Every few weeks I find myself in the second-class cabin of an airplane. This has been going on for years. I have been flying, on a regular basis, throughout most of the age of airline deregulation. It’s not as much fun as it used to be.
Don’t get me wrong – after thousands of air miles, I’m still entranced by the magic of flying. It’s wonderful to behold summer from 30,000 feet. This week, on a transcontinental flight, I passed over my birthplace – and for 90 seconds I was home again. My reverie came to an abrupt halt as the elbow of a fellow traveler careened off my skull. The gentlemen was not trying to start a fight, he was merely trying to get out into the aisle without the aid of a yoga instructor. Thank you, deregulation.
I was never a fan of deregulation, but I have to admit, the first few years were fun. The tickets were cheap, the planes were half-empty, the attendants had little to do besides pour ginger ale and offer second helpings on meals. This is what airlines promised in the push for deregulation; this was the “competition” that would “benefit us all.” But that airborne utopia was not what the airlines had in mind with deregulation. That was just the initial shakeout. That golden era ended for me one morning in autumn 1989 when I arrived at National Airport to find that not only my flight, but my whole airline – Braniff – had been cancelled. Not long after, Pan Am and Eastern had fallen from the sky. This is what the airlines had in mind with deregulation. Aero-Darwinism. Survival of the ruthless.
Back in the second-class cabin, things were getting grim. Remember the wilted lettuce and the cold macaroni salad we once ridiculed? They’re gone and I miss them. On Monday I flew from Boston to St. Louis on TWA with a half-ounce bag of “King’s Fat-Free Mini-Pretzels” for sustenance. Across America, travelers giddy with hunger and dehydration stumble onto the concourse for a layover only to be greeted by Ronald McDonald – Burger King if they’re lucky. Welcome to the new world, may I take your order?
Beneficial competition, by the standards of the major carriers, is beginning to bear fruit. Ticket prices are rising. I haven’t seen an empty seat for months. Flights are routinely overbooked. Ticket counters at airports are severely understaffed and the agents who work them are increasingly targets of anger and frustration from travelers who are sick and tired of airlines that take their money, then take them nowhere. If you manage to get on the flight for which you hold a ticket, you find so many seats crammed into the second-class cabin that it resembles steerage.
No food, overbooked flights, riding for six hours with my knees up around my ears – the invisible hand of the free market unfettered by regulations has produced an airline system in this country that resembles nothing so much as that old Soviet favorite, Aeroflot. I’m just glad I don’t know what’s going on in the cockpits and control towers.
Aero-Darwinism
Every few weeks I find myself in the second-class cabin of an airplane. This has been going on for years. I have been flying, on a regular basis, throughout most of the age of airline deregulation. It’s not as much fun as it used to be.
Don’t get me wrong – after thousands of air miles, I’m still entranced by the magic of flying. It’s wonderful to behold summer from 30,000 feet. This week, on a transcontinental flight, I passed over my birthplace – and for 90 seconds I was home again. My reverie came to an abrupt halt as the elbow of a fellow traveler careened off my skull. The gentlemen was not trying to start a fight, he was merely trying to get out into the aisle without the aid of a yoga instructor. Thank you, deregulation.
I was never a fan of deregulation, but I have to admit, the first few years were fun. The tickets were cheap, the planes were half-empty, the attendants had little to do besides pour ginger ale and offer second helpings on meals. This is what airlines promised in the push for deregulation; this was the “competition” that would “benefit us all.” But that airborne utopia was not what the airlines had in mind with deregulation. That was just the initial shakeout. That golden era ended for me one morning in autumn 1989 when I arrived at National Airport to find that not only my flight, but my whole airline – Braniff – had been cancelled. Not long after, Pan Am and Eastern had fallen from the sky. This is what the airlines had in mind with deregulation. Aero-Darwinism. Survival of the ruthless.
Back in the second-class cabin, things were getting grim. Remember the wilted lettuce and the cold macaroni salad we once ridiculed? They’re gone and I miss them. On Monday I flew from Boston to St. Louis on TWA with a half-ounce bag of “King’s Fat-Free Mini-Pretzels” for sustenance. Across America, travelers giddy with hunger and dehydration stumble onto the concourse for a layover only to be greeted by Ronald McDonald – Burger King if they’re lucky. Welcome to the new world, may I take your order?
Beneficial competition, by the standards of the major carriers, is beginning to bear fruit. Ticket prices are rising. I haven’t seen an empty seat for months. Flights are routinely overbooked. Ticket counters at airports are severely understaffed and the agents who work them are increasingly targets of anger and frustration from travelers who are sick and tired of airlines that take their money, then take them nowhere. If you manage to get on the flight for which you hold a ticket, you find so many seats crammed into the second-class cabin that it resembles steerage.
No food, overbooked flights, riding for six hours with my knees up around my ears – the invisible hand of the free market unfettered by regulations has produced an airline system in this country that resembles nothing so much as that old Soviet favorite, Aeroflot. I’m just glad I don’t know what’s going on in the cockpits and control towers.