Hi Readers!
I hope this post finds you and brings you some joy. I am really glad to have the opportunity to share it with you.
I'm on a plane that I fully expect will be taking off shortly, at which time I will have to put this smartphone into airplane mode (probably). I'm flying out to Colorado with my parents to spend a long pre-Christmas weekend with my sister Kate's family. I won't be there for Christmas Eve nor Day, but my folks will. I am coming home on Christmas Eve Eve (12/23), so that I can spend the holiday days with the most beautiful woman in the world (my wife Deborah). My folks will fly home on the Friday after Christmas (the day after Boxing Day). Confused? That's OK.
Whenever I have to enter the world of air travel and engage with the airlines, I reflect a bit on all the process improvements the industry and its associated regulators and vendors have missed opportunities on. And then I post about it as a form of catharsis, so that I can let go of it until the next time I have to travel by air (usually by necessity vs choice). But before I describe all the things that comprise these process improvements, I want to reflect on the positives (gratitude).
There are not many positives. However, one that presented itself unexpectedly today is that both my parents appear to be Known Travelers from the standpoint of TSA PreCheck, despite never having signed up for it or interviewing for it. We'll call that a lucky mistake on the part of TSA. We did not find this out until we started to go through the sucky regular TSA Security portal and the agent there said we could all go through TSA PreCheck instead, which we totally f**king did! The only other quasi-related positive was that I was easily able to secure an airport wheelchair for my mom and push it to the gate without the help of airport staff (although a kindly staff member did offer to help, possible angling for a small monetary reward, known as a tip). And that about summarizes all the positives.
While the airlines do not own anything outside the scope of their responsibilities, and I get that, the drive to the airport marginally sucked, due to the arrival of the front edge of an Alberta Clipper snow storm that will be making its way across Wisconsin today and tonight (we'll be gone for most of the brunt of it though). That being said, we got a very early start today and had plenty of time to make it to the airport, despite driving cautiously. Parking at the airport sucked a bit more than the drive there did, but I still had ample time to find a parking spot after dropping my folks off at the Frontier Airlines departure door (so they would not have to walk as far). In fact, when I regrouped with them after parking (Note to Self: Row 4D/Door 5 in the parking deck, for future reference), there were still about 10 minutes on the clock before the Frontier Airlines check in desk even opened up, giving me time to pee before checking in.
The first grievance I'll share is the check in process for the airlines. It's slow and cumbersome. Due to my mom's wheelchair-requiring handicap, I used the Agent Assist corridor at the check in desk, despite not paying extra for the privilege of interacting with a real human vs an automated kiosk (per ADA, the airlines cannot legally charge extra for Agent Assistance for people with handicaps, even though they often do via underhanded means). This got me somewhat expedited attention from the apathetic airline staff (I guess that might qualify as a positive, although largely orchestrated by my own wherewithall). My solution to the airline check in process is pretty simple: hire and use MORE REAL PEOPLE. Everyone hates the automated kiosks. They are fraught with technical difficulties that often require the intervention of a real PAID person anyway. Just cut out the middle machine.
As alluded to earlier, transit through the TSA portal and to the departure gate was fairly smooth. After depositing my folks at the gate, I filled my water bottle at a water bottle filling station and bought a couple coffees (for my dad and I) and a bottled water (for my mom). We drank and were merry. Speaking of which, I noticed a woman with a beer sitting near us at the gate. It's always Beer O'clock somewhere, right? I guess it was Madison WI this morning.
Boarding planes comprises another of my grievances. If the airlines (meaning their management) were smart, you would board people onto a plane from rear to front and from window to aisle. Think about the way people EXIT weddings in churches (or exit planes for that matter). It's from aisle to window and front (or closest to exit) to back. But the way airlines actually board planes is...seemingly WHATEVER. It's not logical or sensible or orderly. It seems to have some loose association around seniority and socioeconomic status, but to date no one has ever been able to discern a pattern to the boarding of planes AND it's inefficient. So my solution is the aforementioned intelligent plan vs whatever the f**k it is they do now.
We boarded the plane on time, but take off was delayed by the mandatory de-icing of the plane and a douche weasel passenger who kept refusing to stay seated, preventing the pilot from taxi-ing the plane, per some elusive FAA guideline or another. SIT THE F**K DOWN, people! But we all collectively got the aircraft up into the sky eventually, by way of will power, prayer, the Laws of Physics, and professional piloting, among possible other facilitating factors (my personal belief is Angels...but only for the first few minutes of the flight where the plane makes a horrendous noise and rapidly hurls itself into the air).
The flight was smooth and landed fine in Denver. My mom was wheelchaired and propelled through the Denver airport by airport staff, and my dad and I hustled to keep pace. We met my sister outside of the TSA exit and transferred my mom to the wheelchair my sister had acquired for the occasion. We navigated chaotically through more of the Denver airport to my sister's car and she drove us the 90 minutes to her house in Manitou Springs CO. She had thoughtfully grabbed some take out food before she came to the airport, which we ate in the car. But I digress...
This post is about airline companies' missed opportunities for process improvements. They need to return to free food and drink on the planes and eliminate the chronic nickling and diming of passengers for every little thing. Just set a price point and get rid of the inefficient chaos. Passengers are not without blame in all this. They have complacently accepted the growing mediocrity of the airlines without protest over the years. They should have engaged in more forceful resistance to the lameness of the airlines. But...flyers gotta fly.
Fin.
