Bruce Cameron - Nov. 12, 2009

Thank You for Flying

Today, you can fly on one of two types of airlines, depending on whether you’d rather go Chapter 7 or 11.

Before deregulation, air carriers didn’t go broke very often, and there were commercial routes to every airport in the world, including a direct flight from New York to a cow field outside of Duluth. Tickets were expensive, though, so the only people who were up in planes were the type of people who tended to look down upon others anyway.

That all changed in 1978, when Congress decided it was time to let air travel be enjoyed by a different class of people: crying babies. Suddenly, airlines found themselves competing in price and service, which they classified as “no fair.” Carriers like Braniff (Slogan: “We Figure It’s Good Enough If We Get You There By Wednesday”) went out of business. The remaining airlines adopted a “Spoke and Wheel” system, which meant that if you were flying from Los Angeles to San Diego, you had to change planes in Reykjavik.

It’s been more than 30 years since then, which is why, when it comes to learning to compete effectively, the airlines say they need more time. And they may be right: When one airline comes up with a pretty bad idea, like charging people to check luggage, the rest of them quickly follow suit — not exactly what “competition” is supposed to be all about.

These added fees really irritate customers, which seems to be the goal. (At least one airline charges people a fee for paying the luggage fee at the airport — a fee to pay a fee!)

The airline I usually fly is the Chapter-11 type — I won’t identify it, but its name is an antonym for “divided.” It has a large number of airplanes built by Airbus — engineered, in other words, by the same mechanical geniuses who designed the Peugeot. (Peugeot’s Official Slogan: “Why Drive When You Can Push?”)

It doesn’t bother me when the Airbus safety video doesn’t work because I figure everything else on the plane must be operating perfectly. Nor does it bother me when we have what is officially classified as an “on-time departure” because the plane has pushed back from the terminal and is now sitting out on the runway, waiting to see what happens to the passengers’ bladders.

What does bother me is that since the institution of the luggage fee, travelers stuff everything they can in the overhead bins, like car transmissions and longhorn cattle.

One airline sent me a “companion ticket,” wherein I can fly and bring along a friend free, though I have to supply my own friend. It turns out that to use the companion ticket, I need to pay a fare for my own ticket that is exactly twice as much as it would be otherwise.

Am I really as stupid as the airlines seem to think I am?

Many of the so-called premier airlines have instigated special fees for travel booked during the busiest times of the year. Now, I always thought that airline pricing was decided by a drunk guy with a dartboard. I guess, though, that if I’d considered it, I would have concluded that ticket prices were normally higher during the holidays, when airports are filled with large numbers of travelers unable to think of good excuses why they couldn’t visit their in-laws. But airlines add this extra cost as a “special fee” so that people don’t run out of reasons to hate them.

Oddly, though, some of the non-premier airlines don’t have these additional costs. They allow people to bring luggage without charging either a fee or a fee to pay the fee, and even seem sort of jolly about the whole business of flying, as if the point of it is not to make their customers miserable. And their tickets are cheaper. Again, am I really so stupid that I would pick my Chapter 11 airline when the non-premier one is better, less expensive and more fun?

In fairness, the non-premier airlines have no first-class cabin, so you miss out on the experience of boarding the aircraft and seeing rich people drink scotch. It’s something to consider when you choose among the country’s best bankrupt airlines.

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