By Jenni Hammitt
September 30, 2009
I travel somewhat regularly. While I have watched the changes (especially those in air travel) make the experience less user friendly. However, my last trip gave me a much clearer insight. I flew with a friend who had not been on a plane in over a decade. It is one thing to deal with new rules, extra charges and other changes each time you fly. It is another thing to almost all the rules change since your last flight.
Those of us who fly frequently are almost conditioned to tolerate the lack of meals included, paying for snacks and maybe one beverage service on a four hour flight. We understand that with the extra fees for checking luggage, more people are just sticking with carry ons. That means there are more bags in the over head bins. Some less polite fliers from the back of the plane will put their carry ons in the bins in the front of the plane, leaving no space for those actually sitting in the front of the plane.
Even if you opt for carry on only, even with the carry on restrictions, your bag still might get checked. Yes one carry on and one personal item can be “abused” or some people who really should keep their one bag under the seat in front of them will insist on taking up bin space. We have been there done that, and it is like we are desensitized to the whole ordeal.
Maybe we shouldn’t be. Maybe we should still feel the outrage like we did the first time we experienced this. My friend had a very eye opening experience. She was amazed and annoyed by the fact that she could take her razor in her carry on, but she wasn’t able to take her shampoo and conditioner unless she bought travel sized items. You either have to pay the baggage fee , or spend money to meet the security requirements. She was outraged when the flight attendant was very rude to us on our first flight. We didn’t try to board early.
We waited until they called our row, and in theory their should have been space around our seats for our bags. However, there was not. We had to go all the way to the back of the plane to find open space in the bins. Did we hold up progress while we did this? Yes. Did we have an option? No. Did that stop the flight attendant from yelling at us? No. Apparently we were the ones being rude in her mind. I was annoyed, but what else could I do but say sorry and get back to my seat? My friend was outraged. To her, if the airlines are going to institute fees that make more people do carry-ons only, the flight attendants should stop passengers from putting their bags in front when they are sitting in back. There should be a better system in place. I agree. There has to be a better way.
I also agree the flight attendant was rude, but I guess I just had become accustomed to the system being broken and hoped that the flight attendant was just having a bad day. We were holding up boarding, and I am sure that was frustrating. My friend only saw that if boarding had been more organized, we wouldn’t have been forced to go in search of bins. This was just the beginning of the observations.
It was very interesting to hear her take on the things that have changed. Some of her frustrations were actually set in her not being familiar with airline and security procedures. We were supposed to have another person with us. On our first flight her seat remained open, but on our two longer flights the seat was given to another passenger. She didn’t understand the whole people flying stand by and overbooking policy.
In Detroit, we had to walk from the far end of concourse A to the other side of the airport to get our connecting flight in concourse B. It was a haul, (and the Twin Peaks esque tunnel is a little creepy)but it is one of these reasons you never book anything with less than an hour layover. It just is how things work. Still, I can see how people who aren’t familiar with all the rules can get frustrated rather quickly.
Flying used to be more of a luxury, service was better, and your biggest concern was making it to your destination safely. Now there are more little things you have to take into consideration. The big thing I take away from this is should we be outraged? Are we just dealing with the changing times, or should we be more vocal about the decline of quality and sometimes infringement on our well being? Is this a case of just needing to put our big girl panties on and deal, or should we be doing more?
© 2009, Jenni Hammitt. All rights reserved.
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