What happened to the once prestigious world of airline travel? People used to dress up to take a flight and I grew up envious of those that got to fly. Ohh how times have changed. Now when you hear about travel it is more likely to be about new fees or bad passenger antics. What has happened?
The airlines, in an attempt to win more passengers, feel that they have to cut published fare prices. Although this has allowed more people the ability to fly, it has resulted in the airlines cutting services and quality. Many of these cost cutting changes directly impact the passengers. First they started to cut services, such as meals, then they moved to an extra fee model for everything from checking bags to picking a seat in advance. Lately they are moving seats even closer so that they can add another row or two.
What effect do you think this has on people?
Passengers are not looking forward to taking a flight but are considering it as a necessary evil in order to get to their destination.
Some passengers take the attitude that they have fight to keep their space with products like Knee Defender™. Others snap under the stress and lose any sense of acceptable public behaviour. There are a number of sites that highlight passengers behaving badly, such as Passenger Shaming and Betty in the Sky with a Suitcase! These passenger antics leave the flight attendants stressed which leaves few people to enjoy the airline experience.
Again, I think it’s great that airlines have been able to reduce fares enough to allow many more people to fly and for many people the price is a huge part of their decision on which flight to take. However, maybe the airlines have gone too far. Passengers are not enjoy air travel and look at all the airlines that have had to declare bankruptcy in the last few years! The current model isn’t working for anyone.
I have talked with some airlines about the decline in service and their recent responses have usually been along the lines of “we have different packages you can purchase that allow …” Yes, you can pay extra to go into the first class security screening line. You can pay to be one of the first groups to board the plane (and get overhead space, which is limited as everyone tries to avoid the checked bag fees). This may help out that one passenger but not all the passengers.
What I would like to see are different classes of airlines or flights. We have all heard about budget airlines but the major airlines have cut their basic services so much that their isn’t much of a difference. I would gladly pay an extra 10-15% if everyone on the flight was treated better. What do I mean by better? Prices that include one checked bag, a meal on flights over 4 hours, a snack on flights less than 4 hours, more legroom.
Airlines are already ranked by organization such as Skytrax, so let the 1-3 star airlines apply user fees for everything so people can pick and pay for what they want. Then the 4-5 star airlines can charge a little more but everybody onboard gets the same higher level of services. The increased fares should be enough to offset the increased costs to the airline and give them some profit.
Until the airlines decide that diverting flights as a result of unruly passengers, and hopefully before someone completely snaps and injures other passengers (or the plane), until that time, they better start equipping flight attendants with tasers.
What are your thoughts? Would you be willing to pay a little extra for an airline with a better class of service?
Anne Russell
I have had to start flying first class or taking the train sleeper car to make travelling tolerable. My mom cannot even fit in the economy seats anymore because it is too painful which means paying first class fees for both of us. Makes travelling much more expensive. I would be willing to pay more for larger and more comfortable seats in the economy section.