Janet Fullwood: Air travel’s next outrage: -- hold onto your seats

Janet Fullwood: Air travel’s next outrage: -- hold onto your seats
By Janet Fullwood, Bee Travel Editor - jfullwood at sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, June 8, 2008
Story appeared in TRAVEL section, Page M

http://www.sacbee.com/fullwood/story/992736.html

So it's come to this: Free rides for baggage no longer are available
on American Airlines, while pretzels and peanuts have gone out the
window on US Air.

News last week of the latter development – US Air says it is dropping
snacks in economy class to save money – got me thinking about what a
passengers has to do to stay sane in the sky these days.

Surely by now we've all learned to bring our own food, blankets,
pillows and emergency supplies for hunkering down like refugees during
those all-too-frequent flight delays. It's a feeling we'll all come to
know even more intimately as rising fuel costs prompt the airlines to
nickel-and-dime us to death.

Along with their much- publicized charges for checking a second bag
(first bag, in the case of American), airlines quietly have hiked fees
for transporting non-luggage items like golf clubs, bicycles, skis and
pets. They charge extra now for making reservations with a live person
via telephone, too.

How far can it go? Some air-travel gurus predict it won't be long
before passengers are forced to pay a premium for window and aisle
seats. Meanwhile, the dreaded Saturday-night-stay rule, which over the
past couple of years had faded away, threatens to make a comeback.

At any rate, we can forget being comfortable in the air these days;
not going to happen. No wonder 41 million Americans skipped traveling
on commercial planes over the past year. According to the Travel
Industry Association, a trade group, those missed trips cost the
economy more than $26 billion in lost revenue for food, hotels and
other on-the-road expenses.

But why grouse? Planes are still flying; we're not exactly reverting
to the horse-and-buggy days. The way I figure it, the key to modern
air travel is maintaining a "go with the flow" mentality – a prospect
made doubly difficult for Sacramentans this summer by virtue of the
Interstate 5 construction project.

I'll be making a couple of trips to the aeropuerto myself in coming
weeks. I hope the reward at the other end of the flights will
counterbalance the hassle of getting there.

On Jun 9, 6:25*am, Shawn Hirn wrote:
In article
,

*Ablang wrote:
[snip]
I'll be making a couple of trips to the aeropuerto myself in coming
weeks. I hope the reward at the other end of the flights will
counterbalance the hassle of getting there.

I couldn't agree more. I think its all a matter of expectations. If I
get from point A to point B by air reasonably on time and safely, I am a
happy passenger. I am a fairly frequent USairways passenger. Their
little postage stamp packets of pretzels are a joke anyway, and most
people can live fine for a few hours without eating. Those who can't,
such as diabetics who need to eat on a regular schedule can buy the
snack boxes or bring food on board with them. As long as the flight
arrives where I expect it to and within an hour or two of its scheduled
arrival date, I figure I got my money's worth.

What you are describing is the concept of "minimialism". What's
the least that one needs, or can expect, that is useful or acceptable.
In the race to the bottom that the airlines are engaged (I call it the
Southwest effect) we are being treated cheaply in every way they
can find. It is particularly being accelerated by the cost of the
fuel.
Fuel was "artificially" low for many years and resulted in low
air fares. The price is going through a "correction" right now and
passengers haven't had time to adjust to the new prices. They
will however, and the flyers will return to the sky. But once
the bar has been lowered, it will never go back up.

In some sense the sad part is that the airlines never charged for
many of these things to start with. If they had, the markets would
have adjusted to their true value. They should have always been
charging for luggage, and probably by the pound. Seats should have
always had premium pricing. Meals, snacks, drinks, etc should
always have had an intrinsic cost, as well as inflight entertainment.
If they had, it could have influenced everything from aircraft
interior
design to hotel amenities.