I fully support the idea of “pricing out” neighborhoods, vacations, activities, and modes of transportation, i.e., making them more expensive so that we civilized people aren’t thrown into the same mix with those incapable of adhering to basic decorum. This isn’t about race or ethnicity, class or religion. This is about the ability to behave like an adult.
And, this New Year's, no facet of American life more desperately needs pricing out than air travel.
We can laugh at Europeans all we want. The fact is none of them would think about leaving their front door, much less traveling internationally, in filthy sweat pants, a torn Under Armour shirt, and a pair of gym shoes that look like they were stolen in the parking lot off a vagabond’s corpse.
Like most of you, I’ve resigned myself to taking the Walk of Shame through first class to get to my dingy seat in the back with the rest of the fetid herd, to spend the next few miserable hours sandwiched between some drunk lout to my left and Gilbert Grape’s mom to my right. And as I “people watch” for the duration of the flight, I can’t help but wonder if humanity would better be served if this plane were to nosedive into a Nebraskan cornfield.
Stewardesses? God bless you. I don’t know how you do your job. You have the patience of martyred saints. You’re not serving human beings. You’re corralling feral beasts on an airborne pen. And these animals are lucky I’m not running the FAA, because there would be a few rule changes:
- Trying to bring four carry-on suitcases when all the signs clearly say one only? Nope. Pick which one you wanna take on board and which three you want tossed out the gangway onto the tarmac below.
- Your spoiled brat won’t stop screaming, kicking the seat, and running in the aisle? Nope. Your “little angel” is getting duct taped to the seat with a sock in his mouth until we land.
- You paid for one seat even though your errant girth takes up the entire row? Nope. You pay for every seat unto which your sweaty flesh rests. If you can’t fit in what you paid for, then you don’t fly.
- You’re still yapping on your cell phone after they’ve told you repeatedly to put it away? Nope. I’d have air marshals forcibly confiscate it and smash it in the aisle.
- Drinking on the plane? Nope. The first rule I’d implement is a total ban on alcohol on planes. Ever. And anyone who shows up drunk trying to board gets their ticket cancelled and gets escorted from the airport with a one-year ban on flying.
- Fighting on a plane? Nope. Airline workers and innocent passengers shouldn’t be expected to jump into the fray to break up two wannabe machomen with the emotional regulation of infants. Under my reforms, air marshals would use cattle prods to subdue the aggressors and hog tie them in the back. Every instigator would be charged with felonies and would be banned for life from flying.
Alas, since I’m not going to be appointed FAA director anytime soon, it falls onto the airlines themselves to reform their standards to what they once were. Ratchet is gonna ratchet. Most of us would grit our teeth and fork over the extra costs involved to ensure our next travel experience with you isn’t mistaken for a flight with WalMart Airlines.
The one valid criticism that the anti-capitalists can leverage is that the system does put profits over people. In most instances, this ends up benefitting the people regardless. Not so with airlines. We civilized folk are subjected to enduring these clown cars on wings because some financial gurus in the C suite of the airline industry crunched the numbers and found they could make more money by lowering the standards and letting whoever wants to on board.
These airline executives are as shameless as the caddish illiterates they let on their planes. They clearly have no scruples whatsoever about their public image. But they got to the position they did because, not in spite of, their priorities.
But a boy can dream, can’t he? And dream I do, that some day I can go on vacation and travel by air without body armor or a need to delouse upon disembarkation, secure in the fact that the closest 20-person brawl is 30,000 feet below me in a Vegas casino lobby, a Carnival ship, or a Waffle House.
If there is an airline executive out there with a conscience, hear my words. Make this your New Year's resolution. If not, at least give your stewardesses hefty raises. You know they deserve it.
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