{"id":394,"date":"2009-10-29T12:10:13","date_gmt":"2009-10-29T10:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/?p=394"},"modified":"2015-04-27T21:45:29","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T19:45:29","slug":"lessons-from-flyover-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/lessons-from-flyover-country\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons from flyover country"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some Americans who live on the coasts, or travel between them, refer to the middle part of their continent as “flyover country”. The states where most of the farming and mining<\/span> take place aren’t, in their view, worth seeing from the ground.<\/p>\n

Last week we learned that Minneapolis, Minnesota, definitely belongs to flyover country. A Northwest Airlines plane to that city kept going, because the pilots forgot to land<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This sounds like something you’d find on News of the Weird<\/a>, but it was reported internationally. Why? Because as air travel becomes more and more common, it is becoming less and less pleasant.<\/b><\/p>\n

I’m sure the Minneapolis incident<\/span> won’t happen again (the pilots were suspended), but I’m just as sure something else will.<\/p>\n

Something like Jet Blue Airlines keeping a plane full of passengers on the tarmac<\/span> for eight hours<\/a> without letting them get out.<\/p>\n

Something like United Airlines’ baggage handlers<\/span> breaking<\/span> a musician’s guitar and refusing to pay for it until the YouTube community heard about it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Or something like I experienced at the Philadelphia airport a few years ago.<\/p>\n

United had scheduled two flights to leave from the same gate at the same time, and had put one employee there to handle both of them. He was not smart enough to make a sign<\/span> saying he’d do one flight first, then the other. So he spent half an hour unable to do anything as one person after another went up to him and asked what was going on. This, while announcements in the background said that a third United flight would be ready for boarding just as soon as a replacement engine<\/span> could be found.<\/p>\n

The golden age<\/h2>\n

Whatever happened to the glamour of air travel? Until the late 1970s, airlines actually advertised the quality of the flying experience \u2014 in economy class<\/i>.<\/b> Pan-American and Trans-World Airlines (what names!) offered to show us the world. Even United credibly<\/span> invited us to “Fly the friendly skies”.<\/p>\n

Run by overly regulated monopolies, air travel was expensive, so Congress opened up the American market to competition in 1978. Suddenly, we could afford to fly anywhere \u2014 even to Europe. But the price wars soon became a race to the bottom. Pan Am and TWA (and many others) went bankrupt<\/span>.<\/p>\n

For cost and environmental reasons, planes now carry the optimal amount of fuel<\/span> and livestock<\/span> (um, passengers) for a particular journey. If two flights are half-full, one may be canceled. If the weather at the destination<\/span> isn’t good, the plane may wait on the tarmac for hours before taking off<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Flyers’ rights<\/h2>\n

The horror stories are the exception rather than the rule, but they shouldn’t happen at all.<\/b> Thus says a group called Flyers’ Rights<\/a>, which wants Congress to create an “air passengers’ bill of rights<\/span>“. Airlines would be required to have enough food, water and working restrooms<\/span> on their planes to cover<\/span> any delays<\/span>; and if a plane sits on a runway for more than three hours, the passengers would be allowed to get off<\/span>.<\/p>\n

It’s a small step, in light of<\/span> the many indignities<\/span> described on the group’s website, but Congressional committees have indeed been considering it<\/a> since January.<\/p>\n

I’d like them to consider an observation of mine. Enough people (and medical experts) complained about the lack of legroom<\/span> that the airlines finally listened. But now they’ve hit back<\/span> and made the seats narrower. A major German airline (whose name begins with L) flew me across the Atlantic last month for eight hours in a brand-new seat that was only 42 centimeters wide. Somebody in a (presumably<\/span> wider) office chair had made the decision<\/i> that my suffering was acceptable in order for that airline to stay in business. Well, it’s not.<\/p>\n

If money is a problem, charge<\/span> more. I can’t afford to fly business class, but I’m sure a market exists for a “premium economy” airline that offers a little more comfort and dignity<\/span> \u2014 a small reminder of the golden age of air travel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some Americans who live on the coasts, or travel between them, refer to the middle part of their continent as “flyover country”. The states where most of the farming and mining take place aren’t, in their view, worth seeing from the ground. Last week we learned that Minneapolis, Minnesota, definitely belongs to flyover country. A Northwest Airlines plane to that … >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[18,72,19,164,40],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1672,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394\/revisions\/1672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}