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Yep, re-regulation will raise prices
and keep the great unwashed off the planes. Then they can be used by those who
really deserve them – government and corporate all expense paid travelers.
Confronted by mostly well-dressed and obviously important people, the
stewardesses – beg pardon – flight attendants will be on their best
behavior. Oh, for the good old days. Harry ******************************* of 818 352-4141 ******************************* From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Cordell, Arthur: ECOM Unfriendly workplace in the sky. Deregulation has led
to a strange sort of competition with everyone feeling stressed. Time for re-regulation????? ========================== Business/Financial Desk; SECTC Looking
for Friendly Skies? Stay on the Ground
By Chris Elliott SKIP BOWMAN didn't see it coming. Otherwise he
would have raised his hands to ward off the impact, or at least ducked. Mr.
Bowman, a composer and musician from She
instructed him to swipe it from another seat. That didn't seem right to him.
''Then she grabbed a pillow herself,'' he recalled. ''And she threw it at me.''
Things
are getting a little tense on commercial flights these days. And no wonder. As
the busiest summer in the history of commercial aviation winds down, many crew
members have reached a breaking point. Overworked, underappreciated, worried
about job security as one airline after another struggles to avoid bankruptcy,
they are showing an emotional side that is taking passengers like Mr. Bowman
aback. ''Airlines are constantly making work more stressful for the flight
attendant with increased duty time, inadequate rest periods, and understaffed
flights,'' said Corey Caldwell, a spokeswoman for the 46,000-member Association
of Flight Attendants. While
no one keeps track of the number of thrown pillows or rude comments from flight
attendants, plenty of anecdotal evidence suggests that their mood is darker
than it has ever been. Several months ago, I was flying from ''I wouldn't know,'' she sniffed. ''I don't do babies.'' Such an exchange would have been unthinkable before airline
deregulation. Now, passengers like me who are scolded by an airline employee
almost feel lucky that they aren't also escorted from the plane and thrown into
a security force holding cell. ''When
flight attendants have nothing to be happy about, they stop caring,'' said
James Wysong, a flight attendant and author of the book ''Air Travel Tales
>From the Flight Crew: The Plane Truth at 35,000 Feet,'' writing under the
wryly chosen pseudonym A. Frank Steward. He cites recent cuts in pay and
benefits as the main reasons his colleagues have turned hostile. ''An airline
employee's job dissatisfaction is passed on to the consumer,'' Mr. Wysong said.
''You can hardly kick someone in the posterior and expect them to pass on a
smile.'' Another
flight attendant, Sharon Wingler, described this summer as ''the perfect
storm'' for her profession. ''We've all taken pay cuts and many of our
companies are struggling to survive,'' Ms. Wingler said. ''We fear losing our
pensions -- if we haven't already lost them. We're working more flights for
less money, the flights are full, and summer is the season of amateur travelers
-- the infrequent fliers who are appropriately dressed for washing their car.''
Hey,
wait a minute. That's you and me she's talking about. And we're not exactly in
a happy mood, either. Sure, airline employees have to put up with us, but we
have to endure long lines, even longer delays, crowded airports, even more
crowded cabins, perfunctory service, and poor or nonexistent food. Some
of us might even be tempted to heave the pillow right back. ''Many
airline passengers are angry these days,'' said Elliott Hester, a flight
attendant who wrote the book ''Plane Insanity: A Flight Attendant's Tales of
Sex, Rage and Queasiness at 30,000 Feet.'' ''They wait in long lines. They
rarely get food on the plane, and when they do, it's served at a cost. I can't
tell you how many times I've been yelled at by a passenger who simply expected
some food on a long flight.'' How
to defuse this mile-high standoff? Mr. Bowman avoided a pillow fight by not
responding to the projectile cushion. He vowed to ''develop a thicker skin'' as
a traveler and said he would think twice before asking an attendant for help
again. Humor
can take the edge off a tense situation, too. Allowing flight attendants to
practice their stand-up comedy routines does wonders for airlines like
Southwest and Song. And having a flight attendant sing an in-flight safety
announcement makes her seem more like an in-flight M.C. than an enforcer. But
laughter will get you only so far. The Federal Aviation Administration recently
conducted a study on flight attendant fatigue and promised to release it in
June, according to the Association of Flight Attendants. So far, it has not.
Ms. Caldwell, the union spokeswoman, says her constituents are being pushed
beyond their limits. No
kidding. But don't expect relief anytime soon. As long as the airline industry
keeps bleeding red ink, its dwindling work force is going to continue to sport
that harried look. And as long planes are filled to the bursting point,
passengers are going to get grumpier and grumpier. Can
someone broker a truce? |
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