to the public image of flying as a luxury, as something that was more than just a way to get to your destination but rather was a destination in itself?
It seems to me that what the North American airline industry really needs today is not more restructuring to maintain the old airline systems that companies like Delta, Northwest, and American currently use; instead, it needs a drastic change of brand image. While marketing doesn’t solve the rising fuel costs, it certainly has seemed to work in favour of airlines like jetBlue. jetBlue has been relatively successful in warding off disastrous fuel price increases through cost-cutting on the backend, with little change to the overall flying experience. Meanwhile, the ever-popular Southwest, although far from containing a glamorous or design-heavy image, has been wildly successful by putting corporate culture and image as their priority (although their wonderful hedged defence against fuel prices has certainly helped.) Delta’s now-defunct Song Airlines was also successful, given their Kate Spade-designed fashion, design-heavy cabins, and edge-of-luxury corporate image. (Song was eventually merged back into Delta, with Delta reconverting all Song aircraft to — yuck — the same bland, main-line configuration as Delta aircraft.)
Unfortunately, however, outgoing flights from Detroit Metropolitan Airport to my most common destination, New York City, are dominated by Northwest, Delta, American, and other such boring airlines. While the business class of these airlines is still acceptably comfortable, the aging, staid corporate image ruins quite a bit of the excitement of aviation. Next time I’m in New York, I’ll board my plane with a melancholic smile, sit down next to another stiff corporate executive, and peer sadly out the window at the tailfins of the aircraft run by companies that seem to care more about traveller experience. While I’m not one to drink, at least I’ll finally know why all of the guys surrounding me are already inebriated before we’ve even left the ground.
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