Last time we had a Very Special Episode it wasn't really about anything all that great and I will be the first person to admit it. Yet this Very Special Episode is going to be something grand. Something I have wanted to talk about for a while. As well it leads into a series of posts that I feel are very important to people this time of year. Today we will talk a little bit about air travel and the four things that make it the worst possible decision in the world. This is not from experience. I have had mostly pleasant occasions while flying and I hope to never have a bad one. This is retribution for all the shit I hear about. The four things that people should be demanding change or they will stop flying.
#1 Airports
I know what you are thinking, why airports? Well for one they are not built with your convenience in mind. Travel, especially air travel which is frequented by people on vacation or business, should be easy and should not require as many hoops or loop-d-loops as it requires in an airport. At SeaTac International Airport they have moved the temporary parking to the fifth floor of the parking garage. Now I am not an extremely lazy person and don't mind taking the stair up a couple of flights. Yet that means when I have to pick someone up with lots of bags we can't just walk off the sky bridge and go to the car. No we have to take an elevator up to the sky bridge and then walk across and go up another elevator just to get there. Not convenient.
Say you are flying somewhere and you arrive at the airport. You get off at the section marked American Airlines, you will be flying with them this afternoon, and you go inside. You stand in line and wait to check your bags, which you hope are just under the limit and that they don't want to search it for anything. After being handing over all your stuff you hand the lady your bag just to find out that their scale weighs everything to the 100th of a pound and your bag is 50.002lbs and you will therefore have to pay the extra $50 to get it on the plane. So you do that. They give you your ticket and you head to security (please see #4 for more on security, don't worry I'll wait).
You walk through the security section, more ruffled then you would like but still intact, and you look at the signs overhead to find your gate only to see that it is at the opposite end of the airport. This is when you ask yourself why the American Airlines booth is on the North end when their airplanes are on the South end. Not only do you have to walk through the entire airport to get there you will constantly be inundated by shops and restaurants as if you were in the mall instead of the airport. The only thing differentiating this and the mall in fact is that people have suitcases with them. Plus the little carts driven back and forth by airport personal that occasionally has passengers. Finally you make it to your gate and wish to sit down and relax before you have to stand in line to board the plane. This is impossible because they only put about 50 seats near your gate and all are already taken by other passengers. Now I understand that it is hard to make room for enough seats in your waiting area as you have passengers but you expect 150 of your 200 passengers to show up late and not want to sit down? I am just going to drop it now because airports don't make any sense to me.
#2 Airlines
Say you are a little overweight and you have booked yourself a seat on the next flight from Boston to San Diego to visit your ailing Grandmother on her death bed. You had to reschedule stuff at work, making your boss angry even though he understands, and tapping into your savings to pay the ridiculous price for the last minute ticket only to find out they won't let you on. They want more money from you as you are "to big" to only fit in one seat. This is absurd and should not be allowed. Movie theater seats are about the same size as airplane seats and about as comfortable and they have never, to my knowledge, made someone pay for two seats in the theater. You know why a theater doesn't do that, even though I would be more then willing to pay an extra $9 to see the movie, it's bad customer service to call your customers fat. Granted a movie theater has to live off of people who want to see movies and can't just assume that people will use their service. Yet what gives American Airlines the right? I understand that people need air travel as a convenient way to get from point a to point b but does it require being rude?
I get that it is hard to please everyone and you just can't do it. I also understand that sometimes the customer gets irrationally angry about something out of the flight attendant or airline employees power. I know that customer service is a hard job and can bring people to their wits end. Yet that does not excuse the rudeness you receive from airline employees. They also choose to harass and kick people off that we don't really care about being kicked off. Sure I don't want to sit next to a fat ass as much as the next person but doesn't mean he isn't a human being with feelings and maybe a great personality. Just because his pants are sagging doesn't mean he should be kicked off. Sure I think it ridiculous but I put up with it every single day everywhere I go. It cries and shits and runs up and down the aisle messing with me while I am trying to relax and you do nothing about it. Babies and toddlers that aren't kept under control are the people you should be kicking off of flights. Babies don't like pressure and will cry a lot when in an airplane and annoy not just the person next to them but the whole plane. Toddlers are allowed to run up and down the aisles and no one says anything but I want to get up and stretch my legs their is an announcement about it. Kick off parents with kids and toddlers. They should be driving for vacation until their kid can shut up and sit down.
#3 Airplanes
Forget the people for a second and just look at the inside of an airplane. I sadly have only had the "pleasure" of riding in small 737 and none of the larger more luxurious planes out there. planes are big and surprisingly enough they stay in the air due to some sort of sorcery on the pilots part. Yet why must they cram so many people into them. I have had knee problems since high school and long periods of time spent with my knees bent or extended without change causes them to hurt, a lot. If there was a minute amount more room between seats, I am talking about no more then 6 inches, I think I would be well enough to not care.
You may ask why I then don't just ride in first class. Well for one thing first class is not all that different then business or economy class and still requires you to sit scrunched up next to someone with not very much leg room. The only difference is that you pay more and get some more leg room and only have one seat partner instead of two. That is not worth the extra $300. I think that just because I have less money then someone else, or I am not willing to go bankrupt to fly somewhere, doesn't mean I should have to suffer. Plus the flight attendants treat the economy class passengers almost like second class citizens. This digresses from the general aspect of airplanes.
Airplanes are designed to be uncomfortable and the cost goes up as the flight gets closer and closer. Imagine that every day you didn't buy stuff for Christmas the prices just started going up by $20-$30 a day. I know that prices tend to go up a little bit around the last week before Christmas but never so much as with airline travel. The reason for this is because they need to fill the seats and people need the convenience of air travel so they will pay the crazy costs just to make their lives easier. Yet why should you. The plane will still fly, and probably fill up faster, if prices didn't go up the closer you get to the flight. I would fly more often if I knew it didn't matter when I bought the tickets because the price was not going to fluctuate that much. Airplanes are an expensive bit of machinery that gets over-priced ten times out of ten.
#4 FTSA (the F stands for Fucking)
I fucking hate TSA and I am not afraid to say it in the public domain. Pardon my sounding like Joe Pesci from Lethal Weapon for the next few paragraphs but it has to be said. TSA fucks you more then the airlines and the airport put together. TSA makes your life difficult and they do it in the worst way possible. They treat everyone who comes through that line as if they are ruining their day. They never make eye contact and they make you feel like a second class citizen. Plus, they overreact to the most ridiculous things and don't react to things they should be reacting to.
If airlines have bad customer service I think that TSA should win the award for worst security agency. Here is the thing, I have never had a bad experience with TSA. I am a white male and probably never will, doesn't mean I like it. I think I am just as suspicious as the next guy. I believe in equality for all and if it requires getting to the airport four hours early because I know I will be pat down then I am okay with it because I have made the conscience decision to subject myself to a "highly sensitive" form of travel.
Forgive my rudeness but 9/11 was not the fault of lax security. It wasn't and there is no way you can convince me. Those men would have found a way to do what they did with or without the TSA checking ID's and fondling their junk. Determined men rarely let things like security get in their way. The idea that anyone can be a terrorist is the worst propaganda scheme by the American government since the time of FDR. The majority of Americans, even the anarchists, would think twice about crashing airplanes into buildings with people in them. Yet I digress into a sensitive topic for another time.
TSA wants you to believe that they are there for your safety, but I know this is a lie. I have experienced their lax behavior first hand. One, the alarms that went off about every 20 minutes while I waited for my flight at John Wayne International Airport last February. No one said or did anything they just sat and let it keep happening. Two, the bags left next to the baggage claim, at the international baggage claim no less, at SeaTac airport this last June. I saw something and I said something. Guess what, nothing fucking happened. I no longer think that TSA has the right to tell me that I might be a terrorist if they refuse to do anything when a legitimate claim is brought forth.
How am I supposed to live a life of fear in this nanny state if no one is going to justify my fear and take care of me when it gets to scary. I want reform of TSA. I want their employees to be better trained and given more extensive background checks, regularly not just when they get hired. I want them to be told they must put a smile on their face as it is a hassle to have to take off your shoes and make sure you have no metal on your body while trying to juggle all of your stuff. I also want them to react to situations fats and with the authority we have given them. Only we can make this happen people, only us.
Monday.
PS Thanks for reading to 150 posts. See you tomorrow.
0 concerns:
Post a Comment